Learning patience

THIS is an indispensable virtue. Since we will always have to contend with all sorts of contradictions—from physical pain and sickness to the most subtle moral and spiritual suffering and to death itself—we have to learn how to bear all of them, convinced that there is some hidden meaning, some beautiful message and lesson embedded in them.

This is what patience is all about. It teaches us not only how to bear pain but also to reassure us that every suffering brings a very uplifting, if purifying and saving, value in life. It is a very positive virtue, very forward-looking. That is why it is always accompanied by serenity and even joy.

In fact, a test we can give ourselves in this regard is to see if we our attitude toward any form of suffering is joy and optimism, and not fear, not sadness. This will show that we are not reacting to our difficulties in a merely emotional and limited way, but rather in the global context of the spiritual and supernatural aspects of our life.

Thus, we have to be very clear that our reaction to the many challenges, trials, difficulties, and even mistakes and failures that unavoidably give us pain is not driven by the very limited play of our emotions and the human understanding of things, but rather by the interplay of faith, hope and charity.

It’s faith, hope and charity that gives us the true and complete picture of things. It’s being with God that frees us from the constricting ways of our bodily and worldly reactions to the contradictions that we encounter in life. It’s what brings us beyond the material and temporal horizon of our life so we can enter into a richer and bigger world.

We really need to train ourselves to go beyond the emotional, bodily and worldly level of our reactions to things in general. That is why, we need to pray, to develop the virtues, to avail of the sacraments, and to wage a continuing life-long ascetical struggle.

Meditating on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ would precisely help us in this concern. There we will learn why we cannot avoid suffering, how we have to suffer, why there is meaning and purpose, why there are great benefits in our suffering.

Meditating on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ widens our vision of things, and would help us understand what St. James once said: “You will always have your trials, but when they come, try to treat them as a happy privilege.

“You understand that your faith is only put to the test to make you patient, but patience too is to have its practical results so that you will become fully-developed, complete, with nothing missing.” (1,2-4)  

With these words of our faith to guide us, we can start to develop the appropriate attitude, mindset, skills and other human devices so we can truly be patient. We should not allow ourselves to be dominated by sadness and fear when faced with difficulties.

We know there is always hope. If very ugly and painful things happen to us, it is because God at least allows them to happen. And if he allows them to happen, it is because, God, and we with him, can derive a greater good from them. For, as St. Paul said, “where sin has abounded, grace has abounded even more.” (Rom 5,20)

So let’s learn to go beyond the play of our emotions, the conditioning of our temperament that can be easily affected by difficulties. Yes, while we need to be attentive and sensitive to things, we also need to learn how to be insensitive and to disregard certain things in life. We have to learn how to be sport and game in life.

We have to be quick to supply our feelings and reasoning with the sure arguments of our faith, hope and charity. We should not allow ourselves to be trapped in the confines of worldly wisdom and prudence alone, or with our mere common sense.

It’s not that we have no use of these natural sources of knowledge. They are always useful and, in fact, are indispensable too. But they always need to be infused, grounded and oriented toward faith, hope and charity.

Let’s learn the many other little details that show patience—being always positive and encouraging in our words, always looking at the positive side rather than getting entangled with the negative, etc.

Wherever we are, let’s see to it that we exude an atmosphere of a cheerful patience, very human and supernatural at the same time.