The Patience of Faith

Reflect

Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the early and the late rain. You also be patient (Jam 5: 7-8)

Meditate

Some of us are more impatient than others. But impatience is deep within us all. Indeed, we can interpret Original Sin in this light. It can be seen as the desire to possess immediately—to grasp for what God intended to give. Ever since that first sin, our fallen human nature has this tragic inclination to seek the immediate possession of things. Our technological society only exacerbates this wound. We grow accustomed to instantaneous responses and results. Every business and company caters to this, promising us prompt service, immediate results, etc. No waiting.

How different is the life of faith. It requires patience and waiting.... Scripture often gives voice to this truth with the plaintive yet faithful plea How long, O Lord? (Ps 13 [12]:2; 35 [34]:17; cf. 6:4; Hab 1:2). The initiative always belongs to God. Faith requires us to wait on him, to allow him to make himself known. We operate according to his schedule, not our own. And if he seems to delay, we do not take things into our own hands.

The refusal to wait—that impatient grasping for control—leads us into sin. With the Israelites it took the form of idolatry. Not willing to wait for the Lord, they fashioned a god for themselves. At the heart of idolatry lurks impatience with God. When we grow tired of waiting for him, we begin to create our own gods—perhaps not graven images, but certainly our own little interests, ideologies, and activities that eclipse him in our hearts....

Each of us has experienced this impatience. When will God answer my prayers? How much longer must I keep going? Where is he? And yet, as dangerous as that impatience may be, it can become an occasion to increase in our desire to see him and to experience his power. In this regard we have the example of our Lord himself longing for the fulfilment of his mission: I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! (Lk 12:49-50).

Father Paul Scalia
Father Scalia is a priest in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia.

Act

Spend some time before the Eucharistic Lord, and look at our lives – where am I being impatient with the Lord; and what is the Lord speaking to me in this period of waiting.