When Dr. Payson was asked by a friend, in a season of severe illness, if he could see any particular reason for the present dispensation, he replied- “No; but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thousand. God’s will is the very perfection of all reason.”
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in suffering and weakness, you are brought to “Lie passive in His hands, And know no will but His!”
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The discipline of patience is another light blending with the shadows of sickness. No unimportant or untimely grace of the Spirit is this; the development and culture of which finds no school more appropriate, or discipline more effectual, than that of ‘pining sickness.’
The continuous endurance of unmitigated pain- the prolonged and deathly weakness- the failure of skill and remedies to promote a cure- the morbid irritability and fretting almost inseparable from the prolongation of suffering- and the remembrance of duties neglected, of affairs deranged, of expenses incurred- all conspire to render the discipline of patience the most needed and precious; and when attained, to shed one of the most luminous graces of the Spirit upon the shaded picture of bodily disease.
Lights and Shadows of Spiritual Life
Octavius Winslow
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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“How many seek Jesus for no other object but that He may bestow on them a temporal benefit?! One has a business on hand, he seeks the intercession of the clergy; another is oppressed by one more powerful than himself, he flies to the church. Another desires intervention on his behalf with one with whom he has little influence. One in this way, one in that, the church is daily filled with such people. Jesus is scarcely sought after for Jesus’ sake.”
—St. Augustine, Sermon 88 (on John 10:14), NPNF
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Lord as You know and as You will, Have Mercy.
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He does not always immediately answer our prayers. Sometimes he does not answer them at all, but instead, in His wisdom and goodness, grants us something that we did not ask for, but which in our situation is more beneficial for the salvation of our souls.
—Metropolitan Gregory (Postnikov) of St. Petersburg
How to Live a Holy Life p.108 -
In the present life, until one’s final breath, sadness always comes mixed with joy.
—Elder Joseph the Hesychast -
We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine.
Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can! The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: “You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will just be a repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.” There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: “There is nothing new under the sun… don’t let yourself be fooled.”
When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.
So what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: “Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe all the tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone” (Revelation 21:2–5).
—Henri Nouwen
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Self-esteem should be destroyed by doing good in secret and by praying constantly with a contrite heart.
—St. John of Damascus -
Our Good Lord has made man’s life very sweet (in its proper sense – the spiritual one) but some of us turn it into hell with our miseries, by not having discarded the secular mentality so that we can confront matters spiritually. That is how we strive to “sweeten” our life (in the wrong sense) and we never want to die; instead, the more the years pass by, the more the “oh’s” of our agony increase, filling our soul with stress.
In other words, some of us poor wretches reach such a point, that we actually strive to retain the soul inside our 100-year-old, exhausted, intravenously-supported flesh and insist that “life is sweet” while we tremble lest we die. Whereas, for one who is dead from a secular aspect but resurrected spiritually, there is absolutely no agony, fear and stress – ever – because he even awaits death joyously, knowing he will be going to Christ and will be rejoicing for living once again, as he will be living near Christ and feeling a part of the joy of Paradise while still on earth and even asking himself if there is a greater joy in Paradise than the one he is feeling here on earth.
—St Paisios -
To calm your restlessness,
sit and recite the book of psalms
and have pity and compassion
for all those around you.
—Evagrius of Pontus
SO GOOD QUOTES 