Patience

“Even the very Death of Our Lord would have been useless without Him. It's like being given a treasure; it would be necessary for someone to distribute it: the Father gave His Son, the Son gave Himself and the Holy Spirit came to distribute all His graces.” (Saint John Vianney).

Lamentation Over the Dead Christ (Paolo Veronese)

There are so many things that become clear wit time.

I am a really impatient person.  That means that I spend my life rushing around trying to get things done.  Now, sometimes this serves me very well.  It means that I tend to be able to fit a lot into my day.  I can usually manage the house and the children and my work and even my husband if I can get things sorted in my usual quick and impatient manner.  And that usually takes care of the basics.  But then things become more complicated.  After all, it is one thing to fly through dinner, and quite another to rush through an important conversation with one of my children.  It is one thing to accomplish something at work, and quite another to rush someone’s thought process so that they are unable to understand a concept and move forward with their own personal and spiritual development.

And I have been thinking about that today.

Christ was a carpenter and a teacher.  He could have chosen to take any role at all.  He could have been a fisherman, or a plumber or a politician or a manager or a restaurateur.  Instead, He chose to work firstly with His hands to MAKE things and then to work with His mind to teach things.

That meant that He was a patient Man.  He knew how to wait for the glue to set or the paint to dry or the timber to be delivered.  He knew that His body could only handle a certain amount of physical work per day before He became too tired to physically continue in His work.  He knew that sometimes people who we teach need time to process a concept and might need to be taught the same concept over and over again until they finally understood it.

And He did this patiently…

“I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:12-15).

Saint John Vianney said, “Without the Holy Spirit everything is cold, the Sacraments instituted by Our Lord wouldn't have saved us without the Holy Spirit. Even the very Death of Our Lord would have been useless without Him. It's like being given a treasure; it would be necessary for someone to distribute it: the Father gave His Son, the Son gave Himself and the Holy Spirit came to distribute all His graces.”

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.