PATIENCE. - A moral virtue, which aims at making one endure present evils in such a way as not to let oneself be inordinately dominated by sadness (Sum. Theol., 2ª-2ª, q. 136); it is therefore a potential part of fortitude.

There is a bad and blameworthy sadness; the one that depresses and casts down and sometimes even drives one to imprecations and blasphemies; and there is a good and praiseworthy sadness, precisely because it is guided and moderated by patience: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt. 5, 5). Patience can be a simple natural virtue, when the motive for which it is exercised is a natural good (the acquisition of knowledge or of wealth, peace in the family, one's own moral dignity); or also supernatural, when the motive concerns a supernatural good (merit, reparation, the imitation and love of the Savior, the final possession of God and the means to attain it). For this reason Sacred Scripture praises and inculcates patience many times (Eccl. 2, 3-5; Lk. 21, 19; Rom. 9, 1; II Cor. 8-10) and offers us a model of it in the whole book of Job and in the various episodes of the Passion of Jesus.

The object of patience is everything that in any way opposes us, makes us suffer, and causes sadness; for which reason patience is necessary in order to endure the reverses of fortune, family bereavements, illnesses, exile; to endure oneself with one's own changing moods and weaknesses, the defects and wrongs of others; to accept the labors and trials inherent in every effort toward the good and in the fulfillment of one's duty; to submit to the designs and dispositions of Providence.

The exercise of patience then admits various degrees of perfection according to the intensity of the evil that saddens us, and not only that, but also according to the manner in which we endure it: a) by accepting the cup that one would nonetheless wish to be taken away, without murmuring; b) by identifying oneself with the will of God and therefore willing the cup that is offered to us; c) by desiring, indeed, the cup of tribulation in order better to imitate the Savior.

Opposed to patience are: a) by defect, impatience, through which man abandons himself without control to the reaction of nature in the face of the evil that saddens him and drives him to murmuring, to pessimism, or even to seeking consolations and satisfactions of poor quality; b) by excess, insensibility or apathy, which makes one cold in the face of one's own evils and those of others.

Bibliography10 works

BIBL.: in addition to the treatises of theology concerning the subject of the virtues, cf. Tertullian, De patientia: PL 1, 1359-85; St. Cyprian, De bono patientiae: PL 4, 645-61; St. Augustine, De patientia: PL 40, 611-26; furthermore: J. J. Olier, Introduction à la vie et aux vertus chrétiennes, ch. 9; St. Francis de Sales, Introduction à la vie dévote, part 3, ch. 3; A. Rodriguez, Esercizio di perfezione e di virtù cristiane, part 2, ch. 6; St. R. Bellarmine, De gemitu columbae, sive de bono lacrymarum, Rome 1617 (repeatedly translated); O. Zimmermann, Lehrbuch der Aszetik, Freiburg i. Br. 1929, pp. 33-43; J. Pégues, Comm. français littéraire de la Somme théol., XIII, Paris 1931, pp. 173-187; G. Faber, Progresso dell'anima nella vita spirituale, Italian trans., 11th ed., Turin 1942, pp. 112-20.

@incollection{ec9_pazienza, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Pazienza}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1011--1012}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/pazienza} }

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