• “Do the next thing.” I don’t know any simpler formula for peace, for relief from stress and anxiety than that very practical, very down-to-earth word of wisdom. Do the next thing. That has gotten me through more agonies than anything else I could recommend.

    ―Elisabeth Elliot, Suffering Is Never for Nothing

  • That it is our duty to perform each task considered as worthy with the utmost enthusiasm is insured by the terrible caveat that performing Godly work in a careless manner curses it. But worry, or the many worries that trouble the heart and give it no peace, is a disease of fallen man, who under took to decide his own fate and who is tossed and turned on all sides. Worry disturbs our thoughts and does not even allow us to focus on the task at hand. I suggest, therefore, that you look into this and, if you find that such a worry occasionally overwhelms you, try to drive it out and do not give it any ground. Have enthusiasm for your work and, performing it with utmost care, expect success from God, dedicating the task itself to Him, no matter how small it is, and you will get rid of worry.

    Do this, and everyday occupations and tasks will not distract you from God.

    May the Lord help you!

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • “Suffering passes. . . to suffer well lasts an eternity”

    —St. Thérèse of Lisieux

  • Anyone who is sick should seek the prayer of others, that they may be restored to health; that through the intercession of others the enfeebled form of the body and the wavering footsteps of our deeds may be restored to health….Learn, you who are sick, to gain health through prayer. Seek the prayer of others, call upon the Church to pray for you, and God, in His regard for the Church, will give what He might refuse to you.

    —St. Ambrose

  • The best form of mortification is to accept with all our heart, in spite of our repugnance, all that God sends or permits, good and evil, joy and suffering…I find absolute submission to God’s will a sovereign remedy in every trouble, and when I consider that in reality God’s will is God Himself, I see that this submission is but the supreme adoration due to God, due to Him in whatever manner He may manifest Himself.

    —C. Marmion

  • Woe to our times: we now depart from the narrow and sorrowful path leading to eternal life and we seek a happy and peaceful path. But the merciful Lord leads many people from this path, against their will, and places them on the sorrowful one. Through unwanted sorrows and illnesses we draw closer to the Lord, for they humble us by constraint, and humility, when we acquire it, can save us even without works, according to St. Isaac the Syrian.

    —St. Macarius of Optina

  • He who opposes unpleasant events opposes the command of God unwittingly. But when someone accepts them with real knowledge, he ‘waits patiently for the Lord’ (Ps. 27:14).

    —St. Mark the Ascetic
    Philokalia, Vol. 1 p.142

  • “To see someone suffering who is nonetheless joyful, peaceful, and grateful to God is a divine encounter leading us to faith. And if its possible to “catch” faith from others, it is likewise our mission to “throw” faith in the direction of others through the power of our own union with Jesus.”

    All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life
    Fr. Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • “At times, our lives will be turned upside down with nothing to support us but our decision to keep in the goodness and faithfulness of God. Even many of the great saints were left without answers to their cries. St. Antony the Great questioned God about all the injustices of the world and Gods reply to him was, ‘Antony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to know anything about them.””

    All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life
    Fr. Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • God does rescue the holy from affliction, but he does so not by rendering them untested but by blessing them with endurance. For if “affliction brings about endurance, then endurance brings about unapproved character.” Whoever rejects affliction deprives himself of approval. Just as none is crowned who has no rival, so none can be pronounced worthy except through tribulations.

    —St. Basil the Great