Today is the feast of St. Cyprian of Carthage, Martyr. From his treatise on patience:
Charity is the bond of brotherhood, the foundation of peace, the holdfast and security of unity, which is greater than both hope and faith, which excels both good works and martyrdoms, which will abide with us always, eternal with God in the kingdom of heaven. Take from it patience; and deprived of it, it does not endure. Take from it the substance of bearing and of enduring, and it continues with no roots nor strength. The apostle, finally, when he would speak of charity, joined to it endurance and patience. Charity, he says, is large-souled; charity is kind; charity envies not, is not puffed up, is not provoked, thinks not evil; loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, bears all things. Thence he shows that it can tenaciously persevere, because it knows how to endure all things. And in another place: Forbearing one another, he says, in love, using every effort to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. He proved that neither unity nor peace could be kept unless brethren should cherish one another with mutual toleration, and should keep the bond of concord by the intervention of patience.
