Reflection from Mount St. Macrina
Sister Barbara Jean Mihalchick posts videos of her reflections each week at the Facebook of the Sisters of St. Basil the Great.
View them at: https://www.facebook.com/sistersofstbasil.uniontown/. This is a transcript of her July 5 reflection and is Part 3 of her “Fruits of the Holy Spirit” series. Glory to Jesus Christ!
Today I want to continue talking about the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. We mentioned there are 12 of them in St. Paul’s writings: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, mildness or gentleness, faith,
modesty, self-control and chastity.
Today, our topic is “patience,” something we all find occasion to need. In our practice of the spiritual life, it’s certainly a contribution to our faithfulness in the Lord and to our love for one another. Patience is about bearing with one another and each other’s imperfections.
There’s often somebody who irks us or who takes us the wrong way, or we take them the wrong way. Patience, certainly, is a virtue and it’s a proof of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Worth praying for, indeed.
One of the things I find really helpful with patience is the Jesus Prayer. Now, you might say I have to use it because I feel pretty desperate in putting up with somebody, but I also mean to use it because it bears within it the attitude of patience; patience with ourselves, patience with others, patience with our own imperfections and therefore, patience with the imperfections of other people.
We are all sinners and the attitude of seeking God’s mercy for all things can certainly help us. You know, we are all pretty well addicted to our own way of thinking, as Father Richard Rohr says. We want and we like our own way.
So the Fruits of the Holy Spirit can help us to have that openness of heart toward one another and to bear the difficulties that might occur in patience with others. And, of course, to turn them into prayer for the other, prayer for our own self-mercy that we, indeed, need.
God bless you.
