MAY 19 – Patience

The rose mallow and the passion-flower

The passion-flower is a flower that burst open in May having the figure of a crown of thorns, five wounds and three nails over the star with ten rays and with a seven leaf; however, by itself it cannot form a bouquet because it lacks odor. We shall put together the rose mallow and the one with odor with its species.

Patience

To start by the way of virtue, a person has to be sustained in the midst of trials, tribulations and contradictions, and must be firm, strong, faithful, constant and persistent. It is the role of patience to tolerate, bear, endure and suffer the worries and persecutions that come to us because of virtue. Our passion, suffered for God’s sake, is a flower. The rose mallow is another flower: its leaves are very sweet and gentle; it converts suffering into consolation and load sweet when borne for God’s sake. The rose mallow is another flower: its leaf is very sweet and smooth. The pain is relieved and moderated when the load is carried for God. The rose mallow, in its varied species, exudes a very delicate, fine and sweet fragrance when crushed, compressed or pressed. Thus, is the virtue of patience; if the pain, the tribulation and persecution hit it, grind or tread on it, it is precisely in the pressing or compression that fill the garden of a very sweet fragrant perfume of a very delicate aroma.

The passion or patience of Mary

Mary, in her passion, offered a beautiful flower: three nails, five wounds and a crown of thorns are its ornaments and, in her sorrow and the affliction and anguish of her heart she filled the whole world with a very sweet fragrance exuding from a fully tested patience.

The passion-flower and the rose mallow to Mary

When persecution and tribulation come, do you welcome them with the same spirit, constancy, persistence and firmness? When you are stricken, when you are trodden, you do burst out into complaints and backbiting? Or, on the contrary, do you exude the delicate and sweet scent of patience? When the trial comes do you open and offer yourself up like a flower with nails, wounds and crowns or, on the contrary, do you bristle like a place full of thorn-bushes? Think and meditate on it well. Take the passion-flower and the rose mallow and when you put them on Mary’s hands say to her:

Lady, I offer you the passion-flower as a sign of my resignation in suffering. I oblige and commit myself to accept sorrows, contradictions and tribulations voluntarily, willingly and with pleasure. Present my passion to your Son and take care of my patience.

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