Patience With Pain

Advent is the season of waiting, and patience.  St. James reminds us of the farmer who sows seed in springtime and waits for it to break open somehow mysteriously in the "womb" of the soil and the burgeon forth into a small sprout, which grows into a plant, and in time bears fruit for the harvest. (See Js 5: 7-8).  Today's culture can't wait, can't bear pain, needs instant gratification, leaving us torn between two opposite poles.  Some of us know physical pain and debilitation and the hope we place in doctors and physical therapists.  Happily, again, over time, healing takes place as we notice simple things like going up and down stairs normally (or almost normally) again.
All of us bear some spiritual pain, either in our unsatisfied longing for a deeper relationship with God, or in some spiritual trial in which we find ourselves.  The remarkable story of Servant of God, Elisabeth Leseur (1866-1914) is an outstanding example of patience with suffering.  Her husband, Felix, a doctor, declared himself an atheist just before their marriage, was very public about his atheism and taunted his wife throughout their marriage.  Elisabeth bore this, prayed for him, and offered her suffering from breast cancer for his conversion.  After her death, he found a letter she had written to him requesting that he not only become a Catholic, but a priest as well.  Shocked and angry, he went to Lourdes, the hotbed of these "foolish miracles", to publicly debunk the childlike faith of his wife and once and for all "prove" that atheism was the only path that made sense.  It took courage to choose Lourdes for the location of his refutation, and sure enough, in God's plan, he was converted, and served 23 years as a Dominican priest.  Elisabeth's patience and sacrifice "paid off" and serves as a model for us in our desire for instant answers.  No, constant prayer, faith and patience do not go unnoticed.  Let us put them into practice even more so this Advent.
Bro. Rene