Patience is a form of the moral virtue of fortitude: firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good.” ~ Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Love is patient. We’ve all heard that. But patience is a very high calling. We think of patience in waiting for women to get ready or men to finish work. However, real patience is a virtue. This virtue requires constant practice and commitment. Fortitude is firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of good. In like manner, patience is another form of this virtue. In particular, patience directly relates to marriage.
Patience enables one to endure present evils without sadness or resentment in conformity with the will of God.” ~ Modern Catholic Dictionary.
Patience is the virtue to see hardship through the eyes of God. It looks at fights with spouses, years of conflict, seasons of hurt as opportunities to live for better or worse. Patience helps us live our marriage vows through financial hardship, sickness and health, remembering the grace God gives us. This virtue not only reminds us that no matter how hard marriage becomes, we must also be vowed to give our marriage to God.
St. Monica is known as the mother of St. Augustine. He was a prodigal son figure who eventually converted and became one of the greatest scholars in the Catholic Church. Monica prayed for decades to convert her child, born in her marriage with a pagan named Patritius. In the midst of that conflict with her son, she was also married to an unfaithful man. Patritius was ultimately kindhearted to Monica, but prescribed to the pagan ideas of lust and carelessness. He was constantly unfaithful to his young wife and turned from God in every aspect of life. Monica endured her difficult marriage and motherhood with patience, knowing her influence was the only chance these men had at meeting God. After thirty years, both converted.
While hopefully none of us will be called to such intense patience in our marriages, we share a common denominator. If we are validly married, we are married for life. Even if we wake up one day to learn our spouse has been cheating on us, or our spouses abandon us. For better or worse, we are married until death do us part. It’s easy to say on the happiest day of our lives, but near impossible to remember on the worst day.
God never gives us something we cannot endure.
Our marriage vows are not a cruel joke God is waiting to play on us. He gives us what we need to endure the hardship we are called to. Even if that hardship includes a divorce-inducing response to the world, we are called to live our marriage. Patience allows us to bear the evils through the eyes of God. It allows us to understand the sacramental grace of matrimony can overcome to temptations of the devil. Patience is love, and love bears all things.
