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Theology of the Heart: Teachings of the Saints |
Holy
Patience
St. Francis de Sales
Excerpted from:
St Francis de Sales, Selected Letters
To
have to see to a great variety of things is really a continual
martyrdom; for in the same way as those who make a journey in the
summer find the flies more troublesome and irritating than the
journey itself, so the fact that one has to attend to a great many
different sorts of things is in itself more troublesome than the
actual load of business.
You
need patience, and God will give it to you, I hope, if you make a
special point of asking him, and if you make yourself practice it
faithfully, preparing yourself for this every morning by
particularly applying some point of your meditation to it and making
up your mind firmly to keep patient all day every time you feel
yourself slipping.
Do
not lose any opportunity, however small, of showing sweetness of
temper toward everyone. Do not trust in your industry to carry you
successfully through all your affairs but only in God’s help; and
then rest securely in his care of you, believing that he will do
what is best for you, providing that you for your part work
diligently and yet without straining. Without straining and gently,
I say, for violent effort spoils both your heart and the business at
hand, and is not really diligence but rather over-eagerness and
agitation.
How
soon we shall be in the realm of eternity! And then we shall see how
little all the affairs of this world amount to and how little it
mattered whether they did or did not succeed; but all the same, now
we pursue them as though they were great things. One day we shall in
heaven see that what we clung to in this world was nothing more than
a child’s fancy…
Be
patient with everyone but especially with yourself; I mean that you
should not be troubled about your imperfections and that your should
always have courage to pick yourself up afterwards. There is no
better way of getting there in the end in the spiritual life than
always starting all over again and never thinking that you have done
enough.
©
1960, Faber and Faber Ltd., London.
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
