278. Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)

Meditations no. 583 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Patience in the fight against one’s own defects.

THE fame of Jesus has reached the last villages of Palestine. Also to the ears of a woman who had had an issue of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much at the hands of many doctors and had spent all her goods without profiting her.

In a few words, St. Mark paints a portrait of a person who until now had been resigned to his illness. He has put the human means at his disposal to regain his health, but they have all failed. Now, however, a new light shines in his eyes: he has heard about Jesus of Nazareth and he approaches him full of faith and with the desire to be healed: if I touch his clothes I will be healed, he said to himself.

Among the virtues of the haemorrhage, we dwell on one that is like the juice that gives flavour to all the others: patience. The years of illness, the repeated failures she has experienced, have not made her desist from her desire to be cured. She has been strong and, as our Father wrote, those who know how to be strong are not moved by the rush to collect the fruit of their virtue; they are patient. It is a virtue that is completely necessary to mature interiorly, to grow in holiness.

“Agricultural tasks require effort, tenacity, patience … The ploughshare must be driven into the ground, fertilized and watered; plants must be protected from frost or excessive sun, and pests must be fought … A life of hard work, of silent struggle, in cold and heat, rain or drought, before harvesting the fruits. The same is true in the inner struggle. Each one of us is the field that God cultivates (1 Cor 3:9), and you must be willing … to spend your entire existence in that effort-from dawn to dusk, day after day-without ceasing to work for any reason, without squeezing out the burden, without taking off your shoulder. … for the Trinity is watching us at every moment.”

It is possible that at times it will take a long time - months, years - to overcome a dominant defect, to firmly acquire a virtue. We must not be discouraged if this happens: God points out to each soul its own path, its own time, and moreover he waits for our correspondence. Patience, stubbornness or perseverance, call it what you will: we need it, and God gives it to us. Because there are some people, our Father said, who are like (…) butterflies; they never stop in one place, they go from flower to flower; they do nothing, nothing fixed, nothing good and definitive, and they get tired, they have no patience. We must have it, and be in a thing until, with the grace of the Lord, we do it as well as possible (…). Let us ask the Blessed Virgin, who is the model of all virtues, to teach us also that virtue of patience, which is indispensable to serve God.

Today is a good day to renew the resolution “not to rebel when things are not going humanly: when we are not in good health; when we suffer setbacks in the family, professional or social environment; when our soul resembles a dry cistern and it is difficult or arid for us to deal with God; when we do not see the fruits of our apostolic labor. … Let us accept God’s Will without protest, let us have more recourse to prayer and mortification - let us never leave them-, let us strive to continue the sowing of love and understanding everywhere. And let us cultivate the holy virtue of patience. As Teresa of Avila, to whom our Father was so devoted, wrote,”patience obtains all things.” Especially if we seek only the glory of God and the good of souls. Then, yes, we will experience with joy that “God alone is enough!”

Patience in the personal apostolate and in the work of St. Raphael, when it seems that souls do not respond.

Saint Paul praises the Corinthians for their virtues and asks them to also be distinguished by their generosity. Just as you have an abundance of everything - of faith, of word, of knowledge, of all care and of the charity that we have communicated to you - also be abundant in this grace. He tells them not to tire of doing good to others, to carry out the work of mercy that they had set out to do with other Christians most in need. It is a piece of advice that we can and must apply to the apostolic task. If we are to be patient with ourselves, for the same reason we must be patient with others. It is this patience that impels us to be understanding of others, convinced that souls, like good wine, are improved with time.

Patient, in the first place, in the personal apostolate of friendship and confidence, which constitutes the essence of the apostolate according to the spirit of Opus Dei. When a soul who is fit to join the work, and even to receive our Christian vocation in the Work, puts up difficulties, the solution is not to put it aside. Certainly, in the use of his freedom, he may not correspond to the Lord’s plan, but then it is necessary to redouble the supernatural means - prayer, sacrifice - and the human means - to dedicate more time to it, to deepen friendship - because often the initial difficulty ends up vanishing. When working to extend an apostolic enterprise, “no” is never a definitive answer: insist!

“It is like fishing: even the big fish put up more resistance to the hook. But what a joy it is for the fisherman when, after a while of struggle, he finally manages to catch a particularly valuable game! Let us not lose courage or patience because, many times, those who seem to resist the divine call end up surrendering to the Lord. How many have come to the Church, to the Work, as the fruit of insistent prayer and mortification, after years of dealing! We must be perseveringly stubborn, insisting opportune et importune (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), on occasion and without occasion, but always with sympathy and affection, without becoming burdensome, fully respecting the privacy and freedom of all.”

Patience is especially necessary in the work of St. Raphael, a campus where those called to the Work normally grow as Numeraries or as Aggregates. Be patient, our Father said to those who began this apostolate in a place. The harvest will come. The roses will come. The thorns will also come, naturally. Well, it would be good if we did not find thorns in this harvest of roses that is our apostolate! But if we squeeze the thorns with love, new roses will also bloom in our wounds… .

The work of St. Raphael is essential for the development and consolidation of all the apostolates. When St. Raphael’s work is not done, our Founder warned, none of the other labors proceed, and there are no vocations. On the other hand, if this work is done with a supernatural spirit, with sacrifice, with affection, with a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, using the means that are indicated, then-attached to that fiber-the labors of St. Gabriel and all the others come out on their own. And he added: one must begin with a few, and have patience and perseverance. If one day you expected twelve to go to a Circle, and instead only two or one arrive, the Circle is given to them as if the twelve had gone.

Let us meditate constantly on these other words of St. Josemaría. If you do not gather a few hundred young boys around you, eager to deform themselves, if you do not have the patience to put up with their little nonsense, and you do not understand them with affection when they make mistakes, it cannot be said that you are doing the work of St. Raphael! You have to give them a clear awareness of the duties of a Christian; and, when they do not have our faith, treat them with loyal friendship, be very close friends with them, and give in to everything except that which is sin, even if it is minor: there you do not give in.

Patience at the beginning of a new work, when the fruits are slow to arrive.

IF PATIENCE is necessary for the accomplishment of any apostolic task, it is all the more necessary in the initial times-which can last for several years-of the work of the Work in a country, in a new city, or in an unknown environment. We have the example of our Founder, who in the beginnings of Opus Dei worked with optimism and perseverance, even if he reaped limited fruits. During the first six years of the Work, he confided to us on one occasion, I was almost alone. They were hard, hard years. And he added at another time: we know that it is difficult to bring people together. It is difficult. We have to overcome so many personal difficulties and so many others of environment. And sometimes those put by certain viperine tongues that, after half a century, continue in the same thing as at the beginning: patience! The Lord allows this to assess our perseverance and the love we put into his service.

If the fruits are slow to come, it is time to rekindle faith, to strengthen hope, to be kindled in a new desire for souls. The Lord awaits our prayers to pour himself out, as we see in the Gospel of today’s Mass. One of the leaders of the synagogue approached Jesus and said: “My daughter is on her last legs. Come, lay your hands on her so that she may be saved and live.” And Jesus raised up the daughter of Jairus, after making her wait because of the intrusion of the haemorrhaging woman, who with her humble faith wrested another miracle.

The Lord can make us wait. But if faith does not waver, if we work with patience and perseverance, the fruits will come. It is like when wine is put in a vat for the first time: it does not have the bouquet that only the years give; but after time passes, when the mother is formed, all the wine becomes good. If we keep in mind the warnings of our Father, there will be no room for discouragement, even if the Lord tests our patience with a long wait, before granting fruits. Because, moreover, we must not forget that the most important performance must be produced in our own soul, through the growth of the virtues. In this sense, patience “is what provides our faith with a very firm foundation; it allows our hope to grow to the highest; it directs our actions, so that we can remain in the way of Christ while we advance with his help; finally, it makes us persevere as children of God”.

Often, our Father told us about the beginnings of new apostolic labors, and it can be applied to any beginning, you will not immediately see the fruit, because you work with apparently crude material. But your teachings, your example, your patience, the affection you exude, your knowledge, the practices of piety that they see you carry out … all this has an influence. And without your realizing it, you are forming them. It is quite possible that it is those of the immediate generation who reap the harvest, repeating what the Gospel says: one is the one who sows and the other who reaps (Jn 4:36). So you can be around for many years and not enjoy either the flowers or the fruits. … Blessed be God! (… ). Be patient. Never lose it. People who seem very rude, later it turns out that they are not so rude, that they have better delicacies with God than we do. At the end, with their coarseness, they will sing a song of love. … And we will have sung it too, because God will have helped us. Therefore, do not complain. Go ahead! If the bread is hard, it means that you have good teeth. If not, the Lord will give you porridge or bottle. He gives you solid food because you can chew it.

The Blessed Virgin also waited for many years, full of faith, in the home of Nazareth, before “the hour” of Jesus arrived. In that apparent darkness, she was already collaborating with her Son in the redemption of all humanity. Let us come to her full of trust, because in the end, even like her, we will be able to sing a song of joy and thanksgiving as we contemplate the harvest of our apostolate in the service of the Church.