Patience Is Bitter, But Its Fruit Is Sweet ~ Rousseau

Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker. Put me on hold for more than 30 seconds and this customer is likely to hang up on you. Get stuck in front of me at a toll booth because your E-ZPass isn’t working and my language is suddenly NSFW. Show up more than ten minutes late to a business meeting and it’s not going to go well. So, yes I’m probably not considered a very patient man.

The internet has only made it worse. I expect – no, actually I demand – instant access to everything: information; entertainment; buying stuff. Amazon Prime, of course. Say, when does that same-day drone delivery service start?

When I returned to the Church after 41 years I naturally went into over-drive. So much to re-learn. So much to learn for the first time. Over 2,000 years of history, tradition, and teaching to think about, absorb, and put into practice.

And a staggering amount of growth to undertake in order to fully become the person that I want to be. Not necessarily a “nicer” man, or a “better” man, or a more “religious” man, mind you. None of those would take very long or be too difficult. And none are essential.

No, what I need to do now is much tougher for me.

I want to become that person who has learned to no longer measure success by the amount of his earthly treasure. And one who has learned how to truly forgive his enemies. And, above all else, one who has learned how to first seek the Kingdom of Heaven before all other things (Matthew 6:33).

Tall order that. Especially for those patience-challenged souls like myself.

So I must continually remind myself to slow it all down. To take a deep breath. To prioritize. To have faith even when I’m my most anxious and my most uncertain and my most doubtful. Especially then.

These wise words, written by a French philosopher who was also a geologist, a paleontologist, and a Jesuit Priest, remind me that I must learn to trust the process, however long it takes, however uncertain it feels.

And so, my first prayer this day is one for a new found patience and trust:

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Peace