But the man who has managed to reduce its hold completely, even when he himself is still in this life, is someone who has already risen from the dead. From now on he has a taste of the immortality to come. Patience is a labor that does not crush the soul. It never wavers under interruptions, good or bad. The patient monk is a faultless worker who has turned his faults into victories.
Patience sets a boundary to the daily onslaught of suffering.
The patient man has died before his death, his cell being his tomb. Patience comes from hope and mourning, and indeed to lack those is to be a slave to despondency. Obedience is unquestioned movement, death freely accepted, a simple life, danger faced without worry, an unprepared defense before God, fearlessness before death, a safe voyage, a sleeper's journey. Obedience is the burial place of the will and the resurrection of lowliness. Indeed, to obey is, with all deliberateness, to put aside the capacity to make one's own judgment.