PATIENCE
from the book “Divine Intimacy” by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen
VIRTUE OF THE YEAR, PATIENCE. Each week Mrs. Carroll will share an excerpt from the chapter on patience from the profound spiritual book, “Divine Intimacy,” by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. (Order of Discalced Carmelites). This first excerpt is the definition of patience. Future episodes will explain how we can practice this virtue and its role in our spiritual lives.
First Excerpt
“Patience is the virtue which makes us accept for 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.”
How many disagreeable things will we meet with this week? Can we accept them cheerfully, without letting them disturb our peace?
Second Excerpt
Patience is a special aspect of the virtue of fortitude which prevents our deviating from the right road when we encounter obstacles. It is an illusion to believe in a life without difficulties.
These are usually all the greater and the more frequent as our undertakings are more generous. Great works, magnanimous and heroic virtues, always grow in the midst of difficulties.
Difficulties, even great crosses are a blessing. See Keith Hetrick’s book, described below.
HE LIVES: FINDING PEACE IN SUFFERING by Keith Hetrick (’08). Seton alumnus Keith Hetrick has written a beautiful, profound, and inspiring book describing his twenty-year plus battle against cancer and other serious health issues. But the book is far more than a medical story. Keith has written the far more important spiritual story of how he came to understand the true meaning and purpose of suffering. If you or someone you love is wrestling with the question of how we can possibly find God in anguish and pain, this book is for you. In fact, it is for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of how God’s love and providence are present in any kind of trial and for anyone who wants to cultivate a deeper gratitude for all God’s gifts. You can learn more of Keith’s story and order his book at www.keithhetrick.co.
Third Excerpt
In the presence of these [obstacles and difficulties], fortitude has a double function: to face them and to bear them. Many difficulties are surmounted and overcome by an act of courage; others, on the contrary, cannot be mastered. We must learn to bear with them, and this is the role of patience—an arduous task, because it is easier to face obstacles directly, than to support the inevitable oppositions and sufferings of life, which, in time, tend to discourage and sadden us.
Sometimes sufferings must be borne for a long time. Patience can help us turn to Jesus Christ, who will bear them with us.
Fourth Excerpt
Only by fixing our glance on Jesus, the divinely patient One, can we learn to practice patience. When we see Him who came into the world to save us, living from the first moment of His earthly existence in want, privation, and poverty, and later in the midst of misunderstanding and persecution; when we see Him become the object of hatred of His own fellow citizens, calumniated, doomed to death, betrayed by a friend, and tried and condemned as a malefactor, our souls are stirred; we realize that we cannot be His disciples unless we follow the same road. If Jesus, the Innocent One par excellence, bore so much for love of us, can we, sinners who are deserving to suffer, not endure something for love of Him? Whatever the total of suffering in our lives, it will always be very small, and even nothing, compared with the infinite sufferings of Jesus; for in His Passion Christ not only endured the suffering of one life or of several lives, but that of all mankind.
Fifth Excerpt
Whoever wishes to become patient, must, first of all, look at the motives for suffering in the profound light of faith. This superior illumination will make the soul understand that everything that happens in life is always permitted by God, and is solely for its good. It is true that very often suffering and hardships come to us through secondary causes, but that makes little difference when we realize that everything comes through our loving Father in Heaven, who uses these painful circumstances to help us to become more virtuous. If we wish to live only for God, we must never stop to consider the human causes of our sufferings; we must accept all from His hands, simply repeating “Dominus est!” It is the Lord!
Sixth Excerpt
If we wish to live only for God, we must never stop to consider the human causes of our sufferings; we must accept all from His hands, simply repeating “Dominus est!” It is the Lord! This acceptance does not prevent us from feeling, even deeply feeling, the weight of suffering—Jesus, also, felt it in His agony in the Garden of Olives—but it does help us to be undisturbed, to preserve peace and serenity, to maintain self-control and, consequently, to be patient.
Seventh Excerpt
In order to begin to practice patience, we must try to bear annoyances and sufferings resignedly, without complaint, knowing that Divine Providence does not permit any trial that will not be a source of good for us. In the beginning, and even for a long time, we may experience a great repugnance for suffering. Nevertheless, if we try to accept it as we should, with constancy, peace, and submission to the divine will, we shall gradually be cognizant of the great spiritual profit that flows from it; we shall feel more detached from creatures and from ourselves, and closer to God. Then shall we come to value suffering spontaneously; and later, having experienced its spiritual fruitfulness more completely, we shall finally come to love it.
Loving suffering? Is that possible. The saints did, and so can we, if we follow the advice in this paragraph.