Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Patience - December 8

Patience
Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings

CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD


God desires only that which is best for us, namely, our sanctification. "This is the will of God," says the Apostle, "your sanctification" (Thess. iv. 3). Let us take care, therefore, to subdue our own will, uniting it always to the will of God; and thus also let us endeavor to control our mind, reflecting that everything that God does is best for us.

Whoever does not act thus, will never find true peace. All the perfection which can be attained in the world, which is a place of purification, and consequently a place of troubles and afflictions, consists in suffering patiently those things which are opposed to our self-love; and, in order to suffer them with pa­tience, there is no more efficacious means than a willingness to suffer them in order to do the will of God. "Submit thyself then to Him, and be at peace" (Job xxii. 21).

He that ac­quiesces with the divine will in everything, is always at peace; and nothing of all that happens to him can make him unhappy. "Whatever shall befall the just man, it shall not make him sad" (Prov. xii. 21). But why is the just man never miserable in any circumstances? Because he knows well, that whatever happens in the world, happens through the will of God.
-St. Alphonsus Liguori.
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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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