These calamities pass away. There is no calamity that lasts forever – even if it seems that way. Sometimes, it seems like it just doesn’t go away. Sometimes, it seems like it will never change, it will never pass. It’s important that we realize that everything passes. Everything comes to an end. Even our life comes to an end. But that shouldn’t scare us because even with the ending of this life comes a much better and more glorious start.
—H.G. Bishop Angaelos – Joy comes in the morning
Category: SUFFERING
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Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America told this anecdote at his election. As a young monk he went to Mount Athos. While he was there, he encountered an old monk carrying a bag. The young monk, Tikhon, offered to carry the old man’s bag. The old man refused, saying, “No, I need to carry my own bag.” Metropolitan Tikhon said he learned a valuable lesson that day. He learned that he must carry his own bag. He also learned that he must allow others to carry their own bag. So, as a healing presence, we need to be present for others and allow them to carry their own bag and deal with their own issues, without trying to save them from their pain or control the outcome of their plight.
—Albert S. Rossi, Becoming a Healing Presence -
“Troubles remind the wise man of God, but crush those who forget him.”
—St. Mark the Ascetic -
Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?
—Aldous Huxley -
How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass! And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
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I, as a healing presence, walk with other in their pain and in their joy. I don’t take on their suffering in a futile effort to make them feel better. It doesn’t work.
Empathy provides energy to others because it makes them aware that we understand their suffering and don’t judge, condemn, or try to fix their problems. Sympathy, by contrast, takes on the feelings and pain of others in an effort to identify with their plight. (Sympathy here is used in its current cultural context. Linguistically, sympathy can connote compassion, but it generally means non-compassion in today’s world.)A person who is a healing presence to another person provides empathy in abundance without accepting or expressing sympathy. Sympathy for another person simply magnifies the problem. Sympathy is codependence and pride in disguise. If someone else is feeling depressed, it doesn’t do him or her any good if I become sympathetic and take on the depressed feelings. Other people need hope and strength, not another depressed person to pull them deeper into darkness.
—Albert S. Rossi, Becoming a Healing Presence -
Now, all our peace in this miserable life is found in humbly enduring suffering rather than in being free from it. He who knows best how to suffer will enjoy the greater peace, because he is the conqueror of himself, the master of the world, a friend of Christ, and an heir of heaven.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
When the grace of God comes to a man he can do all things, but when it leaves him he becomes poor and weak, abandoned, as it were, to affliction. Yet, in this condition he should not become dejected or despair. On the contrary, he should calmly await the will of God and bear whatever befalls him in praise of Jesus Christ, for after winter comes summer, after night, the day, and after the storm, a great calm.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this earth? Not even Jesus Christ, our Lord, Whose every hour on earth knew the pain of His passion. “It behooveth Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, … and so enter into his glory.” [Luke 24:46] How is it that you look for another way than this, the royal way of the holy cross?
The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides. Indeed, the more spiritual progress a person makes, so much heavier will he frequently find the cross, because as his love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
SO GOOD QUOTES 