Love Is Patient . . .
All the times I have ever heard or read 1 Corinthians 13, I somehow have always flown over the very first definition of Love. Lately though, I can only meditate on it and it alone. Love is Patient. Love/God is Patient.
In order for us to learn how to love God, we must learn patience. Most of us don’t have to learn how to be patient for the good. Well, I know there is the impatience of waiting for a birth or a wedding, or a special event, but usually joy doesn’t require endurance. I am learning from my trials and from the trials I see others suffering right now, that patience can be the fruit of suffering. When I speak about trials, I have in mind a childhood friend, 28 years of age, a teacher in Nevada, diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I have in mind my friend–a mother of six children–who has an inoperable non-malignant brain tumor that is not responding to treatment. I have in mind a beloved child, raped by her own father. I have in mind my own trials over the last few years and repeated frustrations, and health challenges. These are hard core, life altering, shake one to one’s core, life events that make a person seek out answers.
And the more I pray, the more I meditate, the more that very first line of 1st Corinthians repeats in my head, and I cannot help but think that God is trying to make me understand that Purgatory occurs. It will occur now or it will occur later and I believe that the length of purgation is determined by our ability to cooperate with it. The pain is patience. Patience, my friends, can be excruciating. My friend, just finished her first round of chemo for her breast cancer. She now must wait to discover if the tumors in her liver have responded to the chemo. As I waited to find out if I had TB or just plain pneumonia, I had to wear a blue mask in public. As I walked the aisles of my grocery store, people looked upon me as “other” and fled in terror of whatever disease I harbored.
Do not get me wrong. I do not believe God causes evil. But what God requests from us is complete and total trust in Him. The Pain is caused when we want to avoid the suffering and when we become angry that we even “have” to suffer. It has become so clear to me why Jesus said it is so difficult for rich people to get to heaven. I don’t think it is necessarily our attachments to our materials goods, as it is our attitudes that will keep us from God. Rich people are not used to being humbled or child like. Suffering is the only thing that I know that makes bendable . . . or not. And if we choose to avoid it, we ultimately choose to reject the first definition of Love. We reject Patience or Love . . . or God.
This is very beautiful and very wise. I only hope that I can one day come to really believe the truths that you’ve expressed so clearly here, because I know that in them lies the first step toward salvation. Thank you, SLW.
Something I have learned about patience is that I need to stop arguing with the way things are in my head. I find that it is that thread of argument that wreaks havoc when I am facing very difficult situations. And it is that thread of argument that destabilizes anything like trusting God.
Thanks, Sofia! Patience is such an important thing (and something in which I am so lacking). As we know, the theological virtues are faith, hope and love. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. When you think about it, so many of these seven are intimately connected to patience. Faith is “the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for.” It can only be practiced with patience, which is intolerable for those who must know – with certainty- now. Similarly, I’ve heard hope defined as ‘revolutionary patience” (and despair a form of impatience). Practicing prudence obviously involves the patience to let emotions cool and make judgments rationally, wisely. Temperance involves patiently disciplining our appetites, rather than rashly, impatiently giving in to them. I think you could argue that fortitude, or courage, requires the patient mastery of fear. It’s no wonder St. Francis de Sales said that “the virtue of patience is the one which most assures us of perfection.”
Thank you, Mark for this enlightening post. Wonderful!