This week St. Paul has invited us to “put on Christ” to live in the freedom of Christ and to not return to the yoke of slavery. In today’s reading Paul offers a list of traits that manifest in our life and heart the more that we grow in life with Christ. Where you can see an increase of peace, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control you can be sure that the presence of God is there in your heart and life. These fruits of the Spirit ripen the more that we belong to Christ and “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires.” The body is good but sometimes our desires are out of order. We crucify the flesh when we bring these desires in “cruciformity” with Christ’s life – when we put on Christ. How can we check our growth in bringing our lives in “cruciformity” with Christ? We can look at our life – regardless of if it is a season of need or of plenty, a season of rejoicing or a season of suffering – and if we see the fruits of the spirit, we know we are growing closer to Christ. If, however, we find an absence of these fruits, it might be a sign that Christ is calling us to make a change in our spiritual lives or in other areas of our life. Let us pray today over Paul’s list of the fruits of the spirit and ask the Lord to show us where these fruits are operative in our life and also where we still need to grow in them.