“I must tell you what I need so that you can send it by return mail. I need:
-
“Patience. I have been using mine for so many years, it is beginning to get a bit worn out.” (From a letter written by Bl. Miguel Pro)
As humorous as this statement is, isn’t it true that many people pray for patience because they feel they don’t have any? What do they receive? Just the virtue, or the opportunity to practice it also? None of us expect our friends to send us an extra reserve from their virtue of patience. Blessed Miguel Pro spent his adult life pursuing Our Lord in a vocation to the Jesuits during the Mexican revolution. He spent a number of years in exile during his novitiate and seminary formation. He spent his ministry in Mexico after being ordained to the priesthood, celebrating undercover Masses, retreats and spiritual missions, providing for those who were spiritually and materially poor. Throughout all of this, he continuously approached life with an appropriate devotion to God and His work, and a sense of humor.
There is a healthy balance between taking the spiritual life too seriously and not seriously enough. As Saint Pio of Pietrelcina said, “Joy with peace is the sister of charity. Serve the Lord with laughter.” Blessed Miguel Pro worked hard to cooperate with God’s grace and achieve sanctity, but he did it with joy and delight in the events of life, and was always able to bring a laugh where it was most wanted. Even when it came to practicing virtue (which he did with heroism in his circumstances), Blessed Miguel Pro was able to joke and laugh in a way that demonstrated his humility and the fact that it was God Who gave him the strength to practice those virtues. Sometimes it is encouraging for those still left on this earth to see that the saints themselves sometimes felt their patience wearing thin just like the rest of humanity. Even more encouraging, however, is the example they give in continuing to pray for the grace to practice those virtues and cooperating with that grace when given, as it always is.
