Thought for the Day – 24 August – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)
Mary’s Patience
“We too, have our share of suffering and humiliation.
It is useless to try to escape from it, useless to rebel against it.
If we embrace the cross patiently and lovingly, a Jesus and Mary did, it will seem lighter, even welcome.
If we attempt to cast it from us, it will weigh more heavily on our shoulders.
There are two kinds of men, those who bear their cross, patiently and embrace it because they wish to be like Jesus and, those who do not want to suffer and rebel.
The former may stagger beneath their daily burden but, they have peace of soul because they are putting into practice, the great Gospel precept: “By your patience, you will win your souls” (Lk 21:19).
They know that they are on the path to Heaven and this thought is consolation, which cannot be taken from them.
The second group of men, rebel against the cross and, therefore, suffer doubly, in body and in soul.
“The senseless man,” the Holy Spirit says, “loves not to be reproved” (Prov 15:12).
To which of these two categories do we belong?
Do we love our cross, or do we carry it patiently, at least?
Anyone who does not want the cross, does not want Jesus.
Let the example of Mary and of the Saints inspire us.
They always bore their burden patiently, they even looked for suffering and humiliation.
If we cannot reach such heroic heights, let us at last, accept, from the hands of Our Lord, the cross which He offers us.
Let us accept the sufferings which we meet on the way of life.
If we are not heroic enough to seek to be unknown and mortified, let us resolve to accept, patiently, the inevitable sorrows of life.”
Antonio Cardinal Bacci
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