How do you respond when bad things happen to you? When you experience disappointment or setbacks? When you are hurt by something someone said or did?
We must be on guard when experiencing sorrow, lest it take over, distract us, or even shut us down. While being sad over sufferings in life is natural—Jesus himself wept when his friend Lazarus died (see Jn 11:1-35)—we must be careful not to let sorrow consume us. When we notice ourselves falling into a melancholy sadness, we might be tempted to close in on ourselves and fail to be attentive to the people around us because we are so preoccupied with our own troubles. If we allow these negative emotions to gnaw at us, we might become sluggish in our responsibilities, not giving the best of ourselves at work or with our family. Some people simply are not pleasant to be around when they are sad. They become gloomy, lethargic, or grumpy. They might even let their frustrations out on others.
Saint Francis de Sales says that excessive sorrow also can have damaging effects on our spiritual life. It “upsets the soul, arouses inordinate fears, creates a disgust for prayer … deprives the mind of prudence, resolution, judgment, and courage, and destroys its strength. In a word, it is like a severe winter which spoils all the beauty of the country and weakens all the animals. It takes away all sweetness from the soul and renders it disabled.” De Sales goes on to say we must “oppose vigorously any tendency to sadness” for “by means of sorrow, the enemy tries to make us weary of good works.”[1] This is why we need the virtue of patience.
Living in a fallen world, we are regularly going to have various disappointments, sorrows, and sufferings. The way we face life’s sorrows, however, is a question of moral character. Do we allow those sorrows to dominate our existence? Or do we bear our sorrows in a praiseworthy manner, not allowing them to control us? Patience is the virtue that moderates our sorrow, safeguarding a clear mind in the midst of life’s difficulties. Patience helps us bear sadness in such a way that we do not abandon whatever good we should be doing in our lives.
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. Patience preserves a certain cheerfulness and peace of mind in the face of injury, suffering, and sadness. It prevents us from being “discouraged”—from losing courage.
The patient person, therefore, possesses a great freedom. He is free to stay on course with his life and fulfill his responsibilities, at least to some reasonable extent, even when bad things happen to him. The person lacking in patience, however, is so overcome by his troubles that he fails to give the best of himself in his relationships with others. Donald DeMarco points out that patience is not a passive virtue. It requires much inner strength not to be discouraged in the midst of great trials and sadness.[2]
Many years ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with brain cancer. The last time I saw him was after Mass. I could tell that the cancer had taken a toll on him. He was pale, had lost a lot of weight, and looked worn down. Yet even in his suffering, he remained joyful, expressing gratitude to others and heartfelt interest in their lives. With a smile on his face, he grabbed my hand and asked, “So, how are things at the college going?” He proceeded to ask me a number of questions about my classes, the campus ministry, and my family. When I asked him how he was doing, he gave an honest but hopeful response: “It’s hard. I’m in a lot of pain. But I’ve lived a good life. I’m ready.”
I certainly was edified by his hope in eternal life as his death was approaching. But I will always remember even more his patience in the midst of intense suffering. He was not a man closed in on his problems, even in the face of death. He remained peaceful, cheerful, and focused on others. Men and women who possess the virtue of patience have a tremendous inner strength that enables them to bear even life’s most acute sufferings well. People lacking in patience focus so much on themselves that they seem almost incapable of being kind, thoughtful, and generous to others amid life’s many disappointments.
My friend’s patience was related to the more severe sorrows people experience as they know they are approaching death. But we need patience to help moderate the many smaller, ordinary sorrows that come up in daily life. Though in modern use the word “patience” is usually limited to the sorrow of waiting, the virtue of patience itself is about all kinds of sadness: sorrow over a dating relationship that ended, sadness about not getting a job, disappointment over something not turning out well, regret over something you said. Life is full of times when things don’t go the way we hope. We need patience to help moderate those sorrows so they do not consume us. Patience moderates our sorrow so that we can continue giving the best of ourselves to the people in our lives and to our daily responsibilities.
How well do you respond when you experience sadness, setbacks, and disappointment? Are you able to maintain a steadiness of mind that allows you to continue to be there for the people depending on you? Or do you become distracted, dejected, and closed in on yourself? Do you become like Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh: discouraged, hopeless, and wallowing in your miseries? Other people are counting on you not to collapse in your sorrows but to have the inner strength of patience to bear your trials well.
The main focus of patience, however, is sorrow over the way people treat us. In our fallen world, people are going to misunderstand us at times. We will be unappreciated, disrespected, and unloved. People will gossip about us, criticize us, make fun of us, treat us unjustly, and be dishonest with us. There will be other times when our friends will let us down. They will fail to think ahead and follow through. Other people will intentionally work against us, lie to us, oppose us, and hurt us. Even loved ones will be a cause of sorrow: Our children will overwhelm us at times with their behavior when they are young and with their poor choices when they are older. Our spouse will hurt us, and our marriage may be disappointing at times and go through seasons of darkness.
Bearing these kinds of hardships—hardships inflicted upon us by other people—can be most challenging. We might experience sorrow over unfortunate circumstances, like unexpected traffic or getting sick. We may also feel sorrow over our own personal mistakes, like failing an exam or showing up late to an important meeting. But it’s particularly painful when we experience sorrow from another person whose words or actions hurt us. The hardest of all to bear are attacks that come from good people. As Saint Francis de Sales explains, “It often happens that two good men, both with good intentions, because of conflicting ideas stir up great persecutions and attacks on one another.”[3] Since we esteem the opinion of good, virtuous men, especially those who are our friends, these sorrows can hurt the most.
In sum, we can brood over the various hurts others inflict on us. They can preoccupy us and weigh us down so much that we are distracted from giving our attention to the people in our lives and what we need to be doing right now. Under the weight of life’s many sorrows, we need the inner strength of patience not to be overcome by the sorrow that comes from these personal injuries.
Reflection Questions
• How well do you handle sadness in life? When bad things happen, when you’re disappointed, or when you’re hurt by something someone did to you, are you still able to give yourself to your family, coworkers, and others? Or do you tend to close in on yourself and your sorrows?
- Even as Jesus was dying on the Cross he continued to remain focused on serving others. Read John 19:25-27; Luke 23:34, 42—43. In these three scenes, how did Jesus model the virtue of patience on the Cross?
- How does Christ’s example on Calvary inspire you not to be taken over by sorrow and to remain faithful in doing good for others even when you are sad?
- Some of the greatest sufferings in life come when our friends let us down and hurt us. How do you think Jesus felt when Judas betrayed him in the garden (see Mt 26:15)? How do you think he felt when Peter denied him three times (see Lk 22:54—62)?
[1] St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (New York: Image, 2003), 241.
[2] Donald DeMarco, The Heart of Virtue: Lessons from Life and Literature Illustrating the Beauty and Value of Moral Character (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 176.
[3] St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, 118.
By Edward Sri
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash