Christian endurance of suffering cannot simply turn into resigned patience—one almost forced upon us because we cannot get out of it. In imitation of Christ, Christian patience is the willing acceptance of whatever in our lives crucifies us, in loving conformity with God’s will.
The Christian becomes like the patient Christ through this willing adherence, and suffering becomes a participation in his mystery.
When patience is understood in this way, it does not degrade a man, nor make him the slave of painful situations from which he either cannot, or does not know how to escape; instead it makes him capable of voluntarily embracing all the suffering that God permits in his life, with a positive attitude of love and of union with Christ, crucified and resurrected.
Those painful situations that have no human solution find support and explanation in the mystery of Christ, who intimately unites to himself all those who share his passion. Anyone who does not enter into the mystery of his passion and death will not enter either into that of his resurrection.
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