Virtue of the Month: Kindness

Virtue of the Month: Kindness

Last month our virtue was Patience. Love – Passive… We labeled it the least favorite of all virtues since patience requires discipline, silence and is usually lacking of any recognition whatsoever. Being patient is tough and mastered only by the spiritually mature.

This month our virtue is Kindness. Love – Active. Love and Patience are really two different sides of the same coin. For people who are patient are almost always kind. As the late Reverend John Short wrote, “Love that is patient reveals itself in kindness.” When we examine the life of Jesus we find that He spent most of his time being kind to people. Healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry…Jesus spent a great deal of His time on Earth being kind.

Kindness costs so very little, if any, money. In most cases it costs nothing. All that is required is a loving heart, surrendered to Jesus and a disciplined spirit to perform little acts of God’s love to others. Saying a kind word, passing along a smile to a stranger on the street, paying a visit to someone in the hospital or emailing a friend or sending an encouraging note, are acts of kindness that send out positive ripples into the universe where their effects can only be calculated by God.

Being kind is also the key to finding real Joy. Whereas we find Rest in God’s Love and Peace in God’s Will for us…Joy is discovered in kind service to others. How many of us want Joy, yet fail to grasp how easy it is to attain? How many others would be drawn to Jesus if we were all more kind, for “Kindness is the convincing evidence of Christian love.” (Rev. John Short)

One final thought is to encourage us all to be kind today, right now. Don’t put off writing that note, encouraging a co-worker or hugging your husband, wife or child. Respond to this Virtue of the Month with immediacy and be kind today!

            I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can

            do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.

            Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Stephen Grellet