Weekly Reflection 2/2/2020
REFLECTION
Presentation Of The Lord
February 1-2, 2020
When my children were toddlers, we would visit my parent’s home where they would play for hours with my mother. They would find the simplest game, playing it over and over. Each time they finished, the children would call out, “Do it again, Mom-Mom!” And she would. I prayed that I would inherit her patience. You will have to ask my children if I received such a gift.
Patience is a virtue regularly tested; driving on the roadway with ‘idiot’ drivers, dealing at our job sites with ‘stupid’ co-workers, struggling at home with ‘ungrateful’ family members. Others are labeled with derogatory adjectives in an attempt to excuse our own impatience. We live in a society that requires everything immediately and we refuse to wait for anything or anyone.
God is no exception. We petition the Lord with our needs and demand an instantaneous response. When we don’t receive a response or we receive a response that is not the one we had wished, we lose patience, and then faith. Yet our relationship with God cannot be treated like a grocery store express lane; quickly obtaining what we want and leaving only to return when we need something again.
God calls us into a relationship with Him that will last a lifetime and beyond. Such a relationship takes time, commitment and the ability to listen. It requires an understanding that our time is not necessarily God’s time. And we must be patient.
We can take an example from Anna and Simeon. With faith in God’s promise, they kept vigil at the temple in Jerusalem for the coming of the Messiah. After years of waiting their patience was rewarded with their meeting the Christ Child.
Let us not be too hard on ourselves. God knows we are all a work in progress and His patience is infinite. As St. Francis de Sales wrote, “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.”
Patrick J. Perkins