February 26, 2025 Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ: This Jubilee Year, Pope Francis invites you and me to make this Lent our personal journey of hope. He asks us to “pray frequently for the grace of patience, which is both the daughter of hope and at the same time its firm foundation.” To hope is to wait for something that has already been given to us: salvation in the infinite love of God, the love that gives flavor to our life and that constitutes the cornerstone on which the world remains standing, despite all the significant challenges ahead caused by our sinfulness. (cf. Spes non Confundit) To hope is to wait. But I find it difficult to wait for anything. I get antsy when I’m running late, especially when I find myself behind a pokey driver on the road ahead. Perhaps you find it difficult to wait, too. Maybe your spouse is always making you wait. You lose patience with him. Maybe a loved one suffers from addictions or mental disease and you’re losing your patience coping with the difficult behavioral traits. The lines are long at her office and the next doctor’s appointment is months away. Sometimes you just want to cancel everything. You’re sick of waiting. Or maybe you’re losing patience with God who doesn’t answer a longstanding prayer. We are just plain tired of waiting. Patience is in very short supply. This virtue of patience is closely linked to hope. In our fast-paced world, we are used to wanting everything now. Patience has been put to flight by frenetic haste. This leads to anxiety and even gratuitous violence, resulting in more unhappiness. St. Paul often speaks of patience in the context of our need for perseverance and confident trust in God’s promises. Patience, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life. This Lent, let us learn to pray fervently for the grace of patience. Patience and hope must be our constant companions that guide our steps towards the goal of a closer relationship with the Lord. It is that intimate relationship with Jesus that energizes our efforts to become more patient in living the journey of hope enroute to the joy of heaven. May your journey through Lent 2025 find you savoring the flavor of God’s endless love as you encounter the Lord of all hopefulness in the daily challenge to live the virtue of patience. In Christ our Hope, |
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