Category: SUFFERING & TRIBULATION

  • “If you examine your life well, you will find many instances when God showed His unmistakable mercy to you. Trouble was brewing, but it passed you by for some reason. God delivered you. Acknowledge these and thank God, Who loves you.”

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • There is no aspect of any suffering whatever that is foreign to Me, that is outside Me. I am afflicted in all the afflictions of men, espousing them to the maximum, without their being able to erode My nature either by corrupting it or by diminishing it. Each human affliction releases in Me a new impulse of Love which wants to sweep into its vortex everything negative. Thou, mother who hast lost thy child,
    woman who hast lost thy husband, young girl who hast lost thy sweetheart, thou who art tortured by cancer, thou who art prisoner in a concentration camp, another the prisoner of alcohol, or of drugs, or of an egoistic sexuality, I am bowed over your misery, ah! If you but knew that I did not will such things, that they result from the work of the enemy, and that, invisibly, I am fighting for you! The outcome I prepare for you is one of light. Now is the hour and the power of darkness; and the time of their undoing must still remain hidden. But My Love will overcome their resistance and will wipe away all the tears. The veil will be lifted. Then you will see, you will understand. You will make your choice.

    —Lev Gillet, In Thy Presence

  • The one who has undergone gymnastic training will not be disheartened in the arena when he gets hit, but will immediately attack the opponent, despising momentary affliction in order to be named the champion. So also, when those who love virtue encounter something unpleasant, it will not hinder their joy. For suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. [Rom 5.3—5] Therefore the Apostle exhorts us, in another place, to rejoice in hope and hope in distress. [Rom 12.12]

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts, Homily Against Drunkards

  • Just as one with weak eyes turns them away from anything that is very bright, refreshing the vision with flowers and herbs, so also must your soul not stare at sorrow, fixating on present afflictions, but rather focus your eye on the true Good.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts, Homily Against Drunkards

  • “Ordinarily we experience no pain when the soul is sick, yet on the contrary when the body is troubled we use every means possible to relieve that trouble.  For this very reason God afflicts the body because of the sins of the soul, in order to restore health to man’s most noble aspect by making use of the least noble affliction.”

    —St. John Chrysostom
    (via The Theology of Illness by Jean-Claude Larchet)

  • Because it undermines us at the level of our being, illness often challenges our former, false equilibrium, and leads us to question the very foundations of our existence. It effectively weakens our impassioned attachments to this world. And in so doing, it reveals the vanity of those attachments and leads us to surpass their limits.

    —Jean-Claude Larchet, The Theology of Illness

  • By virtue of illness, man comes back to himself.

    —St. Seraphim of Sarov

    (via The Theology of Illness by Jean-Claude Larchet)

  • The illness of the body reminds us of the illness of our entire fallen nature. The loss of health appears as the symbol and perceptible sign of the loss of paradisiacal life. By confining the soul within the limits of the body, sickness and suffering destroy any illusions of fullness and self-sufficiency a person may previous have had, illusions fueled by a state of health he took for granted. They teach a person the extent of their poverty, even their ontological nakedness (Gen 3:7), and remind him that he is dust (3:19). The person can no longer consider himself as absolute, since his fundamental pride is broken.

    —Jean-Claude Larchet, The Theology of Illness

  • Misery.—The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.

    —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

  • What is the appropriate attitude toward a patient who is incurably ill?

    When the illness becomes incurable, speech no longer matters much. It is necessary to be able to keep silence, to be able to caress the suffering person affectionately so as to convey to him the closeness, warmth, and compassion of God. It is enough to take his hand and to look at each other without saying anything. The tenderness of a look can bring God’s consolation and comfort. In the presence of a suffering sick person, it is not necessary to speak. It is necessary to be compassionate silently, to love, and to pray, with the assurance that the only language that is appropriate for love is prayer and silence.

    —Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise