• If, desirous of bringing them to self-knowledge and of leading them to the right path of perfection, God sends them afflictions and sickness, or allows them to be persecuted, by which means He habitually tests His true and real servants, this test immediately shows what is hidden in their hearts, and how deeply they are corrupted by pride. For whatever affliction may visit them, they refuse to bend their necks to the yoke of God’s will and to trust in His righteous and secret judgments. They do not want to follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Who humbled Himself and suffered for our sakes, and they refuse to be humble, to consider themselves the lowest of all creatures, and to regard their persecutors as their good friends, the tools of the divine bounty shown to them and helpers in their salvation.

    —Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare

  • The prophet Jeremiah says that our waiting on God should be characterized by hope and quietness:

    “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:25-26)

    How are you waiting? Patiently or impatiently? Quietly or complainingly? With hope or with despair? It might just be that HOW you’re waiting will impact HOW LONG you’re waiting as well.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • “Just as a man with fever has no right to commit suicide, so till our very last breath we must never give up hope.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “No matter how much the waves of temptation rise up against your soul, always hasten to Christ. The Saviour will always come to your aid and will calm the waves. Believe that the Lord has providentially arranged such experiences for your soul’s healing and do not reject them, seeking bodily peace and imaginary tranquility, for it is better to be shaken and yet to endure. If you will gain an insight from this, it will greatly lighten your struggle and you will gain more peace than if you do not.”

    —St. Leo of Optina

  • “Suffering is what your mind does with your pain. A silent mind knows no suffering.”

    —Elizabeth, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

  • “Everyone is hurting. I assume no evil.”

    —Jane Hwangbo

  • As long as we are occupied and preoccupied with our desire to do good but are not able to feel the crying need of those who suffer, our help remains hanging somewhere between our minds and our hands and does not descend into the heart where we can care.

    —Henri Nouwen,Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

  • “Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man, not knowing what to say, but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart.”

    —Henri Nouwen,Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

  • Still, when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

    —Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

  • “The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

    —Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain