Advent and Christmas Poetry 2: Penitence and Patience – Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Patience, Hard Thing!”

Christmas is a joyous season, for love, fellowship, giving, and relaxation – or at least we recognize that it ought to be, even if we get caught up in the snarls of everyday life, trying to shape  impossible expectations, family relationships, and Christmas shopping into something recognizably festive. Advent strikes a different note. Advent is about anticipation, but also penitence – and patience.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) Penitence means recognizing that we are not as we ought to be, that we have failed in thought, word, and deed to be as God calls us to be. The penitent heart recognizes this, and cries to God, “Help!” For only God can remake us – but He has indeed promised to do His redeeming work in every heart that turns to Him.

In His own time, and in His way. Penitence means letting go of “having it our way,” and letting God have it His way. How hard that is, sometimes! Gerard Manley Hopkins, the virtuoso poet-priest of the late Victorian era, recognized how difficult patience can be, and gives us “Patience, Hard Thing!”

“Patience, Hard Thing!”

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,

But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks

Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;

To do without, take tosses, and obey.

Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,

Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks

Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks

Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills

To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills

Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.

And where is he who more and more distils

Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills

His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

Hopkins begins by recognizing that waiting is difficult. “Patience who asks / Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks; / To do without, take tosses, and obey.” We are called to bear our cross, whatever it may be – even though sometimes what we are called to bear is neither exciting nor dramatic. When we are called to be patient, we may instead wish that we had war and wounds to deal with: conflicts and struggles that demand action. Instead, our task may be to graciously “do without, take tosses, and obey.” And in that acceptance of our given task, true patience sets down its roots.

Patience as heart’s ivy – covering over our “ruins of wrecked past purpose”! God may frustrate our plans, if they are not according to His will for us. As we survey the ruins of our self-centered plans, we may grow penitent as we recognize our own rebellion. The giving up of self-will can be agonizing: “We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills / To bruise them dearer.” Isn’t it enough to recognize that we were wrong? Do we really have to give up everything to God? Can’t we still have it our own way, at least sometimes? No?

Yet this is what grace is: God can, and will, do the transforming work that we cannot do for ourselves, when we ask Him to help us: “Yet the rebellious wills / Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.” Hopkins shows us that we can choose to ask God to bend our still-rebellious wills to Him; we may not feel obedient, but we can be obedient even so.

Patience, hard thing! But what is the result of patience? “And where is he who more and more distils / Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills / His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.” We know how bees make honey. The patient bees visit flower after flower, bringing back the tiny grains of pollen to the hive; grain by grain, ever so slowly, the honey forms and, hidden within the hive, the crisp combs fill with its delicious sweetness.

Related posts:

1. Advent and Christmas Poetry 1: Tension – Christina Rossetti’s “Sunday Before Advent”
2. Advent and Christmas Poetry 3: Conversion – T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”
3. Advent and Christmas Poetry 4: Awe – John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 15”
4. Christ the King: A Meditation on George Herbert’s “The Collar”
5. Advent Season: Living In Between