Patience

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity [23] Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.


Last week, I was using a vacuum cleaner where the cannister kept falling out - over and over. I am used to the convenience of central vac, so I found this rather annoying. After about the fifth time of replacing the cannister, I began to get quite impatient with my task.

Now, I have known for a long time that I was never endowed with the gift of patience. Even as a child I realized that I came up short when patience was required for a given task or a situation. I simply didn't have the ability to ignore frustations that someone with patience would have been able to.

I didn't realize then that patience is a supernatural gift of the Holy Ghost; one that manifests His presence when exercised. I cringe at the thought of all the graces I have wasted over the years by not doing happily what I found to be troublesome, annoying and frustrating. No one around me would say that they were witnessing God's presence by the way I handled life's little (and not so little) annoyances.

Rewind to last week, when I had to keep replacing the cannister on the vaccuum. Just as I wanted to get angry with it, I suddenly said out loud, "Oh, Lord, please accept this frustration and inconvenience in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins and the salvation of my soul."

It was amazing! I immediately found peace and was able to finish the task at hand, even though the cannister kept popping out. Each time it fell on the floor, I just repeated my prayer, "Oh, Lord, please accept this frustration and inconvenience in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins and the salvation of my soul."

It's only been a week, but I have used that prayer several times since; I am trying to make it a habit to remember to say it every time I am faced with an adversity that I would normally find annoying.