Casiano says in his “Collationes” (Conferences) that there was a man of proven patience in Alexandria, whom the pagans sometimes used to insult and provoke with serious insults. One day when they were bothering him, they asked him:
– What miracles has that Christ whom you worship done?
– That your aggressions and insults, and even greater insults and aggressions that you could do to me, do not provoke nor offend me.
This is a beautiful example of patience among persecutions. Patience, which is a very important virtue, is a miracle that God performs but He does not perform it without our help. This is why we have to work on that virtue if we want to acquire it.
Patience is the virtue that makes us bear evil with a tranquil mind. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “it belongs to patience to suffer with an equal mind the evils inflicted by others” (II-II,136,4), i.e. without being disturbed by sorrow, “lest he abandon with an unequal mind the goods whereby he may advance to better things.” (II-II,136,1)
In order to achieve this virtue, we must pray (we must ask God for the grace to achieve it), for we cannot achieve any supernatural virtue without prayer. Second, we should work on our passions because there is a disordered passion underlying each act of impatience. So, when we constantly mortify our passions, in this way we are also increasing our patience. Third, we have to see everything as sent by God for our sanctification. That is, we need to increase our providential view of each particular event of our lives. This third way implies that we should not only accept every event, but that we should also love each one since they are the means for our sanctification.
