Today on VirTrue, we’re talking about the virtue of Longsuffering (Long-ani-mitas), a sub-virtue of Hope, rooted in trust in God’s providence through prolonged trials.
While patience helps us endure the DMV or traffic, longsuffering helps us endure life-altering burdens: a chronic illness, the loss of a child, a drawn-out injustice, or the weight of grief.
St. Thomas Aquinas (ST II-II, Q137) describes longsuffering as perfecting both fortitude and hope. It unites enduring faith with moral strength, anchored by trust in God.
Longsuffering:
* Endures suffering without becoming bitter
* Resists despair without escaping into pride
* Offers suffering to God rather than carrying it alone
* Is not weakness. It is humble strength
Isaiah 40:30-31 encourages us in longsuffering:
“They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength,they will soar on eagles’ wings;they will run and not grow weary,walk and not grow faint.”
⚠️ Vice of Deficiency: Pusillanimity (Fainthearted)
Definition:Pusillanimity is the shrinking of the soul in the face of difficulty. It is the refusal to embrace suffering or noble tasks out of fear, discouragement, or lack of trust in God.
Why it fits:Longsuffering endures trials with quiet strength and hopeful perseverance.Pusillanimity avoids them, fearing failure, pain, or inadequacy. It is not the weakness of the body but the retreat of the will. It refuses to rise to what love or duty demands when the path involves suffering.
Description:The pusillanimous soul lacks spiritual courage. It sees the road of suffering and turns away, not from laziness but from a deep interior fear of not being strong enough.
This vice may masquerade as humility, but it is actually a denial of the greatness we are called to in Christ. It forgets that our strength comes from God, not from ourselves.
The fainthearted person may say, “That cross is too heavy for me.”But in longsuffering we instead can say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
Instead of offering up their pain or facing trials with grace, the pusillanimous soul hesitates, flees, or despairs, never giving God the chance to act through their endurance.
🔥 Vice of Excess: Pertinacity
Definition:Pertinacity is a proud and stubborn clinging to suffering. It refuses help, draws attention to endurance, and defines self-worth by how much hardship one can bear. Not for God’s glory but for one’s own.
Why it fits:Longsuffering bears trials with humility and hope in God’s grace.Pertinacity distorts this virtue into self-worship through pain. It endures not to grow in love or obedience, but to feel superior, to impress, or to prove independence.
It turns hardship into a stage and strength into a performance.
Description:The pertinacious soul says, “I don’t need help. I’ve been through worse. I can take anything.”This vice resists grace and rejects vulnerability. It often refuses comfort or support out of pride and silently judges those who cannot handle as much.
Where true longsuffering is a hidden offering, pertinacity is a loud badge of honor.
It mistakes endurance for holiness and suffering for virtue. It forgets that it is not how much we can carry alone, but how much we offer to God in trust, that makes us holy.
St. Paul teaches:“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).But the pertinacious soul shouts: “I can do all things by myself.”
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🪞 My Life
I don’t battle the pride of pertinacity in my suffering. I struggle with faintheartedness, pusillanimity.
Our family has been going through trials:Water issues, Ezekiel’s diagnosis and death, Liz’s blood pressure, losing my job leading AI marketing, double root canal, and the risk of losing our home if our runway runs out.
We’re not alone.Other families we love have children battling chronic illness, deep grief, financial and vocational suffering.
Even in the public eye, we mourn Paul Kim’s son Micah and pray for the Everts as their son John Paul suffers. We see the pain of the faithful and are tempted to lose heart.
My wife Liz found hope meditating on the Magnificat. God calls us twice. Once to follow him. Again to suffer with him.
Fr. Mark, a priest in our diocese, said in his All Saints Day homily:“If you are not suffering, be afraid. The devil does not torment those who are already his.”If life is too easy, you may not be living in spiritual resistance.
🌍 The Secular Perspective
Our culture sees prolonged suffering as failure.We assume the sufferer is to blame. Or worse, we turn suffering into proof that God does not exist.
We forget the world fell with man. Nature resists us. Labor is hard. Disease exists. The created order, like us, needs redemption.
Longsuffering calls us to persevere with hope.The world says, “Run from pain.”The Christian says, “Endure it, offer it, be sanctified through it.”
🌟 Example Saint: St. Maximilian Kolbe
* Endured Auschwitz with prayer and peace
* Offered his life for a stranger with a family
* Led prayers while starving
* Forgave captors, died with the words “Ave Maria” on his lips
* Did not despair or boast. He suffered with hope, not pride
💬 Tell Me What You ThinkShare your thoughts in the comments.Your reflections may be featured in future episodes when we invite guests to speak about this virtue.
✝️ Act of Longsuffering
O my God,I will endure suffering with humility and hope,not by my own strength but by trust in Yours.I will not flee hardship,nor will I boast in bearing it.Instead, I will offer each trial as a gift,united to the Cross of Christ,who suffered for love of me.When affliction comes,I will not grow bitter nor lose heart,but will persevere with quiet faith,believing that You are working in all things for my good.Let every moment of sorrow become a seed of grace,and may my endurance bear fruit in charity, joy, and peace.I suffer, but not alone. I hope in You.Amen.
🙏 Closing Prayer
Lord, bless us with faith, hope, love, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice,that we may live as You intended man to live, in all virtue and righteousness.Help us to flee from sin and avoid all temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.Protect us with a spiritual hedge in front of us, behind us, above us, below us, to our right, to our left, within us and all around us.Seal it with the blood of Your precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.Help us to keep You in everything we see, think, and do.Amen.
🕊️ Go out and fill the world with virtue. Deus vult!
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