We have to put up with others. But that is by far not the worst. There is something much more difficult, to put up with self.
The beginner in the religious life thinks that she is going to conquer everything, overcome all, at one stroke. After some years, however, the soul perceives that it has not conquered evil with a single blow, that it has not conquered it at all. Nature, checked for a moment, comes back on a gallop, stronger than before, as if to seek compensation for having been opposed.
It is true that it would be very agreeable to finally master the game; to command victoriously by my own powers; to be definitively established in perfection; to be free from my former cowardices, and a certain laxity that characterized me for a long time.
But no! There is never an end to them. What patience I need to accept my imperfect condition, and what a clear knowledge of the right tactics to adopt! There is really no contradiction in my desire to correct my faults and my continued imperfection; between a zealous hunger for good and for a perfect peace of soul, after having done what is less perfect.
I must realize that my taste for good is a desire for fidelity; my falls into imperfection prove infirmity. These apparently opposite conditions are not contradictory at all, they merely fulfil different objectives.
"Courage then my soul. Carry your cross, the cross of your nothingness. Change, but in no exaggerated way. Accept your imperfection and by a divine trick use it to elevate yourself above the earth and to come close to God."
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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