• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The fruits of holy patience, finally, are meekness and that inner peace of Christ “which the world cannot give.” Patience, then, is closely related to the very flower and perfume of Christian life.

Holy patience acknowledges man’s creaturely status

It constitutes one of the basic traits that distinguish a true Christian in statu viae, in the sense even that it connotes in a twofold fashion a specific reference to the character of earthly existence as a status viae—a journey destined to lead us to our ultimate goal. First, it expresses our assent to our creaturely and finite condition, and more particularly, our response to the significance of time as an aspect of the divine plan of creation, as an essential constituent of the status viae, the world of “that which passes” in contradistinction to eternity. Second, patience represents a basic condition for winning through to our eternal salvation, since it implies a capacity for waiting without despairing of our effort for the kingdom of God, an attitude of perseverance in the midst of all obstacles and all sufferings, an intrepid hope for victory, and a humble but sustained preparation for eternity.

Not only is patience an indispensable virtue; beyond that, it discloses a formal apprehension of the basic condition of status viae and of the relation between terrestrial life and eternal life. Thus are the mysterious words of Our Lord on patience related to these others: “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13).

He alone who possesses patience—encompassed by disappointments, worn down by defeats, painfully aware of the narrowness of the road to salvation—can yet give proof of the constancy demanded by God, and hold on to the one thing necessary with a devotion not only unflagging but ever increasing. In him alone can the hunger and thirst after justice unquenchable on earth—which is Christ Himself—and the undying fire that the Lord came down to kindle, burn throughout his entire life. Only the patient man, who lives by Christ, can persevere unto the end: “In your patience you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:19).

13

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

PEACE is a basic word of the Gospel; it occupies a central place in Christian revelation. Indeed, it is the primal word addressed to mankind by the message of the New Covenant: “Glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2:14). Again, in His parting speech to the disciples, Our Lord says: “Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27).

The object of the Christians’ Advent longing was, above all, the Messiah, the bringer of peace, who would heal the strife of the world; the strife that, more tangibly than anything else, expresses the disharmony of a fallen creation. A touching desire and hope for peace cries out in the vision of Isaiah the prophet: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together: and a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6). And the Psalmist sings: “Justice and peace have kissed” (Ps. 84:11).

At Christmas, the Church hails the Savior as princeps pacis, Prince of Peace. In the High Mass of earlier times, the faithful before receiving Holy Communion exchanged the osculum pacis—kiss of peace—as a sign that all discord among them had been obliterated. On Holy Thursday, in the Liturgy of the Washing of the Feet, the Church sings; “Let malicious upbraidings cease; let wranglings cease. And may Christ, our God, be in the midst of us.” Pax is the motto of the Benedictines; Pax et bonum, that of the Franciscans.

Peace is a central theme of Christian revelation

No one who does not love peace as a high good, and whose heart is not scorched with pain at the sight of strife or by the thought of disharmony, has ever really understood the Gospels or can ever truly love Christ. Our imitation of Christ—and the more so, our transformation in Christ—necessarily involves a love for peace, a concord of hearts, a horror of all