Patience of Simeon

Many are the situations in which we come upon an interior process that started God knows when and is still in progress. We feel something moving inside of us and without perceiving clearly where we are going, and even less what this process will leave in its wake, we instinctively feel troubling emotions: we would like it to end quickly, that hastily things will draw to a close and we can then move on to the next stage – whatever it might be.

However, unfortunately, things do not work like this when it has to do with processes of development, when one grows and matures. The first principle that the human person must learn, even at the price of suffering, is to accept the harsh law of time and to grow in the virtue of patience. It is important that he or she accepts with the serenity that is essential for survival in the stew that is life, without seeking to hasten the times of maturation by sheer will power.

“Patience is the virtue of the strong,” teaches an Italian proverb, “patience is the virtue of the one searching for virtue,” I would add.

Only the one who accepts that he or she does not have all the answers in his or her pocket at all times, and even has no control over life, and simultaneously knows how to wait for the sun that rises beyond the hills, lives fully even these moments of pain as an essential part of the period of transition. “The one who loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

During the critical moments in our lives, when we are at the crossroads of each decision, we would like to see more clearly. And immediately. Then we get frustrated, we lose our internal quiet and our confidence because the fog gives no hint of lifting.

I experienced one of these moments in Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, the place where Jesus also used to go in order to rest at the home of his friends Eleazar, Martha and Mary.

After a conversation with a priest friend, I found myself writing the following words:

To rest
Like a naked seed
Laid in cold earth
I remain in this autumn season patient
Waiting and like a rose
Effortlessly I open.

To rest
This is the invitation of a lifetime for the here and now
To rest and to remain
The day will come for serious talk
For action and pain
What is needed in this “now”
Is to remain
To deal with a noisy echo made of silence
And with the slow steps of the present.

To rest
In a stormy silence
Of an ancient movement
As my action stops dead.
To remain, humble
To accept the marginal role
Of the one who hands over authority to time
To form him
To remain…
Until the tomorrow brings with it the spring.

A true teacher of this art is the impressive figure who bridges between the two Covenants. Simeon the elderly – who during his days knew how to preserve the virtue of hope in his strong faith that the Spirit is truth – he believed in the promise and waited confidently for its realization: to see with his own eyes the Messiah Redeemer (Luke 2:22-35). His waiting was crowned with a prize that had never been bestowed before: to hold in his arms the Son of God, Israel’s Messiah.

And so it truly was: God promises us lofty promises and during their accomplishment He goes beyond His own generosity!

Might Simeon’s determination, devotion and waiting for the Word of God encourage us in our moments of loss. May his humility encourage us to wait for the fullness of time and may his prayer strengthen in us the gift of patience.