the passion of patiences

 "The passion, our passion, sure we are waiting for it. We know it must come and we intend to live it with a certain grandeur. We are waiting for the bell to ring that will inform us that the time has come for us to sacrifice ourselves. Like a log in the fireplace, we know that we have to be consumed. Like a piece of wool cut with scissors, we have to be separated. Like young animals that are sent to slaughter, we have to be destroyed.

We are waiting for our passion but it does not come. In its place there come small patiences.

Patiences, those small pieces of the passion whose job it is to kill us gently for your glory, to kill us without our getting the glory.

From dawn they come to greet us: our nerves, either too much on edge or too numb....It is the urge to be silent when we ought to speak; and the urge to speak when we ought to be silent. It is the desire to go out when we ought to stay in; and the urge to stay in when we have to go out. It is our disgust with our daily ration of life and the neurotic desire for all that is not ours.

This is the way our patiences come, in serried ranks or in single file, and they always forget to remind us of the fact that they are the martyrdom for which we were preparing. And scornfully we let them pass by, as we wait for a cause that would be worth dying for.

If every redemption is a martyrdom, not every martyrdom involves the spilling of blood. From the beginning of our lives to the very end, one by one, grapes may be picked from the bunch. This is the passion of patiences."

                                                  -  Madeleine Delbrel, from Magnificat, September 2024