Patience

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There was a man once who was due to go shopping with his wife, and they had arranged to meet in a certain place in a store. But the wife got delayed, and delayed, and delayed, and the husband was getting very frustrated.

After twenty minutes he felt that he couldn’t handle it anymore. So he went into one of these little instant photograph booths, and took a few photographs of himself, with the worst possible face that he could put on himself.

He got the photos, they came out, he wrote the name of his wife on it, and he gave the photos to the guard who was there at the entrance of the store, and said, “If a lady comes along with a blue coat and a brown handbag, will you give her this?”

Eventually, the wife came along, she received the photographs, and she put them in her handbag, and kept them always.

For the rest of her life, if ever she was asked if she was married, she would take out the photographs and say, “Yes, I’m married to this.”

This meditation is about patience.

“Rejoicing in hope,” says St. Paul to the Romans, “be patient in tribulation, constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12).

There are many times in Scripture where the virtue of patience is emphasized.

“You shall be hated by all men for my name's sake, but a hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:17-19).

Great things are attributed to patience.

Isaiah says, “Dumb as a lamb for its shearers, he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).

When Christ went to His Passion, He went in patient silence. We're told that Jesus kept silent. He could have poured forth and said all sorts of things.

Very often our silence is an indication of our holocaust.

“But in all things,” says St. Paul, “let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in prisons, in seditions, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God” (2 Cor. 6:4-7).

We're also told in St. Paul that “charity is kind, charity is patient” (1 Cor. 13:4). Often our love is manifested through this virtue.

In the letter to St. James, it says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith works patience. And patience has a perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

It's a very good virtue to try and grow in.

Every time that we receive the sacraments, we receive an influx of the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and patience is part of charity.

It's the virtue which makes us accept for the love of God, generously and peacefully, everything that is displeasing to our nature, without allowing ourselves to be depressed by the sadness which easily comes over us when we meet with disagreeable things.

It's a special aspect of the virtue of fortitude, which prevents us from deviating from the right road when we encounter obstacles.

We know that we can encounter obstacles in all sorts of ways: in our marriage, in our family, with our in-laws, with our friends, with our sport, with our spiritual life, with some virtue we're trying to practice, with some particular person that may be there in our life that God has permitted.

It's an illusion to believe in a life without difficulties.

Often these can be all the greater and more frequent as our undertakings are more generous. There may be great room for growth in this virtue of patience.

Great works, and magnanimous and heroic virtues, always grow amid difficulties. Often, the reason why God gives us little crosses can sometimes be so that we grow in this virtue.

In the presence of these difficulties, fortitude has a double function: to face the difficulties and to bear them.

Some difficulties are surmounted and overcome by an act of courage; and others, on the contrary, cannot be mastered. Our Lord wants us to bear with them.

This is the role of patience, an arduous task because it's easier to face obstacles directly than to support the inevitable oppositions and sufferings of life, which in time can tend to discourage and sadden us.

Only by fixing our glance on Christ, the divinely patient one, can we learn to practice patience.

If we are entertaining the great Christian ideal of trying to be holy, of trying to build a great family, to raise great children, great men and women, who know the meaning and the value of virtue, that's a long task. It takes time, in-season and out-of-season.

We may need an awful lot of patience for that family growth, the spiritual growth of our children.

A famous philosopher in Asia, Father Joseph de Torre, had a nice phrase where he said, “Patience is a great social force.”

Good wine takes time to develop, and often we have to give the good wine that chance, that time—that particular child, that particular teenager, this particular one that needs a bit more attention, maybe needs to have things repeated to them a few more times.

The paralytic at Bethsaida, in many ways, was the model of patience. He'd been there for thirty-eight years (John 5:1-15).

“‘Sir,’ replied the sick man, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed, and while I'm on the way, someone else gets down there before me.’”

He'd been trying for thirty-eight years, and each time his hope and enthusiasm was greater than his pain or his sadness or his discouragement. He's a picture of patience, trusting in God.

And one day, Christ passes by. “He says, ‘Get up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk.’ The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and started to walk around.”

It may be that God has planned great things in and through this virtue. Often, the challenges can come in the little things of every day.

A mother came to collect her Standard Two child from school. On the way home, they got stuck in a traffic jam. The mother was getting more and more irate: “This traffic, these cars, this person in front of us.”

The Standard Two eight-year-old kid, piped up and said, “Well, today, Mummy, we had a talk in school about patience. And the teacher told us that we are in Standard Two; we were not in Standard Eight. We can't expect to be like a Standard Eight student. You have to take each day one by one, and each hour one by one, and do things little by little.”

The mother had to listen to this lecture from her Standard Two child about this particular virtue, and all the things he had learned in school that day.

The mother was so impressed with the impromptu talk from her eight-year-old child that she said, “I felt like turning the car around, going back to the school, and paying more fees.” She was so happy with the virtues that her child had picked up.

Our Lord is very patient with us, always willing to listen to us, to give us whatever we need in any situation. His goodness is always in excess of our calculations.

But it requires a corresponding response on our part, and a desire to get out of the situation that we may be in.

A man told me once how he had a visitor from another country, and this man was not a Catholic.

They had to make three visits to offices downtown during a busy morning. And he knew they would have trouble getting a parking place.

He told this man from another country, who was not a Catholic, that he had a great devotion to his guardian angel. And his guardian angel always got him a parking space.

They went to the first office, a busy street, but there was a parking space right outside the office where they were going. He was very happy.

He told the guy, “You see, my guardian angel never fails.”

They did their business. They went on to the second office. And this time the parking space wasn't exactly outside the office; it was a bit up the street, but it was there.

And then they went to the third office. This time the cars were parked triple deep. There was no sign of a parking space anywhere.

The driver who told me this story said, “You know, I began to get a bit upset. I told my guardian angel, ‘Look, you've done a great job all morning. You got us these two parking spaces. I almost have this guy converted. Don't blow it now.’”

But then he remembered that that week, one of his battles was patience. He was trying to grow in that virtue and find the grace to practice the virtue in the ordinary things of each day.

When he remembered that, he said to his guardian angel, “OK, I remember. Have it your way. I will sit here patiently waiting until a parking space appears.”

Just then a car pulled out and there was his parking space.

Our Lord doesn't want us to have any pact with our defects or our errors. He wants us to make the effort to overcome them.

We can't “get used to” our shortcomings, shortness of temper, or impatience, or other weaknesses which separate us from God and others, on the excuse that that's part of our character, or that we've tried several times over to tackle those defects without any positive result.

Our heart has to move us to improve our interior dispositions through that conversion of the heart to God and to works of penance, thus preparing our souls to receive the graces that God wants to grant us.

There were many times in Our Lord's life when He practiced the virtue of patience.

He was very patient with the apostles. “Too dull of wit, too slow of heart. How long must I be with you?” (Luke 24:25). “Get behind me, Satan” (Matt. 16:23). “Martha, Martha” (Luke 10:14).

All sorts of occasions when we see the gentle patience of Our Lord.

He was patient with the Pharisees. He could have blown them off the face of the earth. He confronted them, He tackled them, but always with peace and serenity.

He was patient with the people of His village who didn't want to receive Him. He went on from there. He didn't call down fire and thunder to consume them.

He was immensely patient with His murderers. Charity for all. “Dumb as a lamb before its shearers, he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).

The story of the father in the parable of the prodigal son highlights the virtue of patience (Luke 15:11-32).

Every day the father looked out onto the horizon hoping that his son might come back. And one day while he was yet a long way off, his father saw him.

The father never gave up. He always nourished that hope, that desire, that his son would return.

And when he did, he didn't fly into a rage or say, ‘Get my gun or my whip, I'm going to finish this guy off. He wasted so much money.’

He killed a fatted calf, got a ring for his finger, sandals for his feet, restored him to his original dignity.

This is what happens in the sacrament of Confession when we come back to Our patient Father God, who helps us to begin again.

We're encouraged to allow the seeds that we sow the time that they need to mature. The farmer waits for the early and late rains.

It's in perseverance that the soul gives good fruit.

Possibly we see that we have to be more patient with close and distant relatives, with idiosyncrasies of people we live with or work with, with the ailments or pains that we may have, some little sufferings, physical sufferings that God may have permitted in our life which possibly will go away, but which possibly also, won't go away.

Patience in the education of our children. An American educational consultant says we have to repeat things 500 times. Children only get them on the 500th.

The patience of the student who has to learn what they don't know. Patience with our ignorance.

In professional, social, and family life, there are numerous occasions for us to patiently bear with circumstances. The Wi-Fi breaks down, the TV doesn't work when the big Champions League match is on, and some visitor comes at the wrong moment.

Maybe we have to bear it all in silence.

Patience is being subjected day after day to the same work, the same fastidious things, the struggle in the little points. Patience with ourselves can be a great sign of faith and of hope, not to get upset or discouraged with our own defects, if we feel that our spiritual progress is slow.

Feelings here can be very misleading. We can feel very well at some moment, and we could have a big cancer inside us. We can feel very sick, and we may be as healthy as a horse. Feelings can be very misleading.

There's a whole pile of situations where we can practice this virtue a little more. Patience has been called genius.

It doesn't mean that we should give up on our miseries or weaknesses. We have to do something about them, yes, but not get discouraged or upset by those apparent failures.

Be slow to speak your mind, to take offense, to feel angry, to feel offended (cf. James 1:19). Let things pass.

Listening is affection. The most beautiful and best things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

The best things about a good man's life are the nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love that he performs in his life. Many of those may be acts of silent patience.

The last beatitude is patience with the defects of others. That means the triumph of charity over the natural tendency to get irritated in the face of an obstacle to do what we think is right. But the command to love prevails over everything.

The patience of cows is not patience. Patience is a virtue. We need intellect and will. It controls the natural impulses because it knows it's not good for others. A lack of patience is not good for others.

Often it's not a question of right or wrong, but of not loving enough. St. Paul tells us that our patience has to be a joyful patience (Col. 1:11).

It's not that we send a message to everybody around us that “everybody takes heed; I am now practicing the virtue of patience.” It's something that should pass unnoticed in different ways.

Our Lord asks us to persevere in this struggle. “By your patience, you will inherit your soul” (Heb. 10:36). And to begin again as often as necessary, realizing that it's in the struggle that loves grows.

St. John Chrysostom says, “Lord doesn't ask the paralytic man to learn—this would be superfluous—but to make his patience known to all, for that invalid for thirty-eight years had hoped, without ceasing, to be freed from his illness” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. John).

Very few of us could say that we have struggled for thirty-eight years with our defects. But someday we might be able to say so.

Our love for Christ is shown in our decisiveness and in the effort we make to root out, as soon as possible, our dominant defect, or to obtain a virtue that seems for us difficult to practice.

There are always new horizons that Our Lord is making known to us.

Our love is shown in the patience with which we exercise our ascetical struggle. It may be that Our Lord will ask us to struggle over a long period, perhaps thirty-eight years, to grow in a particular virtue or to overcome a particular negative aspect of our life.

A certain spiritual writer, Joseph Tissot, has talked about the importance of being patient with one's defects, to develop “the art of profiting from one's faults.”

We shouldn't be surprised or disconcerted when, having used all the means reasonably within our reach, we have not managed to reach the goal that we had set ourselves. It may be a moment to grow in humility, in experience, in maturity of judgment.

The award for the constancy of the paralytic was, above all, the meeting with Jesus.

The letter of St. James says, “Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the rains” (James 5:7).

One must know, to hope, to struggle with persevering patience, realizing that this is what pleases God, not so much the attainment of a particular goal that we may have set.

St. Francis de Sales used to say: “One has to suffer, in patience, the setbacks to our perfection, doing whatever we can to make progress in good spirit. We hope with patience, and instead of getting frustrated at having done so little in the past, we try diligently to do more in the future.”

Also, virtue is not normally attained through sporadic bursts of effort. Rather it’s in the continuity of the effort, the constancy of going on trying each day, each week, helped by grace.

In Friends of God we’re told, “To win the battles of the soul, the best strategy often is to bide one's time and apply the suitable remedy with patience and perseverance. Make more acts of hope.

“Let me remind you that in your interior life, you will suffer defeats and you will have ups and downs—may God make them imperceptible—because no one is free from these misfortunes. But our all-powerful and merciful Lord has granted us the precise means with which to conquer… All we have to do is use them, resolving to begin again and again at every moment, whenever necessary (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 219).

St. Thomas Aquinas has said that “the heart of constancy lies in love. Only with love can one be patient” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II, II, Question 136) and struggle, without accepting failures and defeats as inevitable, as baffling difficulties that don't have a solution.

St. Teresa of Ávila said we cannot become like those Christians who, after many skirmishes and battles, find “their strength has come to an end; their courage has failed them…when… they are only a couple of steps from the fountain of living water” (Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection, Chapter 19).

To be patient with oneself while uprooting unwholesome tendencies and defects in character implies both an unyielding approach and an acceptance of the fact that one will often have to present oneself before God, like “the servant who had no resources with which to pay” (Matt. 18:23-26)—with humility, seeking grace anew.

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared,” says St. Matthew, “to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed 10,000 talents. He had no means of paying. His master gave orders that he should be sold together with his wife and children and all his possessions to meet the debt. At this, the servant threw himself at the master's feet with the words, ‘Be patient with me. And I will pay the whole sum.’”

On our way towards Our Lord, many will be the defeats that we suffer. Many of these will be of no consequence, but some will. But the atonement and contrition for these can bring us even closer to God.

This sorrow and reparation for our sins and shortcomings are not useless moods of gloom, for they are sorrow and tears born of love.

We have to try also and be patient with others, taking their defects into account, being patient and constant in our apostolate.

We have to try and exercise this virtue, particularly with those that we deal with most frequently. Fortitude and understanding will enable us to remain calm, correcting when necessary and at the right time.

Unlike that man who couldn't wait anymore for his wife, maybe we'll have the strength to bear those situations, waiting a little longer before we react in all sorts of ways.

St. John Chrysostom says, “Do you not see how often painters will erase their sketches and at other times retouch them when they're trying to portray a beautiful face? Don't let the painter be one up on you. For if they make so much of an effort for a bodily image, how much greater reason do we have when we try to form the image of a soul, leaving no stone unturned in trying to perfect it” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew).

In our dealings with others, trying to help them grow spiritually in our apostolate, we also have to realize that they need time.

God is patient. At every moment He gives His grace. He pardons offenses and encourages progress. He has had, and continues to have, limitless patience with each one of us.

We also ought to have it with those whom we wish to bring closer to Him, although it might seem on occasions that they're not listening, or that the things of God don't interest them, or things are going in one ear and out the other.

We can't abandon them for just this reason. It may be necessary on these occasions to intensify our prayer and mortification, and our charity too, and our sincere friendship.

None of our friends should ever be able to speak to Our Lord in the words of the paralytic, as we’re told in the Furrow, “‘I do not have anyone to help me.’ This, unfortunately, could be said by many who are spiritually sick and paralytic, who could be useful—and should be useful. Lord, may I never remain indifferent to souls” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 212).

We should try and be patient in adversity. When difficult moments come, the patient is “no greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 13:16, 15:20).

Our Lord is always there for us, leading us forward in this virtue, helping us to bear the contradictions of life, to grow in the constancy that's necessary in order “to bring the fruit that will last” (John 15:16).

The man in the Gospel, around the fig tree, asks for a bit more time (Luke 13:8-9) and so God is always giving us more time.

Everything that is done without God will perish. Let us be sure to make some firm resolutions today.

We're told in Friends of God, “God may have given us just one more year in which to serve him. Don't think of five, or even two. Just concentrate on this one year” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 47).

“Let it alone, sir, this year also.” How many times has this been repeated?

Lord, give us another chance to realize that “you love me so much, my God, and yet…I haven't lost my mind!” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 425).

All through the Gospel, we see how Our Lady responded to the plans of God in her life, to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to go to Egypt, to go back to Nazareth, and in Egypt “to remain there until I tell you” (Matt. 2:13).

Our Lady practiced this virtue, like all the virtues, in a heroic way. She is the model of all the virtues, and so we can ask her in a special way to help us to live this aspect of charity.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF