V — FORTITUDE AND PATIENCE

Presence of God. — Teach me, O Lord, to bear with firmness and patience whatever makes me suffer.

Meditation

1 — Although courage is needed to face and undertake difficult things, even more is needed to endure them, especially when they are painful things that last a long time and can neither be avoided nor changed. In this sense St. Thomas teaches that the principal act of fortitude is not to attack, but to stand firm in dangers and to sustain with a manly spirit struggles, contradictions, hardships, and persecutions.

In the spiritual life we meet not only difficulties that, with one fine act of courage, we can overcome once and for all, but also — and much more frequently — difficult and painful things from which it is impossible to escape and which, whether we wish it or not, we must undergo. There are physical evils that wear us down and prevent us from expanding our activity as we would like; moral sufferings arising from the limits of our temperament, from contact with people who oppose us or do not understand us, from the sorrow of seeing those we love suffer without being able to relieve them, from distance from friends, from loneliness of heart; spiritual sufferings due to dryness, interior darkness, weariness of spirit, temptations, scruples; and then all the discomforts, labors, and difficulties inherent in the fulfillment of daily duty.

We know all this is disposed by God for our sanctification, for our good; yet we still feel its weight. Suffering is never pleasant and, even wishing to accept everything for love of God, at times we are tempted to rebel, to throw everything away, to cast off the yoke; or we feel oppressed by sadness and discouragement. What is the remedy? The very one Jesus indicated to the Apostles after announcing the persecutions they would face: in patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras — “by your patience you will gain your souls” (Lk. 21:19). Patience is precisely the virtue that allows us to live in a state of suffering, hardship, and privation without losing serenity; that allows us to remain firm amid storms, contradictions, and dangers, without irritation, without despondency, and without turning aside.

2 — Christian patience is not the forced resignation of the fatalist or philosopher who submits to pain because he knows he cannot escape it. Nor is it the attitude of one who endures only because he lacks strength and resources to react. It is a voluntary acceptance of suffering in view of God and eternal beatitude, sustained by awareness that suffering is absolutely necessary to purify us from sin, to atone for our faults, and to dispose us for meeting God.

Christian patience first urges us to accept suffering serenely and then, little by little, leads us to esteem and love it — not because suffering is life’s end, but because it recognizes it as an indispensable means for reaching the end. The end is love, union with God. But if Jesus, to enkindle in us the flame of charity and restore friendship between us and God, willed to live a life of martyrdom and die on the Cross, how can we pretend to reach fullness of love and divine intimacy without following the same road He took? “Since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same thought,” cries St. Peter (1 Pt. 4:1): that is, we too must embrace suffering with the same sentiments as Jesus — to do the will of the heavenly Father, to atone for sin, to give Him proof of love.

Christian patience therefore includes not only a passive attitude before suffering, but also an active and voluntary one, and this is the most important, for it is what makes patience meritorious. The patient man is passive because he wills to be so; because he uses his free will to submit to all the sufferings he meets on his path; because he voluntarily bends his shoulders under the yoke of pain, as Jesus bent his under the wood of the Cross because He willed it: quia ipse voluit (Is. 53:7). The Christian is not a forced Simon of Cyrene but a voluntary one — not in the sense that he goes looking for suffering (which is not within everyone’s reach and could sometimes be imprudent), but in the humbler sense that he willingly accepts all the suffering he meets on his road, recognizing in it the cross offered him by God for his sanctification.

Colloquy

“O Jesus, the office of souls admitted to your intimacy is to suffer with You, to hold the cross high, without letting it slip from their hands, despite the dangers in which they find themselves, and never to show the least weakness in suffering.

“You have made me understand so well, Lord, the great usefulness of persecutions and sufferings endured for love of You, that now I cannot help loving sacrifice.

“Such is the way You trod, and such must also be the way trod by those who intend to follow You, if they do not wish to be lost. Blessed crosses, abundantly repaid even in this life!

“In what way, my Jesus, could You show me greater love than by willing for me what You willed for Yourself?

“To die or to suffer: this is what my desire must be” (St. Teresa of Jesus: Way 18, 5; Life 33, 4; 11, 5).

“O crucified Christ, You are enough for me; with You I want to suffer and to rest! Grant that, crucified inwardly and outwardly with You, I may live in the fullness and satisfaction of my soul, yet in patience.

“Teach me to esteem sufferings greatly and to consider them very little in order to enter your favor, O Lord, You who did not hesitate to die for me. O my Beloved, everything harsh and burdensome I want for myself; everything sweet and delightful for You!” (G.C. PA. 13, 8, 15, 52).