Spiritual readings _ the gift of perseverance

The Gift Of Perseverance  

It is obedience that welcomes the seed of the Word, patience that makes it fruitful, perseverance that reaps it.  
Blessed Isaac of Stella
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.