We live in an age of rage, if a car takes too long at a stop sign, our frustrations tend to grow until within the space of 5 minutes it has turned into rage. When someone pushes in front of us at a shopping centre queue our impatience soon turns into rage. So we have car rage, trolley rage, car park rage, smoking rage, sports rage etc. So much rage so little patience!
In a time where everything has been made easy, we no longer have to walk anywhere, we no longer have to suffer in the cold or heat as our heaters and Air conditioners make living comfortable. Meals can be served up in minutes and on some days Mother or Fathers don't have to cook at all as many families head for the fast food restaurants. We have everything at our convenience, yet many are also so easily provoked, that a small wait can soon turn into irrational rage.
But the real problem begins when we lose patience with our spouses and with our children, if we treat each other like nuisances, then we lose the entire focus of why we are here and it is not to make our own life easy but to give to others as Jesus would have us do. It also means putting in the hard work in our relationships rather than the quick cut and run because it is all too difficult, this calls for unselfishness and self sacrifice, for what we give to others will be returned to us ten fold.
Therefore if we make members of our family feel as if they are a vexation to us, we must then ask who we have placed as a priority, our families or ourselves.
The message that society projects out to the susceptible is that the family unit is redundant and that women need to be emancipated from their 'chained marriages’ as if a Holy Sacrament is a business deal! As the late Pope John Paul II said, "Motherhood is sometimes presented as something backward or as a limitation of a woman's freedom, thus distorting its true nature and dignity. Children are presented not as what they are-a great gift of God- but rather as something to be defended against."
In order to gain patience we need to understand that we too are taxing someone else's patience, none of us are perfect and we all have our faults and foibles, does this mean that none of us are deserving of love, because no one is patient enough to accept our differences? Human beings must not become disposable because it takes too much effort to love them just as they are where they are.
This lack of patience with each other is one of the deciding features of many divorces, very few people are now ready to put in the heavy work nor do they wish to be patient while situations resolve itself. And at times we will feel hurt, anger, frustration at events and people who disappoint us, but the answer is not in running away, it lay in maintaining patience, in an attitude of long suffering as we allow the healing process time to work over a period of time.
And at times our Loving God will allow difficult situations to arise in order to strengthen that which is weakest in our natures but also to help us become more reliant on our Heavenly Father to give us the Graces needed to grow in holiness. For unlike us God see's things in an eternal frame whereas our own eye perceives only the present time.
Longsuffering patience teaches us tenacity and perseverance to help us run the good race, it also teaches us to trust in a Loving God to guide us through painful minefields and to have confidence that God will not abandon us but will instead walk beside us as we overcome through Grace the difficulties and pain that we suffer through.
For it is in evolving through painful issues ! that builds character, so that we become stronger and grow more in patience when we realise that all we have is Gift, it was never ours to selfishly clutch or horde away. When one of the great Master painters finished a work did the artist hide his painting in secret cupboards so that only he may view it? Or did he paint to give joy to all who would appreciate the work involved and admire the beauty which the artist was able to capture.
Patience entails waiting, all through the Old Testament are Books which focus on long waits as God accomplished things in His time and not ours. The Jewish people wandered through the desert for 40 years that would seem to long for many of us as it did to the Jews of that day, yet to God it is but a blink of an eye.
Learning patience is to walk up the staircase of holiness one step at a time, for as St. Augustine said, "Patience is the companion of wisdom." Those who rush headlong into life with no thought to any but themselves will find, in the end they will have failed to enjoy the journey.
Peace of Christ to ALL
Copyright © 2006 Marie Smith. All rights reserved.
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