Qualities

'Go around the room and pick out three beautiful qualities in each member of your family.  We do that in the monastery.  The sisters will say, "Mother, you're generous, understanding and loving."  I say, "I can buy that."  Then I began to wonder.  I think, "Angelica, if you are all these beautiful things, how come you're impatient and have a hot temper?"  And I began to reason, and I found that I am generous by nature, with things and my talent, but I was not generous with my time.  If a sister came up to me and I was in a hurry, I would say, "What are you bugging me now with this trite little thing for?"
'God had already planted into my heart a tool:  generosity.  When I worked on being more generous, that thing that I already am, I suddenly become patient.  So point out the virtues of your family members - build on those, and the rest will fall away.'  Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality