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To go further, this statement was said to me by my then girlfriend. At the same time, I was going through a period in my life where I was searching for something but I wasn't sure what it was. I knew I desired something, just wasn't sure what. When she said that however, my first reaction was anger, I was angry because that meant I had to wait for an answer that I wanted. As much as I didn't like that, the word "virtue" being associated with patience made me think for a long time. I knew that she had said something very wise but I didn't understand. God took that statement however and opened a whole new world to me; one that I had taken for granted or was just ignorant of. Yes the "world of virtues."
I started thinking what that meant, and the more I thought of it, the more I found the answers. At the same time, I was starting to read the lives of the saints. Their practice of virtues was the one thing that stood out in all of them. They all excelled in different virtues even to the heroic level. The more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I admired them and the more I wanted to imitate them. One question remained however, how were they able to distinguish themselves. That was answered by the great Apostle Paul in the scriptures "It is God's will that you may be holy". One thing about the saints is that they were never double minded for like we hear in the book of James "a double minded person is unstable in all his ways" The saints do God's will and they understand that to do God's will is to be holy and to be holy is to do God's will.
My dilemma was making itself out of my mind more and more as I started realizing that while we are all called to do different things; some to teach, some to preach, some to be doctors, others lawyers, some parents and others priests and religious, the universal call for all of us is that of holiness. We are all called to be holy without which no one will see God.
Finally, I was able to make the connection between patience and virtue. Yes patience is one of the many virtues, and when we exercise virtues, we become more like Jesus who is our example and helper in everything. The more I strive to be virtuous, the more I realize that left to ourselves, we can never be virtuous, it is only by God's grace. But strive we must for we are called to be holy and be "perfect as Our Father in Heaven is Perfect." Virtue simply put is the habit of being righteous. When habit overtakes our good practices, we can say that we grow into being more Christlike and hence become Holy. We ought to answer generously to that universal call to be Holy which God has called all of us to.
Now whenever someone cuts me off in the traffic, before I react, I recall that statement, "patience is a virtue."
