Thought for the Day – 6 July – The Patience of Jesus Christ

Thought for the Day – 6 July – Meditations with Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)

PATIENCE
Meditations for a Month

The Patience of Jesus Christ

As in all other virtues, so in patience, Jesus Chris is our Teacher and Example. None ever sufferer as He did and, therefore, none had to exercise such patience as He exercised.

1. How patient He was with those who reviled and abused Him! Never one indignant word, never one angry look, nothing but sweetness and kindness. ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.‘ Oh, when shall I be able to imitate the patience of Jesus! when shall I approach, even at a distance, the Divine Model, Whom I profess to imitate!
2. How patient He was with His Apostles! How their roughness, selfishness, stupidity, must have jarred upon Him! They misunderstood His word they quarrelled among themselves, His predictions respecting the Passion fell upon deaf ears, they all forsook Him in time of danger yet, He never was ruffled by the faintest breath of anger or impatience. He Who was the Infinite God put up with their inconstancy, selfishness, ambition.
   Once more, how far am I from the gentleness and patience of the Son of God!
3. In the midst of physical agony such as none other ever tasted, how patient He was! Nothing save a gentle moaning expressive of the agony He was enduring, escaped His lips when the scourges lacerated His Sacred Body and when the nails were driven through His hands and feet. He endured that which even He could not have borne had He not been God and used His Divinity to enable Him to suffer more. Yet, He was always submissive to the Will of God, always taking a sort of strange joy in His acutest agony because, He knew, the rich reward at hand, the long-lived seed, who through Him, would be redeemed from the wrath of God and endless misery.