Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: patience

You have to trust God

“I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every… Read More ›

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The Lord is near, even in darkness and dryness of spirit

‘Don’t grow weary of me’ . . . . I go away and come back to you. And when I go away, you remain close to me. Don’t be like the people who, in a season of dryness, flee from me and abandon Me. They don’t know their Savior. It is because I love you… Read More ›

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A Still Small Voice

What is in a whisper? When someone whispers, we quiet down, sharpen our ears and pay attention. A whisper conveys often the most important information–whether intimate words of love or secret words that tell of hidden matters. Whispers are usually more significant than shouts, but they also require more of us. If we fail to pay… Read More ›

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Don’t Give in to Discouragement

Psychologists tell us that one of the chief evils of our age, an evil apparently less evident in earlier ages, is that of easy defeat. Be this as it may, most people who are honest with themselves would probably have to admit to indulging in despondency. They are fortunate if they have nothing worse to… Read More ›

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Patience and Charity

Going to town one day to sell some small articles, Abba Agathon met a cripple on the roadside, paralyzed in his legs, who asked him where he was going. Abba Agathon replied, ‘To town, to sell some things.’ The other said, ‘Do me the favor of carrying me there.’ So he carried him to the… Read More ›

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Do not give up, but stand courageously

Let us charge into the good fight with joy and love without being afraid of our enemies. Though unseen themselves, they can look at the face of our soul, and if they see it altered by fear, they take up arms against us all the more fiercely. For the cunning creatures have observed that we… Read More ›

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Poison in your heart: the memory of insults

The memory of insults is the residue of anger. It keeps sins alive, hates justice, ruins virtue, poisons the heart, rots the mind, defeats concentration, paralyzes prayer, puts love at a distance, and is a nail driven into the soul. If anyone has appeased his anger, he has already suppressed the memory of insults, while… Read More ›

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Habitually impatient, or maybe not

Patience is not an easy virtue or habit to acquire.   It is not a permanent state to be arrived at, but a way of letting go of control of the illusion that being angry, or impatient, or demanding, will get results that will go according to my will.  Stuck in traffic, or dealing with someone… Read More ›

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Reward

What is the reward for loving God and by that fact our deepening ability to love others? The remuneration for love is too simply love more. If God is love, infinite love as manifested to us in Christ Jesus, then our relationship is not static but goes deeper into this mystery of love. Our movies,… Read More ›

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Forget the nit-picking

There are times, in all of our walks with God, in Catholicism, when we have something to say. There may be a matter, at church, to be blunt, that we don’t much like. There may even be scandal. Sometimes, it’s just a personal preference. We may be agitated at the length of a homily. Or… Read More ›

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