Category: ADVERSITY

  • Indeed, when we’re harmed by others, we feel sorrow, but not when we harm ourselves. God demonstrates that those unjustly harmed by others gain renown, while those who harm themselves receive injury. This distinction encourages us to endure external injustices courageously but avoid self-inflicted harm.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • Just as a body left idle grows sickly and unattractive, exercise and labor make it healthy and attractive. The same applies to the soul: like iron left unused, it rusts, but when active, it shines brightly. Adversity keeps the soul in motion, just as arts perish without activity. Adverse circumstances stir the soul to action; without them, it would languish.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • The Value of Adversity

    It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for
    they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think
    well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees
    our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly
    in God that he will not need the consolations of men.

    When a man of good will is afflicted, tempted, and
    tormented by evil thoughts, he realizes clearly that his
    greatest need is God, without Whom he can do no good.
    Saddened by his miseries and sufferings, he laments and
    prays. He wearies of living longer and wishes for death that
    he might be dissolved and be with Christ. Then he understands fully that perfect security and complete peace cannot be found on earth.

    —Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ