“The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made…”

The holy season of Advent kicks off with the Lord telling us: The days are coming when God is going to do something brand new — when the Lord Himself will send His Son into enemy occupied territory… when he will give everybody hope! Offer everyone life!

“The days are coming, says the LORD.” — They are on the way! O come O come, Emmanuel! He’s COMING SOON… the newborn King is ON HIS WAY!

…But you have to be patient!

“With the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise!” …Be patient!!!! 

This was true of the Jewish people long ago — they had to patiently wait thousands of years for the Messiah to finally arrive! But it’s also true for us: We now patiently await Christ’s return …We patiently await the fulfillment of all things. It’s already been 2,000 years that the Church has been waiting! But that’s only like 2 days in God-time. So… we keep waiting…

Advent is a season of patience.

And patience is really hard for us.

I dunno about you, but I’m really impatient…

I just don’t like waiting. I’d much rather have whatever it is I want NOW… not later. If I’m feeling bothered, annoyed, uncomfortable, disturbed… I’d like to STOP feeling that way as soon as possible, and the longer the inconvenience goes on, the more impatient and frustrated I get:

The traffic light needs to turn green NOW… the line for coffee at Panera should be SHORTER than this… my Amazon package ought to arrive TODAY not tomorrow. This cold medicine needs to start working THIS INSTANT… 

Impatience is so very easy to fall into a thousand times a day, because let’s face it — PEOPLE CAN BE SO ANNOYING…. LIFE CAN BE SO ANNOYING. 

Even with only first-world problems to deal with, there are literally hundreds of things that test our patience on a moment to moment basis, and we fail so often to respond well — And guys…lemme tell you: 

In this particular struggle, I am the foremost of sinners. 

In fact, when the Lord prompted me to preach on patience this Advent, at first I was like: “Really Lord? I know nothing about this.”

…But He told me to preach anyways, so… please know that everything I’m about to preach over the next couple Sundays as we patiently await Christmas… is directed first and foremost at myself.

But first, let’s define our terms.

What exactly is patience?

St Thomas Aquinas teaches us that patience is the virtue which “safeguards the good of reason against sorrow, lest reason give way to sorrow.” What he means by this is: We are patient only when we have the habit of not losing our peace when we happen to experience some sort of pain, disturbance, injustice, or disappointment. Sorrow is the specific term Thomas uses… Patience safeguards us against being destroyed by sorrow, sadness, and disappointment! 

So if we are sad… we need to ask for more patience! Because as Christians, we believe that “The days are coming [when the Lord] will fulfill the promises [He] has made…” There IS hope… God WILL keep His word!!! It’s a guarantee — He won’t let us down!!!

St. Thomas then goes on to say that patience is actually caused by charity… which is to say that we can only be patient when we truly love… when we actually desire and work for the authentic good of our neighbor. 

One modern Catholic author described patience as that virtue by which we “persevere in adhering to love despite all the perturbations and fears of our inferior nature.”

We know from the Old Testament that it was impatience — and therefore, a lack of love — that tripped up the Israelites as they wandered through the desert on their way to the Promised Land…

“The people became impatient on the way,” we read in the book of Numbers, “and the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food!”

Pay attention! — Their impatience led them to speak against God and His duly appointed ministers… which ultimately led them into rebellion and idolatry. In fact, the Israelites eventually got so fed up with waiting around for God to fulfill His promises, that they decided to make for themselves a golden calf in the desert… incurring God’s rightful wrath!

This is what Jesus warns us against in our Gospel today: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy” he says — As we wait for our Master’s return, we will be tempted toward impatience! We will be tempted to let our LOVE grow more and more cold… and then we will more easily turn to “carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.” We will be temped to stay to ourselves: “Our Master is long delayed!” …and we’ll begin mistreating each other and neglecting our relationship with God. We’ll skip prayer and choose other stuff instead: entertainment, distractions, and worldly pleasures over God… 

Why?

Because that stuff is immediate. It’s instant gratification! It’s like fast food… we know it’s TERRIBLE for us even as we are eating it… but at least we can get it quick and keep going!!!! It doesn’t matter if it hurts ourselves or other people around us… as long as we get it NOW.

To be impatient, therefore, at a very deep level… is to lack love. 

And this makes a lot of practical sense, doesn’t it?

When we find ourselves becoming impatient with our family, our friends, or more often than not… the person driving the car next to us — we know deep down that we really aren’t loving them as they deserve. 

We might not even be looking at them as a person at all anymore… but only as an obstacle we need to overcome in order to get what we want… An annoying object that is currently in the way to our happiness.

If only we could bring ourselves to LOVE them MORE… then we could be more PATIENT with them!

St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says: “Be patient, bearing with one another in love.” In our second reading today, Paul prayed fervently for his readers, saying: “Brothers and sisters, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…” 

When you abound in love — you will inevitably abound in patience!!! So be sure to ask God for more love. God IS love… and He is the source of all love… therefore, God is also the source of all patience!

But at this point, perhaps we need to ask more generally:

Why are we so impatient nowadays?

Well — not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the primary reasons people are so impatient today… is that little tiny super computer you have in your pocket.

YES…I’m talking (of course) about our smartphones. I think it’s pretty obvious that these things are turning us into the most IMPATIENT generation ever to walk the earth. 

Did you know that on average, people pick up their phones 58 to 144 times per day… which rounds out to picking up your phone every 12 minutes or so? Even that seems like a lowball…

Why do we do this to ourselves? 

Well…to put it very simply: 

We use our phones to escape suffering and inconvenience. 

They are an immediate source of comfort and escape. They do in fact make life EASIER in many ways…but because of that, they are actually shielding us from a lot of good, necessary, patience-building discomfort. Smartphones are designed to sort of numb us to the harsh reality around us… They assuage our pain via distraction. If something annoys us, we can simply submerge ourselves…plunge ourselves into a noisy digital world, detached from what’s happening here and now!

And the results of all this are clear: We can no longer abide boredom. We cannot sit in a quiet room alone without feeling anxious and uneasy. Silence itself is often an unbearable weight and must be filled with SOMETHING… so we grab our phone… check our texts, check our email, check twitter, check instagram, check stocks, check YouTube, check Facebook… then RINSE and REPEAT every few minutes, all day long… 

Every… Single… Day.

And we still honestly wonder why we are all so impatient?

Just the other day, I tried an experiment — I tried going an hour without touching my phone. And lemme tell ya: 

It was hard.

But this raises a question: 

If we can’t even go one hour without touching our phones — then how will we be able to wait patiently for the Lord to fulfill His promises in our life that may take five years… ten years… an entire lifetime to come to fruition??? No wonder people are so annoyed if Mass goes a few minutes over an hour! No wonder we get fed up so easily if THAT’S our level of demand and expectation… GIVE IT TO ME NOW! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WAIT. I’M SUFFERING — I’M BOTHERED — I’M ANNOYED — I’M BORED…. RIGHT NOW. 

[…]

Now THANKFULLY, if you’re interested in growing in the virtue of patience, there are countless opportunities for us to start right now.

Very likely, the first opportunity for you to start growing in patience is sitting right next to you. 

Maybe it’s your kids. 

Or your spouse. 

Or some random parishioner or visitor.

Or all of the above.

Chances are… maybe even within the last 10 seconds or less… the person next to you has done something that has annoyed you, even just slightly.

Ok.

Start there. 

Be patient right THERE.

St Philip Neri once complained to Jesus because he had to put up with an extremely insulting and annoying person. Our Lord only replied to him: ‘Philip, you asked for patience. Here is the means of acquiring it!” 

This reminds me of a famous saying of St. Josemaría Escrivá: 

“Do not say: ‘That person gets on my nerves.’ Think: ‘That person sanctifies me.’”

All of this leads me to say: 

Praying for patience is a very dangerous business. 

…Because the Lord will answer that kind of prayer ALMOST immediately!

Maybe that scares us. Maybe for some of us, the best we can do right now is a prayer more like this: “Lord, give me patience… but NOT YET.”

But really, we should all be striving constantly — with the help of God’s grace — to be less and less easily annoyed by people and situations in general.

We really ought to be growing more and more patient, more and more loving — because in each and every scenario, we should be more and more deeply aware that God does love us, that He is working all things for good, and that He will always win. 

If God wins — if He really does keep His promises — if Immanuel… God-with-us… really was born in that little town of Bethlehem 2,000 years ago — then what do we have to be annoyed about anymore? 

If the Lord really is in control, then what can really bother us? 

We have the opportunity, therefore, to patiently wait for His will to be done in all things… knowing full well that His perfect will SHALL be done.

I’ll finish this homily with that famous little quote of St. Teresa of Avila, which I think is a good one to kick off this season of Advent, this season of PATIENCE: 

“Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”

Amen.