Daily Thought For April 11, 2017

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Cultivating Patience
    
     Patience as a virtue should not be understood to mean passivity in the face of suffering. It is not a matter of stoically accepting the blows of outrageous fortune and accepting our fate. Patience belongs to the virtue of fortitude. When we practice patience, we strive to accept pain and trial as something coming from the hand of God. We therefore seek to identify our will with the Will of God. The virtue of patience enables us to endure persecution of every kind. Patience should be the foundation of our hope and joy. 
     There are a great many ways in which a Christian can live this virtue. The first battleground should be in the area of one’s own behavior. It is so easy to become disheartened by our defects. We need to exercise patience in our interior struggle based on our unshakeable confidence in God’s love for us. If we are to overcome a character defect, it will not happen overnight. Our victory will ultimately be won by the cultivation of humility, of trusting confidence in God, of greater docility. St. Francis de Sales would remind people that we need to have patience with everyone, but first and foremost with ourselves. 
 
from In Conversation with God by Francis Fernandez Volume 5 p. 545

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