The Gift Of Perseverance
It is obedience that welcomes the seed of
the Word, patience that makes it fruitful, perseverance that reaps it.
In those in thrall to worldliness, the love of the Father
cannot find.... the least ground for growth. Lacking this love they are simply
unable to welcome the seed the Son is and to yield his harvest.
Let us give thanks to the Father, the heavenly husbandman
who through the Holy Spirit has made us capable of receiving the seed, the Son.
The fire of love that he has poured out upon our hearts has burnt up the
thorns, cleansed our field, has enabled us to endure and to yield a harvest
thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. It is obedience that welcomes the seed of
the Word, patience that makes it fruitful, perseverance that reaps it. What the
Apostle said of athletes - "the race is for all, but the prize is for
one" - holds good of the virtues: they all bring us on the way of God's
kingdom, but only one enables us to attain the prize. Otherworldliness,
poverty, vigils, almsgiving, fasting, obedience, patience all help us on our
course, but perseverance alone wins us the victory. "That man will be
saved who endures to the last." The Lord sits in judgement on the ends of
the earth. It is not going half-way, much less is it making a beginning that
decides one's lot. How one finishes, not one's first effort, is reckoned
virtue. We conclude then that patience wins approval for obedience,
perseverance crowns patience with all blessing. Patience tests and proves
obedience. Perseverance brings glory to patience. May he who has granted us
obedience and not denied us patience utterly, may he, the Father through the
Son, in the Spirit, bestow on us the gift of perseverance.
BLESSED ISAAC OF STELLA
Blessed Isaac of Stella (d. c. 1169) was the Cistercian
abbot of Stella,
near Poiters, France.
near Poiters, France.