Frustration
In your patience you shall possess your souls (Luke 21:19).
Patience is one of the moral virtues emanating from the cardinal virtue of fortitude. Saint Thomas, in defending this, cites Saint Augustine: “A man’s patience it is whereby he bears evil with an equal mind,” i.e. without being disturbed by sorrow, “lest he abandon with an unequal mind the goods whereby he may advance to better things.” “It is therefore evident,” says Saint Thomas, “that patience is a virtue.” And, although bearing with evils will not occupy the saved in heaven, the enjoyment of the goods our patience merited in our days of trial will endure forever in heaven.
Patience is also one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost. It is a “fruit” because it is delectable, for bearing with sorrows is a joy in this life. Even in His sorrowful agony and abandonment on the Cross, Our Lord was the happiest and most patient of all men, enjoying all moral goods.
I read somewhere that one of the properties of angels is their imperturbability. They cannot be moved to sadness. They are in beatitude.
O, that we could strive in the grace of patience to be unperturbed and always at peace.
That will never be achieved perfectly in this life, of course. But, we can pray for it and practice it. Indeed we must do so because the fruits of the Holy Ghost come with sanctifying grace and are necessary for salvation. They are not merely passive fruits; they are active.
What are the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost? They are charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity (Galatians 5:22).
When we get “frustrated” we offend against all of these fruits in one way or another, but especially against patience, longanimity (long-suffering), and mildness.
So, the next time I drop something and it breaks on the floor, like I did that bottle of molasses this morning, I will not use the angry words I did; but rather, I will offer it up and thank God for the opportunity to ask my neighbor to help me and give him or her an opportunity to be patient with me. I will not feel sorry for myself and my state of the “dropsies,” which is fairly daily manifest. I will offer up my lack of mobility and my pain in reparation for my outrageous offenses against God and my neighbor. I will put God back in charge of my life and let go of my disordered frustrations.
“Now, Dear, can you pick up those vitamins I dropped on the floor before they follow the hidden way of the perversity of certain inanimate objects, as do those proverbial single socks that have such a knack for de-materializing”?
