The Elusive Virtue of Patience

"[I]f I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
(1 Corinthians 13:2-7 Douay-Rheims)

Love (or charity) is patient. Patience is from love, is based in love. Without love, patience becomes indifference, apathy, mere sentiment. And without patience, love is lacking, and thus is not true, perfect, complete love, the love God wants to grow in our hearts. To see this, we need only look at the patience of God, just as extraordinarily abundant as every other expression of love He makes throughout Scripture. Every time someone would sin, every time an individual or nation would fall into idolatry or violence or debauchery, He would await their return, as did the father of the Prodigal Son in the familiar parable of Christ.

This is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the life of the author of the above-quoted verse, St. Paul. Not only was God patient with St. Paul on a human level, as with any other person, He gave Paul opportunity after opportunity to realize the truth of Christ, to repent of his persecutions towards Christians, and to come into full communion with His Church. Only at the very end, when the Church Herself was threatened by Paul, did God finally rebuke him directly and bring him to the destiny God had planned for him.
When we think of love, how often do we connect it to patience? And when we do, what is our vision of true patience? For many, patience is stoic, enduring pain and sin without emotion until it subsides. For others, patience takes the form of condescension as we try to endure those people we consider inferior to ourselves - morally, intellectually or in any other way - without succumbing to sin.

But as with all acts of Christian piety, we must ask: is this the model and example of patience that Christ provided? As the constant and perfect standard for holiness, we must always ask how He lived and behaved. Patience was an integral part of the life and ministry of Christ, particularly in His Passion. Did He retreat from the world in His life, or did He endure pain or the sins of others without compassion or concern? Quite the opposite - He engaged life head-on, without veil or hindrance. His patience was com-passionate, suffering-with. He recognized both the infinite value and beauty of the human person, made in His own image, as well as the universality of sin and its power of us, morally and physically. He knew that our minds, our bodies, our spirits and our relationships are marred immeasurably by sin in all its forms, and He experienced this personally throughout His life. And in His Passion, He experienced the totality of human suffering and sin all at once, the light meeting the dark without compromise or avoidance.

When we're born, when we first enter the world after our life in the womb, we come into the world without expecting sin. We cannot conceive of bad things or difficulties, of need or pain. Our innocent bodies cry out for sustenance, confounded by our hunger and thirst, wondering why we must feel such things. And as children, the sin we experience, in ourselves and in the world, is a shock to us.

Only as we grow up do we become "accustomed" to sin. Embittered by years of pain and disappointment, the good always marred and seemingly overpowered by the bad, we come to expect sin. At times, we can even come to the point that we enjoy sin. We feel that life is too hard, too short to fight against sin our entire lives, to avoid the pleasures and escapes it can give, even if only temporary. And when we sin, when we give into the evil of the world, we believe we can avoid disappointment, experiencing sin preemptively. Get them before they get you.

This is a life without love, and without patience. This acceptance and expectation of sin, and forgetfulness or dissatisfaction with the good, is a corruption and distortion of patience. But the virtue of patience is not a surrender to the power of sin. Rather, patience surrenders to God. It recognizes sin without accepting it as eternal and all-powerful, attributing this divinity only to God. Patience sees that God's love is infinite but mysterious, His plan hidden but perfect, and in this recognition it surrenders all anxiety, all anger, all grudges and all desperation to God.

With this surrender, we see that it is not our place or in our power to cleanse the world of sin. Furthermore, we see that God allows sin for a purpose, within His larger plan. We no longer have to be afraid of sin, as though it were an equal, rival force competing with God for rule of Creation. No - sin, like all else, is under the dominion of the Blessed Trinity. All things work to the glory of God and, through His love and glorification, to the ultimate perfecting of Creation.

With the certain hope of Christ, assured to us in the Blessed Sacrament, we no longer have to be under the power of sin, whether in ourselves or the world. For even when we do sin, as we all do, and even when we do endure the pain of original sin in the world or the sins of others, we need not feel helpless or hopeless. Now, we know that God is Lord even of sin, using it to make us even greater than we were. We come to see that sin is merely an opportunity for love, for mercy, for truth - and for patience.

So, with this understanding, what then does it mean to be patient? How we can grow in patience in our daily lives? As with all spiritual practices, there are two vital, central means of growing in the virtue of patience: the sacraments, and prayer.

In the sacraments, we enter into the spirituality of love. In baptism, we experience the culmination of God's covenantal patience spanning the entire history of humanity. In confirmation, we are rewarded for the patience we are called to exhibit between this and our baptism, just as the apostles were rewarded with the Holy Spirit for their patience after the Ascension of Christ. In matrimony and holy orders, we are called to a lifetime of vocational patience, sacrificing ourselves in every way for the good of God and others. In reconciliation, we are called to perhaps the most difficult form of patience - patience towards ourselves. With this sacrament, we must develop the patience God shows to us in our sinfulness and imperfection, waiting with love and understanding as we walk, stumble, and rise again with His grace over the course of our lives, growing steadily in holiness and moving ever closer to Him. And finally, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, we witness and participate in the summary of all the sacraments and in the highest example of patience ever seen - the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, when He suffered all our sins with infinite patience founded in boundless love for His children.

Through a consistent, disciplined and deeply spiritual prayer life, and through the mysticism of the Holy Sacraments, I pray that we may be able to grow ever more in patience, in love, and in our journey towards the Beatific Vision God desires for us, a life of true, complete love. God bless.