Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love.
The Way #1
Josemaria Escriva
How can a donkey work if it is not fed or given enough rest, or if its spirit is broken by too many beatings?
Though it is perfectly natural to experience sadness over loss or injury, the virtue of patience enables us to bear suffering without being broken by sorrow or led to forsake the way of virtue.
We need patience to endure the sorrow that besets us so that we do not betray the good we have.
"The truly virtuous person doesn’t just do the right thing; he also desires rightly."
"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
Forgiveness, then, is the requirement for a true worship of God.
Christian materialism, instead of making us despise consumer goods, should move us to take good care of the material wealth that we possess.
"Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could call everyone in our workaday world friends!"
The role of the laity in the Church is to sanctify the temporal order from within.