Today is the feast of St. Joseph Pignatelli, a Jesuit saint who helped restore the Society of Jesus after its suppression. Pignatelli shepherded the Jesuits who were exiled and then re-founded as restored Jesuit communities. Due to his efforts to keep the Jesuit ideals and communities alive, St. Joseph Pignatelli is considered the restorer of the Society of Jesus. Sadly, he did not see the full restoration of the Society of Jesus as he died three years before Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus in 1814. For me personally, St. Joseph Pignatelli is very dear to my heart because on November 14, 2008, I defended my doctoral thesis after a long and painful struggle to complete the dissertation. The life of St. Joseph Pignatelli gives me a lesson of the virtue of patience. Patience comes from the root word patior, which is the Latin verb for ‘to suffer’. If you are going cultivate the virtue of patience, you have to be ready to experience suffering. My suffering as a graduate student to finish my dissertation is nothing compared to the suffering of Joseph Pignatelli or the suffering of many people because of war, gun violence, illness, unemployment, addiction, mental illness etc. From my small experiences, I have come to realize that God will always test our patience. Sometimes other human beings will make us suffer and sometimes certain events force us to taste suffering.
St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.” But God will not destroy us through suffering. St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, said, “we are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Indeed, we can survive the trials and tribulations because Christ’s hope never disappoints us.
Each of us are in the midst of suffering caused by many different sources. God is testing our patience. And yet, we can always remember the prayer of “Perfect Resignation” by St. Joseph Pignatelli, SJ:
My God, I do not know what must come to me today.
But I am certain that nothing can happen to me
that you have not foreseen, decreed,
and ordained from eternity.
That is sufficient for me.
I adore your impenetrable and eternal designs,
to which I submit with all my heart.
I desire, I accept them all, and I unite my sacrifice
to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Savior.
I ask in his name and through his infinite merits,
patience in my trials, and perfect and entire submission
to all that comes to me by your good pleasure.
Amen.