Patience
Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings
CAN YOU DRINK THE CHALICE?
[Continued from yesterday]
Their fellow-disciples "were moved to indignation against the two brethren," thinking no doubt that they had been trying to steal a march on them.
"But Jesus called them to Him and said: 'You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them, and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be the greater among you let him be your minister, and he that will be first among you, shall be your servant; even as the Son of Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many.'"
Let me take to heart this lesson in humility which my Saviour teaches me both by word and example.
His golden promise afterward to St. Paul was, "I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts ix. 16).
"How blind then, are we if we believe that every suffering is a calamity and a proof of God's wrath; and that prosperity, and nothing but prosperity, is a sure sign of His favor!
"(a) He sends suffering in His mercy to atone here for past sin, to do here quickly the slow work of purgatory.
"(b) He sends suffering also to prevent sin; and to draw us out of sin, as suffering brought the prodigal home to Him.
"(c) Lastly, He sends suffering to His chosen ones, as to St. Paul; and these chosen ones then become, like Himself 'Saviours unto many.'"
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Compiled and Edited by Rev. F. X. Lasance
Author of "My Prayerbook," etc.
1937, Benziger Brothers
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See
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