English
EspañolPatience, in the family, is not to sit still and put up with others. It is not to restrain oneself from scolding them with force. Patience is to love them beyond the here and now, to set aside space and time for them instead of spending so much on myself, to love them more than my tiredness. Patience allows us to look at them with peace, without irritations. That is why patience is so active: a pruning of oneself and creative inspiration for others.
Text
“Paul wants to make it clear that “patience” is not a completely passive attitude, but one accompanied by activity, by a dynamic and creative interaction with others. For this reason it is translated as “kind”; love is ever ready to be of assistance.” (The Joy of Love, n.93)
Commentary
Ana Luisa is the youngest sister in the house. Her two older sisters know that she is generous and sweet, and they always “borrow her clothes and stuff” without asking for them. When Ana Luisa finds out, she looks at her sisters somewhat seriously and does not say anything. However, sometimes, she fights with her sisters rather harshly over something unimportant. When Ana Luisa gets upset, her sisters do not listen to her; they say she is “patience personified” and joke about it. Well, her sisters are wrong, and so is Ana Luisa. In all intimate coexistence, such as a family, there is friction between people because they have limitations; they are not perfect. If they love each other, they need to be patient. Why?
Because patience is a form of love, a concrete way of self-giving and embracing, patience is not passive, it is not “putting up with.” To “put up with” can only be equivalent to the repression of those who have lost all hope that others will improve, think that everything is useless, and have no other choice but to swallow such a bitter pill.
Patience aims instead at deeds; it is optimistic. It is the effort to understand in order to accept others. They have their own way of being, their own time to improve and mature. We are not their prosecutors or executioners. To be patient implies getting out of one´s self-absorption. To be open to the peculiarity of the other and to assume it with affection. Patience promotes an attitude of service, imagining, without laziness or anger, how to help them improve—helping without resentment, without reproaches, without being perfect. Patience in love means correspondence: be patient with those who are patient with you. Do not exasperate them.
