Learning Patience in an Interim Time

Transition periods are unpleasant, to say the least. Shifting from what came before to what is to come is often a circuitous path without visible markers. Some transitions are abrupt and bring their own difficulties, but many transitions linger with us. In these slow transitions, we break from the past without quite propelling into the future. We loiter in a period the Irish mystic John O’Donohue writes lovingly about as “interim time.”

Catholics today, especially those faithful among us who yearn for a just and inclusive Church, exist in an ecclesial interim time. There are clear signs of decay in Western Catholicism as pews empty and the hierarchy’s de facto authority wanes. What has come before is passing away. But a renewed Church where every person is welcomed and celebrated eludes us, and so we are left in the habitually painful tension of interim time.

The work of advocating for a just and inclusive Catholic Church in interim time is wearying. Over days and months, my zeal can slip into fatigue and even despair. Activism shifts to passivity. Yet, God wants more for us. She wants us to not only live but live abundantly. So, what does it mean to not only exist but flourish in interim time? Each of us hold the answers to this question which have carried us along in our own lives. In my own life, as I experience an interim time vocationally, one answer I have found is a new appreciation for the virtue of patience.

Patience historically has been misunderstood and abused. Patriarchy contorts patience into a control mechanism used to subdue voiced grievances and righteous calls for justice. Marginal communities like women, LGBTQI folk, and people of color are routinely told to have patience, that their justice is coming but just not yet. In the Church, reformers are exhorted to have patience for an institution which we are told evolves over centuries. This phenomenon exists even in our movements for justice. These are false notions of patience for “justice delayed is justice denied.”

Against these misuses, the spiritual author Henri Nouwen offers corrective words:

“Being patient is difficult. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.”

Patience for Nouwen is not characterized by waiting. Neglected in this way, patience atrophies. Rather, patience is a virtue concerned with living. Exercised, patience abounds. To flourish in any interim time, we must become routine practitioners of patience rightly understood.

This practice is essential in our Church work, too. Even as I yearn for a renewed Church, patience demands that I be completely present to the living Church today with its all wounds and faults. Patience challenges me to not flee the Cross like the male disciples, but to gaze directly at Christ Crucified in the Church’s victims and remain there like the women who loved Jesus. Patience invites me to celebrate Eucharist as one wholly converted to God through Mary Magdalene’s proclamation that “He is risen!” In the ecclesial interim time of this historic moment, patience commits me to act spurred onward by an unwavering hope and trust in God Eternal.

In the Paschal Mystery, we know that transitions end and new beginnings come. A just and inclusive Church is rising. May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace we need to be patient people flourishing in this interim time.