Suffering With Joy

Sabbath Moments: Perseverance

September 24, 2011

Awareness of God

Welcome to this meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Please visit her to read others’ Sabbath Moments of the week.

This week we got some good and lengthy rain showers – just the right kind to soak the earth after a parching summer.  Rainy days are good days for resting in the Lord.

My experiment with late sowed zucchini failed.  I’m getting 4 inch veggies that just won’t grow longer or bigger.  We’ve had such weather extremes – very hot then dropping into the upper 40s at night – that I think, along with the angle of light changing, conditions aren’t good for normal growth.  However, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and nothing learned.  I’ll move the second planting up a couple of weeks next summer and see what happens.  And here’s hoping next summer won’t be so hot.  God is my partner in gardening and He always gives me a lot to think about as I try to coax the best out of the plants and apply the knowledge of those more experienced than I whom He puts in my path.

Hives are still a problem.  At times they drive me crazy and I have to deal with the trade-off of having more of them and itching worse with taking more prednisone than I want.  Right now I’m opting for less drug and more itch.  This is a test of perseverance, which happens to be the lesson from Divine Intimacy today.

Father Gabriel writes:

The angel, a pure spirit, is stable by nature; if he makes a resolution, he holds to it; but this is not the case with us.  We, being composed of spirit and matter, must suffer the consequences of the instability and fluctuations of the latter.

As stability is characteristic of spirit, so instability is characteristic of matter; hence it becomes so difficult for us to be perfectly constant in the good.  Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of the sensible part of our nature which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. [No kidding.]

Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating.  That which at one moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it.

However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never asks the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can, by the help of grace, become steadfast.

Physical and mental obstacles to bearing up under life’s difficulties seem, at times, to be monumental.  Sometimes it looks like a lot of things pile up on us all at once and all our good intentions fly out the window in a second.  It’s especially difficult to come to terms with chronic conditions that fluctuate in severity and are badly affected by other temporary difficulties.  Father Gabriel notes:

Sometimes just a momentary inattention, an unexpected happening, a little weariness or emotion, is enough to make us commit some fault that we had sincerely resolved to avoid at any cost, and here we have failed again!  This, however, is no reason for being discouraged or sad; rather it is a motive for humbling ourselves, for recognizing our weakness and begging more insistently for God’s help to rise at once and begin again.

Because our human nature is so unstable, our perseverance will usually consist in continually beginning again.  This is the perseverance to which we should all attain, because it depends on our good will, in the sense that God has infused this virtue in our soul, giving us at every moment sufficient grace to practice it.

It is not in our power to free ourselves from this instability of our nature, and therefore we cannot avoid every slackening in virtue, every negligence, weakness, or fault; but it is within our power to correct ourselves as soon as we perceive that we have failed. This is the kind of perseverance, that God demands of us, and when we practice it faithfully, and are always prompt in rising after each fall, He will crown our efforts by granting us the supreme grace of final perseverance.

So dealing with hives along with everything else is God’s way of strengthening the virtue of perseverance in me.  Just as an athlete doesn’t get to be a gold medal winner in the Olympics without daily intensive practice, so we will not achieve heaven without rigorous practice of perseverance.  I’m going for the eternal gold.  How about you?

Thanks to everyone who’s been praying for me.  I’m sure your prayers are helping.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: gardening, suffering, virtue

8 Comments to Sabbath Moments: Perseverance

1. 

   Sorry to hear your beloved zucchini didn’t make it. Alas…

   Fr. Gabriel’s words certainly strike a chord with me. I know all too well what it’s like to be plagued for years by various problems, and then feeling as if there is no hope or that I am forever to be a failure before God–or that He has even turned His back on me. But Fr. Gabriel is right; our humanity will always be beset with temptations, emotional swings, illness, etc. The key is remaining steadfast. No, it’s not easy, but it’s an inescapable part of the Christian walk until we at last arrive on heaven’s shores.

   In “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis points out that each of us faces different struggles as a result of our different temperaments, upbringings, physical and mental limitations, etc. Thus, a particular problem may prove to be a much more difficult struggle and require more fortitude and heroism for one person than for another. And God sees their hearts and knows what they’re going through, whereas we can only judge from externals. He went on to say that when our feeble flesh at last falls away we will be left with the fruits of our spiritual journey, and that there will be surprises, as “the last shall be first and the first last.”

   My struggles with generalized anxiety, not to mention other issues, have taught me the truth of those words and to learn not to be judgmental, as we don’t always know what others have gone through.

   God bless us both with grace, mercy, and strength to endure to the end.

   Evan
   Evan recently posted..Mass Manners
Evan on September 24th, 2011
2. 

   Thanks for the illustration by C.S. Lewis, Evan. We always need reminders that we’re not in this alone. God designs our trials to custom-fit what He wants from us. What’s hard for me is not to be in a prolonged state of rebellion. Keeping my eyes on the cross is the best way to make it. It will be so great to have a glorified body some day!
barb on September 24th, 2011
3. 

   I am still praying for your hives to disappear! I think itching is one of the worst things to bear.
   I love your words – God is my partner in gardening.
   God bless!
   Colleen recently posted..Sunday Snippets – September 26
Colleen on September 24th, 2011
4. 

   Thanks for the prayers, Colleen. I sure need them.
barb on September 24th, 2011
5. 

   Dealing with Julianna’s chronic illnesses for the first two years taught me that it’s not the big stuff that gets to you, that stops you, it’s the constant little stuff. How ironic is that?
   Kathleen Basi recently posted..Sunday Snippets
Kathleen Basi on September 25th, 2011
6. 

   I’m sorry your zucchini didn’t work out. I’m sure you’ll have better luck next year!

   Will continue to pray that your hives clear up.
   Carol@simple_catholic recently posted..Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival (September 25, 2011)
Carol@simple_catholic on September 25th, 2011
7. 

   Thanks for your prayers, Carol. If the Lord will give us a more moderate summer next year, the zucchini will do well as long as I get ahead of the squash bugs.
barb on September 25th, 2011
8. 

   You bet. It’s the little stuff. Maybe that’s why we have the saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff” as a way of keeping our eyes on the big picture.
barb on September 25th, 2011