The Talmud, the collection of
rabbinical wisdom and commentary, has a story about Abraham. With the
hospitality for which the patriarch was famous, he invited a stranger into his
tent and feasted him lavishly. When he invited his visitor to join him in prayer
to the one true God, the stranger refused, explaining that he was a fire
worshiper. Angry that his visitor was worshipping a false god, Abraham drove
the man from his door. That night the Lord appeared to Abraham in a dream and
said: AI have borne with that ignorant man
for seventy years. Could you not have patiently suffered him for one night?@
Which one of us has never felt
impatience? The English spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill
Professional mountaineers who guide
climbers to high peaks -- the Swiss Alps, the Himalayas north of India --
can always spot the novice climbers. They
climb too fast, soon tire, and fail to reach the summit. The experienced
mountaineer is patient. He climbs slowly. It is only patient climbers who reach
the highest peaks.
Life is like that. Most of the road
to heaven must be taken at thirty miles an hour. Here is another quote from Evelyn Underhill
The 19th century English
convert, Fr. Frederick W. Faber, a contemporary of Bl. John Henry Newman writes: AWe must wait for God, long, meekly, in
the wind and wet, in the thunder and lightning, in the cold and the dark. Wait,
and he will come. He never comes to those who do not wait.@
I invite you to pray in this Mass for
patience: patience with ourselves, patience with others, patience with
circumstances. The best help to patience is to reflect on how unbelievably
patient God has been with ourselves C and continues to be right now.
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