Patience and Gentleness

A man who has the happiness to keep his patience and gentleness is, in this calm, a sensitive image of God.

St. John Mary Vianney

Man is created "in the image of God"; and being made in his image he carries within himself a mark of immortality. From this fact, he is equally, for his peers, a reality that surpasses relativity and the succession of time. In this sense, by his own life, he is "a sensitive image of God". But man, as soon as he sins, disfigures within himself this image. However, as long as he is on earth, he can convert and rediscover in his human nature the image of God, for sin does not attain him in who he deeply is, it does not attain his being. On the other hand it does attain his vital operations and augments the influence of his imagination...But if he forces himself to be "patient" and "gentle", then "in this calm", and by the manifestation of this patience and this gentleness, "a sensitive image of God" reappears.

br. Marie Dominique Philippe o.p.