English
EspañolWhat is the patience of love? Unlike common patience, love´s patience not only endures, without bitterness, the discomforts that others cause us but persists in loving, with tender mercy and hope, despite the discomforts, defects, and limitations that the loved ones will continue to have. Therefore, thanks to the action of love, he who is patient is also joyful rather than sad. Love does not tire, nor grows weary.
Text
“Our first reaction when we are annoyed should be one of heartfelt blessing, asking God to bless, free and heal that person.” (The Joy of Love, n.104)
Commentary
I remember what one person told me in a counseling session: “I never liked my son´s girlfriend. I did not have good information about her, and when I met her, I confirmed what I knew. I always received a dry, cold treatment from her, the indispensable words to keep good manners. It cost me a lot, but I began to think about her qualities – no one is completely dark – I began to look at her with different eyes and, above all, to ask God to sweeten her way of being, to put a drive in her work, in her profession.”
The patience of love allows time to pass and prolongs hope.
We tend to turn away and close ourselves to people who bother us when we should open ourselves to that person and have small details of affection with him or her. What makes our capacity to love grow is to accept those annoyances with serenity and ask God for this person to correct their defects. However, while asking this to the heavens, we must maintain the patience of love and abound in details of affection and affability. Sometimes it is not God who does not listen to us. The other person, the cold and sour one for whom we pray, does not listen to God, but, as the Spirit inspired St. Paul, love bears all things, and for God, nothing is impossible. It seems that the Spirit likes us to be patient with God, not only with our neighbors. Give the Spirit his time, do not be impatient. Trust in the power of Love, lest you are being tested as to whether or not you have that patience and trust in Love.
