Patience And Loss

Si detrimento rei familiaris animus concitatur, omni paene in loco de contemnendo saeculo scripturis dominicis commonetur, nec maior ad pecuniae contemptum exhortatio subiacet quam quod ipse dominus in nullis diuitiis inuenitur. Semper pauperes iustificat, diuites praedamnat. Ita detrimentorum patientiae fastidium opulentiae praeministrauit, demonstrans per abiectionem diuitiarum laesuras quoque earum computandas non esse. Quod ergo nobis appetere minime opus est, quia nec dominus appetiuit, detruncatum uel etiam ademptum non aegre sustinere debemus. Cupiditatem omnium malorum radicem spiritus domini per apostolum pronuntiauit: eam non in concupiscentia alieni tantum constitutam interpretemur. Nam et quod nostrum uidetur alienum est: nihil enim nostrum, quoniam Dei omnia, cuius ipsi quoque nos sumus. Itaque si damno adfecti inpatienter senserimus, non de nostro amissum dolentes adfines cupiditatis deprehendemur: alienum quaerimus, cum alienum amissum aegre sustinemus. Qui damni inpatientia concitatur terrena caelestibus anteponendo, de proximo in Deum peccat: spiritum enim quem a domino sumpsit saecularis rei gratia concutit. Libenter igitur terrena amittamus, caelestia tueamur; totum licet saeculum pereat, dum patientiam lucrifaciam! Iam qui minutum sibi aliquid aut furto aut ui aut etiam ignauia non constanter sustinere constituit, nescio an facile uel ex animo ipse rei suae manum inferre possit in causa elemosinae. Quis enim ab alio secari omnino non sustinens ipse ferrum in corpore suo ducit? Patientia in detrimentis exercitatio est largiendi et communicandi: non piget donare eum qui non timet perdere. Tertullianus, De Patientia

If one's soul is troubled by loss of some property, it is reminded by the Lord's Scriptures in nearly every place to scorn the world; nor is there a greater exhortation presented that we should hold money in contempt than that the Lord Himself is not found amid riches. He always justifies the poor, condemns the rich. So He furnishes patience for losses and scorn for opulence, demonstrating, through rejection of riches, that the wounds of them should not be numbered. That which, therefore, we have not the smallest need to seek because the Lord did not seek after it, we ought to endure the reduction or even complete removal of it without sickness. Covetousness is the root of all evils the spirit of the Lord has pronounced through the apostle; and let us not interpret that covetousness is constituted of merely concupiscence for what is another's, for even what seems ours is another's; nothing is ours because everything is God's, we ourselves also. Thus if when suffering a loss we feel it impatiently our lamenting what is lost from what is not our own shall be marked as bordering on covetousness: we seek what is another's when we suffer ill the loss of what is another's. He who is disturbed with impatience of loss, by giving precedence to the earthly over the heavenly, sins directly against God because he shocks the Spirit which he has received from the Lord for the sake of a worldly thing. Willingly, therefore, let us lose things earthly and let us keep things heavenly; may the whole world perish while I make profit in endurance! Now he who is not firmly resolved to endure with constancy the loss of something, either by theft, or else by force, or even by negligence, I know not whether he  would himself readily or sincerely put his hand to his own in the cause of mercy. Does he who endures not at all to be cut by another, himself draw the sword on his own body? Patience in losses is an exercise in charity and sharing. He who is not vexed to give, fears not to loose. Tertullian, from On Patience