Which is more difficult? Showing patience to those who bother us, or patience with God’s timing?
The saints speak of practicing patience with humility. Is it possible to practice patience without humility?
As mentioned above, patience requires that we submit to God’s timing, rather than our own. With this in mind, what other virtues can patience help us develop?
Aug 3 2014, 7:31 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Tonight we are focusing on a somewhat difficult virtue-Patience- yet one most needed!
Daw: it can be difficult!
K(guest): Yes it is very much needed. It just occurred to me that in the description in 1 Cor. 13, it first says: Love is patient.
Daw: oh, that is a beautiful scripture
Ca: Yes, I recently found myself in a situation where I simply ran out. even with prayer and trying to listen to the Spirit, I still lost it.
Sister Susan Marie: Yes and so telling because when we are impatient we are not really loving
Sister Susan Marie: And I do myself have difficulty with it which springs from pride I think
Ca: I think that was true for me, Sr.
Sister Susan Marie: I need to talk myself, pray myself, into patience when I am feeling its opposite
K (guest): Yes I think it is pride. I think some times we may appear patient on the outside, but not inside – and that is when we are not really humble. M
Sister Susan Marie: Yes! and we know the difference when grace is operative because we find ourselves in a different mode, atypical- we can only attribute those times of patience to the Lord
K (guest): I think it really takes practice – recognizing our failure and getting up by the grace of God to try again.
Sister Susan Marie: That’s what St Francis de Sales would say- pick yourself up after a fall! and start again
Ca: yes, we must never stop trying, and asking for forgiveness and mercy. when we get a sense of self-awareness and the source of our own falls, we can be more patient with others
Aug 3 2014, 7:42 PM
Sister Susan Marie: The article indicated that striving for patience can be a heroic virtue and attempt.
Sister Susan Marie: The first step is to recognize that, although we can’t usually control what happens to us, we can always decide how we’ll respond.
Sister Susan Marie: If we give ourselves time!!
Daw: those were the two area’s….other’s and God’s timing
K(guest): Yes! It is becoming less self-centered.
Ca yes, in real life, I run out of time, because I often can’t feel my way through a situation fast enough
Sister Susan Marie: St. Francis de Sales advises us, “Resist your impatience faithfully, practicing, not only with reason, but even against reason, holy courtesy and sweetness to all, but especially to those who weary you most.”
Daw: sometimes I would choose to avoid the one who wearys me and maybe that is not what God wants?
K (guest): “Against reason” is a little hard for me to grasp. I have to think more (pray more) about that.
Aug 3 2014, 7:45 PM
Ca: I feel the same way often!
Sister Susan Marie: Exactly! Don’t avoid them- they are making you more virtuous
Sister Susan Marie: The saints always teach us from the highest realms possible- then we need to take little steps to reach those heights
Sister Susan Marie: In fact all the Catholic Church teaches is from those same heights- but sometimes we don’t know how to find the steps to get up there!
K (guest): So how do you recommend that we find those steps Mother Susan?
Ca: That is really true. It seems so far above what I can do, and sense that many people feel the same. This feeling sets us up to be hypersensitive to any failure to patience-we know we should be, and feel hypocritical when we fail ourselves, someone else, or someone else falls short of patience
K (guest): My spiritual director always tells me not to be too hard on myself.
Aug 3 2014, 7:50 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Very good question! Reading the struggles of others and their processes, yes, spiritual direction and practice
Daw: I never heard it explained that way Sr…this is why reading the saints writings tugs at me to go that way
Sister Susan Marie: If you find a patient person in real life spend time with them. Virtue can encourage virtue if jealousy is put at bay
K (guest): Yes, thank you Mother. I know that It is a great gift just to have the desire to grow in virtue (patience).
Ca: I think that it’s Jesus who gives us the desire and then makes something of it. Our desire is there, but there are so many distractions!
Sister Susan Marie: Interruptions are great at developing patience, because usually we are inpatient with interruptions
Sister Susan Marie: Yes and Jesus comes in many disguises as Mother Theresa used to say
K (guest): Yes, God’s timing. What timing could be better and why would I resist. Because I want my way.
Ca: is it also that we don’t see where He is leading?
K (guest): Sometimes I just don’t take the time to breath and give all to God.
Good Ca. We can’t see sometimes, we must trust Him.
Mary Roberta Viano: Are you debating God’s will for your lives?
Sister Susan Marie: Interesting- we need patience to find God’s Will
http://catholicexchange.com/struggle-patience
K (guest): Not really debating, but looking at God’s timing versus our timing. In other words, patience.
Mary Roberta Viano: I love Madame de Brulart’s words to St. Francis de Sales in a letter to him: “As long as I am serving God I don’t care what kind of sauce He puts me in.”
Sister Susan Marie: Patience is not a “control” issue!
Mary Roberta Viano: Yes, patience means being surprised by God’s timing, I think.
Aug 3 2014, 8:02 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Very good- can’t answer that Ca, at the moment!
K(guest): It is a love issue. To give ourselves completely to God and others. Oh, to be there!
Ca: I was thinking that patience is a self control issue, to practice and learn. But what if the practice is not controlling yourself, but allowing God to control you?
Mary Roberta Viano: Exactly
Sister Susan Marie: A ha!
Mary Roberta Viano: clay in the Potter’s hands…
K (guest): I think we start our allowing God to have control and hopefully move to truly giving Him complete control.
Ca: ooh, I am getting somewhere! even if I fail constantly
Sister Susan Marie: And reconciling responsibility with clay in the Potter’s hand?
Sister Susan Marie: I struggle with that
Ki(guest): What do you mean Mother Susan?
Mary Roberta Viano: As SFdS says, “Blessed indeed is the one who can say from his deepest heart, ‘Always how Thou wilt.'”
K (guest): Oh, maybe recognizing that we have to cooperate with Him?
Ca: we still have to act after/during our prayer, and the action will not always measure up to the prayer?
Sister Susan Marie: Yes how to cooperate- how long to wait to understand His will when responsibilities loom daily-the Holy Spirit needs to lead
Mary Roberta Viano: Right. “God desires that in all matters of importance in which we cannot clearly see what we ought to do, we should have recourse to those whom He has set over us to guide us…” (Conference) :11 PM
Mary Roberta Viano: So I have to discover who are the wise people God has given me to consult.
Aug 3 2014, 8:12 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Thanks- that’s good! Who are the wise ones and do we have the humility to listen
Daw: are we always given these wiser people or are we sometimes waiting?
Aug 3 2014, 8:13 PM
Mary Roberta Viano: and SFdS adds: “We should submit wholly and absolutely to their counsel and opinion in all that concerns the perfection of our souls.”
Daw: or perhaps we simply do not reconize them?
Sister Susan Marie: Often we do need to wait and that’s where the patience comes in
K (guest): Humility to listen and the humility to wait.
Aug 3 2014, 8:14 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Or as you say, are we humble enuf to recognize
Mary Roberta Viano: Americans value INDEPENDENCE, so it’s hard to submit to others’ wisdom, I think.
Ca: yes. but surrounded by so many “world bosses” in our jobs, etc…not all of them are reliably wise, so when do we know whether the person in authority should be listened to?
Daw: one reason, maybe the reason I am drawn to this meeting is I see the wisdom here in the Sr’s….direction.
Ca: oh, absolutely, Daw
K (guest): Amen Daw.
Daw: and in the dialog…its a place where the Holy SPirit talks and leads
Mary Roberta Viano: I’ve found that each time I ask God for a wise person and then look around, I find him or her.
Daw: its refreshing not to think my own thoughts. I am tired of thinking my own thoughts
K (guest): So often I simply forget to ask God.
Daw: me too K
Sister Susan Marie: He counts and knows every hair on our head; he knows all our concerns but we often feel we cannot “bother” Him.
Mary Roberta Viano: SfdS advises submitting “ourselves to all, excepting always in that which would offend God.” (in another Conference)
Mary Roberta Viano: If I get spiritual direction monthly, I’m more likely to see clearly to do God’s will, I’ve found.
Mary Roberta Viano: that and regular confession – to clear out the sins in order to see more clearly
Ca: yes, because we can rarely see into ourselves deeply enough. it’s like seeing the forest through the trees
Mary Roberta Viano: So true, Ca!
Aug 3 2014, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Yes = not just the weaknesses but also our strengths-
Mary Roberta Viano: More from SFdS: “Our Lord loves with a most tender love those who are so happy as to abandon themselves wholly to His fatherly care.”
K(guest): “unless you become as a child..
Car: I do trust Him, but in the daily moments I lose sight
Aug 3 2014, 8:25 PM
Mary Roberta Viano: and “they are well assured that nothing can be sent, nothing can be permitted by this loving paternal Heart which will not be a source of good and profit to them.”
K (guest): I do too
Sister Susan Marie: Learning to practice the “presence of God” helps-
Mary Roberta Viano: Right, Kim. Psalm 131, is it? “As a child rests in its Mother’s arms…”
Mary Roberta Viano: or Father’s arms!
Ca: yes, the way of constant prayer of all kinds-Rosary, aspirations, our own words. and I still fall….
K (guest): Yes, I need to practice being in His presence always.
Mary Roberta Viano: I like St. Faustina’s: “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in You.”
Mary Roberta Viano: Have a Sacred Heart image, then, that you can say those words before, every time you see it.
Sister Susan Marie: We will always be weak in ourselves- but His mercy covers that- as long as we turn to Him again and again even well after the fact of the fall
K(guest): A holy man that I know says that saints on earth are not perfect, but they are struggling for perfection.
Aug 3 2014, 8:30 PM
Ca: this action you describe Sr, seems to be bringing more self awareness, which I seem to need first
Sister Susan Marie: Yes know thyself is an important first step
K (guest): Good, so even if it is well after we fall, we can run to Him and He is always waiting with love and mercy.
Mary Roberta Viano: and that self-awareness will lead to our being convinced that God “will have care as to the outcome of our affairs and to will whatever is best for us.” (TLG)
K (guest): JUST TRUST HIM!
Aug 3 2014, 8:33 PM
Ca: all I can say is I’m very glad He’s the boss of me, because I could never figure it all out on my own!
Mary Roberta Viano: I love the way SFdS also suggests we “do the good we do NOT desire.” Hmm…
Mary Roberta Viano: i.e., not doing the good that will give you most pleasure
Daw that means….it has nothing to do with me?
Mary Roberta Viano: You/I am the agent of the good, but it’s not MY good but the good God wants me to do.
Mary Roberta Viano: St.Francis’s Let me be an instrument of Your peace… 8:35 PM
Daw: its not about me. its about Him.
K (guest): It’s about Him in you. I think
Mary Roberta Viano: and the current good I need to do is to get breakfast things ready for my sisters’ breakfast tomorrow morning. G’night!
Daw: or…its not MY good…I do not own it but what good God wants me to do to serve
Ki(guest): Good night everyone.
Aug 3 2014, 8:38 PM
Ca: Good night! everyone, and thank you Sisters! I always learn so much here.
Sister Susan Marie: Good night Thanks for sharing