Patience - January 5

Patience
Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings

ON THE AFFECTIONS

"A dreary world were this old world of ours­ -
Cold, cheerless, heartless, void of beauty,dead­ -
If no redeeming grace were round it shed,
Gemming Earth's rugged way with fairest flowers.

But oh! amid life's bleakest, dreariest hours,
There is allotted to the care-worn mind
A sheltering haven where it rest may find,
Though, scowling dark, the wintry tempest lowers.

When the weak soul beneath affliction smarts,
A soother, strengthener, kind Heaven doth send
The love of sister, mother, brother, friend­ -
The sympathetic ties of kindred hearts.

I thank my God, that He hath let me know
These sweetest ties that cheer our clouded path below. "
-M. Russell, S.J.

Joyfulness of the heart is the life of a man and a never-failing treasure of holiness.
-Ecclus. xxx. 23.
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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