faith formation: What is Love? Love is Patient-- post 1

Love is the goal of life--to love God and our neighbor. 

St. Paul defined it as we Christians should understand it. 

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury. Love does not rejoice over wrong-doing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

 

Let’s examine each point

  Love is Patient 

 Patience is delayed gratification, and the opposite of patience is anger.

Are we patient with God’s timing in our life? Or do we question and rebel against God? Often we are impatient about how God has let us live our life. We have free will and He respects that. He will not force Himself on anyone. But He does beg us to turn to Him, trust Him, and pray for help. If not, we are left on our own.

The trials we face are a way of God purifying us from the dross we still cling to. He wants to improve us not only save us.

 “...If you are so curious and inquisitive, wait for the final outcome and see how things turn out. And do not be thrown into confusion, do not be troubled at the start. When an inexperienced man at first sees a goldsmith melting the gold and mixing it with ashes and chaff – if he does not wait till the end – he will think the gold is ruined…” -- (St John Chrysostom: On God’s Providence)

This process of purifying gold. is often referenced in the Bible.

Zechariah 13:9:
“This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’ ” 

As we are tested in the fire of trials and temptations of life, we learn humility and patience. God’s goal is our salvation but also our improvement and united to Him, our trials take on a salvific dimension. Sometimes it is painful, other times it is joyful, but we must wait on the Lord with trusting patience.

Matt. 10:22:
“He that endures to the end shall be saved, says the Lord.”

Are we patient with others, especially parents, bothers, sisters, spouses, children, friends and co-workers?

The more we know someone, oftentimes, the more we can claim a “right” to express our Temper. As the old song goes “You always hurt the one you love...the one you shouldn’t hurt at all”

Why do we do this?
Would we talk to our boss at work that way, or a customer, if we are in customer service?

We practice this virtue of patience in public on many occasions. So why not practice it all the time? We seem to practice patience selectively. We can be patient with strangers, but not with loved ones?

It isn't that we don’t have patience, but we claim the luxury of not practicing it at certain times--especially with loved ones, because we know they are stuck with us. And we think: “doesn’t a real friend have to forgive?” We want the gratification of having things our way, but to presume on the virtue of another person, so we can practice vice, seems strange. Luke 6:31 “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” applies to all situations.

A good method is to attack at the weakest link. We have more control of our body, than our thoughts, so we just command our mouth to not say the angry word, but take a deep breath instead. Even though we are raging inside, our self-discipline is an act of love. If we fail in this, we should at least thank God we are more aware of what we should do-- so that is progress.

It isn't easy to change emotions and thoughts, but it is simple. Each angry thought has an emotion of danger attached to it-- igniting fight mode. They are intertwined in such away as to support each other. Emotions also carry a physical response, a turning stomach, rush of blood, tension in the muscles...etc. These physical feelings reinforce the thought and the thought then reinforce the emotions--it can become a vicious cycle. We can utilize these physical symptoms as a warning to get control. By seeing the physical symptoms we are changing our thoughts.

Again we attack at the weakest link to change our thoughts, by doing any activity. It can be cleaning a dish, or going for a walk. By doing this we can change the thought and the emotions will dissipate. We should endorse ourselves for any attempts.

Even though we are filled with emotion, by acknowledging it we practice some self-refection, by this we see progress. We should never sabotage any improvement, by negative self-talk--Temperamental Lingo, even if it is just awareness of our failure, this is progress. Self-reflection is an improvement, we will improve by God's grace and time.

Time is key to improving patience, with methodical attempts and practice; we have small victories. Wait a few seconds to drink a glass of water. Avoid multitasking--do one step at a time, in part acts; we will be more productive and practice patience. Each victory no matter how small, we should praise God, even if we fail-- for the self-knowledge of what we should have done.

The Will is strengthened by exercising it, like a muscle. We will have set backs, but each setback will be less powerful than the one before. Pray and ask God for help. Our Guardian Angels can be a great help in this, pray to him--it’s his job to help us grow in virtue.

 The virtue we seek is patience but the vice we fight is anger. As we have covered before, anger is usually caused by claiming a subjective “right” to something. We feel it when things don’t go the way we hoped or planned, or people are not thinking or acting as we think they should. Sometimes the "should" is our subjective judgment, of preferences, not by the moral norms of behavior.

We can also feel impatient or angry when we feel slighted or offended. We need to take away the personal attack-- saying to ourselves: “These kinds of things happen in everyday life” or “He said something THAT annoyed me not TO annoy me.” Taking the secure thought of "no one is my enemy, they can be my friend someday"-- this brings patience.

Matthew 5:39 :
"But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well."

Even if someone is hostile to us, we should repay their anger with kindness, this is how to win a friend.

Proverbs 22:11
"Whoever loves a pure heart and gracious speech will have the king as a friend."

Proverbs 15:18 teaches:  “A quick-tempered person stirs up dissension, but one who is slow to anger calms a quarrel.”

While we can win a friend with gracious words and behavior there are other people who use this method for evil. Like any tool or method it can be used for good of ill. A knife is not evil or good but it is the way we use it that is important--to cut some cheese or to murder.

Aquinas and Augustine both point out how evil men can be “patient” for evil things. But Augustine says this is not true patience, which is a virtue. I would call it, scheming, because the goal is not good, but selfish. Tolerance can also be confused with patience, but it has no goal, so it cannot be a virtue.

A virtue has a good goal for its end. Patience has the good aim of mitigating evil or leading a person or a situation to a better place.

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset”. - Saint Francis de Sale

St. Francis de Sales became a model of the virtue of patience but he struggled with a fierce temper for twenty years, until he got control of his anger. Our greatest faults can provide us with what we should develop in virtue. Learning to control his temper allowed St. Francis to become known for his gentleness and patience.

Proverbs 15:1 “A gentle response turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath.”

I was hoping to cover each part of St. Paul’s definition of love in one article, but let’s take our time and be patient. We will continue next with, “What is Kindness?”