Counsels from the Holy Mountain.

[Silver]

On Illness

13 . My blessed child in Christ, I am praying that the great Physician of souls and bodies grant you your full health, in accordance with His holy will. There were holy men, my child, who were gravely ill, yet in their illness they healed others. Oh, how much God loved them! An exceptional sign of God’s love for a soul is when He saddles it with illnesses or afflictions. Pain of body or soul purifies, cleanses, and brightens the garment of the soul from every stain of sin. There was one holy monastic father who was always ill. It happened once that he was not ill for a period of time, and he complained, saying: “Ah, my God, why didst Thou forget me and not consider me worthy of Thy visitation?” This blessed man yearned for illnesses because he knew from his experience how much the soul benefits from them. Pain brings the unrepentant sinner to repentance, whereas for the righteous, it fortifies the strength of his soul and becomes a mighty wall around him so that he does not stray into sin. Just as a sick person gladly submits himself to the painful treatment of the doctor because he knows his aim, similarly we should endure with gratitude and knowledge all things that befall us involuntarily as sent from the kind hand of God for our salvation. “The athlete is tested by the stadium, the captain by the storm and tempest, the general by the battle, the magnanimous by misfortune, and the Christian by temptation,” says St. Basil the Great. Just as the earth becomes productive when the plow tills it deeply, likewise the soul becomes fruitful in virtues when pain and illness visit it frequently and intensely! The more pain and affliction a person has, the more beautiful his crown becomes. And if there are many and various pains that oppress him, then the crown of glory is adorned with many flowers and pearls. Gold has to pass through the furnace to become purified, and the soul of a Christian has to pass through the furnace of temptations to receive the seal of eternal glory in the royal treasury of Christ the King. If holy and blessed people passed through the furnace of pain and were benefited, how much more pain suits us and how much benefit we will derive from it when we endure it with knowledge and gratitude! It is when we see pain oppressing us, physically or spiritually, that we should consider that we are loved by God and that He has placed us in the ranks of His chosen. O blessed chastening of the Lord, I love you. But I am unworthy of such a gift, for I live in comfort and shall become a victim of the eternal fire. So, my child, I envy you because you are suffering and will obtain eternal repose! Your crown is decorated and beautified for your eternal glory! Endure for the Lord’s sake until the end. Bear your cross well lest you drop it, and you can be sure that you will be glorified with Christ eternally! Pray for me, too, lest I be shut out of paradise as one who does not practice what he preaches.

[Silver]

On Illness

14 . My child, I pray that the good Comforter, the good and true Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will overshadow you, console you, and ignite in you the love of Christ. I pray with all my soul that our Christ will grant you your health. I see and know from my experience, my child, that if one suffers various afflictions, whether bodily or spiritual, and patiently endures them with knowledge, and thanks God, then God is definitely obliged to send consolation to refresh his soul. But if we do not endure pain and labor, God does not console—He does not give His grace. Do you see after you recover from pain how much the love of Christ ignites within you? Yes, it is the reward for your labor, your patience. If you didn’t have this illness, you wouldn’t have so much love and consolation. Do you see that when you recover, you feel like a child? This is a sign that God forgives your sins and that you are free from blame. All this is caused by the patience you have when you are ill. When God deigns for you to get well, then you will see in practice what I am telling you. The more one suffers, the more grace one is given. One monk was ill, and he had such a horrible disease that the brethren were disgusted by him and drove him away. He blamed himself by saying that he deserved such treatment. Because of his humility, God made him well. But afterwards, this holy monk kept saying, “Ah, my Christ, I was unworthy to suffer more for Thy love!” He knew from experience how much he gained during his illness. Therefore, do not grieve at all. Only thank our Christ, Who loves you so much that He has given you temporary afflictions here in order to give you everlasting joy there. When you are ill and unable to fulfill your spiritual duties with exactitude, do not be sad, because it is not a sin since your will does not exercise authority over your health. Nevertheless, a monk must compel himself. But if he is ill, it is not a sin not to fulfill his duties—God is just. Obedience with humility and thanksgiving to God replace the ascesis of fasting. Great is the benefit of self-reproach when one is unable to fast due to illness.

[Silver]

On Illness

15 . I pray, my child, that a drop of the infinite patience of God may drip into your soul, where it will build a tower of patience so that you may find the unfailing treasure of eternal life. You wrote that at times when grace was afire, you asked our Christ to grant you illness or even something worse so that you could suffer out of love for Him. He did not overlook you but sent you an illness, as you had asked. So you have to be patient now, and you will learn discernment from experience, that is, not to seek things from God that we have not tried through experience. Therefore, we should always pray that the Lord’s will be done. Now pray like this: “My God, make me well, but let not my will be done, but Thine.” Like naϊve children, we often seek things that are not to our benefit. But God, as our Father, fulfills our requests in order to teach us through experience how we should pray to Him. Afterwards, though, we see that we did not pray properly, and we suffer. Nevertheless, God is forbearing and delivers us, so that the lesson of giving up our own will becomes deeply rooted within us. Moreover, at times when we suffer from our lack of discernment, God does not abandon us, but sends His grace and comforts us so that we may bear the burden. This is what is happening with you, my child. What you saw and felt was the grace of God, which nurses you until you grow in experience. The fact that God lets you suffer shows that you still need such chastening. Leave it all to God and say: “My God, I leave my illness in Your holy hands, and whenever You—Who love me so much—want to heal me, I will also want it then. I only ask Your infinite goodness that You not overlook me, but always give me the patience to bear this cross of mine, until Your will is done again.”

[Silver]

On Illness

16 . I am sick with the flu and feel sharp pains in my appendix. I don’t know what will happen. In any case, glory to Thee, O God. God loves us and through involuntary pain seeks to count us worthy to participate in His most perfect blessings. Unfortunately, we – and I –do not love our soul in a spiritual way. If we loved it, we would endure trials of both soul and body without complaining, in order to attain the eternal blessings. Pain softens the heart and removes its hardness. As the heart is softened in this manner, the ground is prepared for the sowing of genuine repentance and correction. We who are cowardly in every affliction chase away, so to speak, the grace of God. When man is prospering, he cannot remember God, and if he remembers Him, it is only faintly. When affliction or pain approaches, he remembers Him vividly and with fervor. When sorrow oppresses him or when he expects tribulations, then he prays most ardently. And our holy God is pleased with this, just as a mother is pleased when her child seeks her with heartfelt pain, for in this she discerns love. No matter how man is tried, he always benefits when he shows the corresponding patience and gratitude during the trial. This is revealed at the end of the trial, when he sees the lightness of his soul, the clarity of his mind, and the sweetness that comes to his inner self. Let us pray to be granted knowledge and patience in life’s miseries, so that we may gain our salvation. Amen.

[Silver]

Chapter Three
On Sin, Repentance, Mourning, and Tears

To fall and be injured is human, since—even if a man’s life lasted for only one day—his mind is inclined to evil from his youth (cf. Gen. 8:21 ).
But to fall and remain fallen is not human. Repentance recreates man; it was given to us to cure the soul after baptism.
If it did not exist, rarely would a person be saved. That is why, the virtue of repentance is unending as long as man is alive, for only the perfect do not err.
My children, every time you see your thoughts reproaching you for some sin, immediately take the medicine: repent, weep, go to confession,
and behold, you return to your former and better state.

[Silver]

Chapter Three
On Sin, Repentance, Mourning, and Tears

2. After Judas the traitor dedicated himself to the Lord and became a partaker of grace, he performed miracles along with the rest of the Apostles, yet in the end he shipwrecked; whereas the thief who had done impious, evil, immoral deeds, by crying out for mercy, was granted repose in the calm haven of eternal bliss. The Jewish nation, which had received the promises of God and was called by Him special, chosen, and holy (vid. Ex. 19:5, 1 Pet. 2:9 ), was blinded and lost Him forever. The barbaric nations, on the other hand, which were like the harlot in their works, received the gospel and inherited what Israel had rejected: God. Therefore, away with despair and hopelessness! No matter how sinful we may be, we should always turn the eyes of our soul to God and entrust ourselves to Him as servants entrust themselves to the hands of their master. In this manner let our eyes be fixed on the Lord, always trusting in His mercy until He has mercy on us (Ps. 122:2 ).

[Silver]

Chapter Three
On Sin, Repentance, Mourning, and Tears

1. The fall of man into physical mortality and the consequences of exile and alienation from our good Heavenly Father, brought about the law of sin, which wars against the law of God (cf. Rom. 7:23 ). From his youth, man is subject to the law of sin as a tendency, as an inclination, and as wickedness (cf.Gen. 8:21 ). And this tendency towards evil—as an ancestral inheritance and as a mark, product, and remnant of the ancient severance from the fountain of happiness—naturally took on substantial proportions in human nature, thus drawing it to evil. Thereafter, it was only natural for grievous calamities to befall the children of Adam and Eve. The restoration to the sonship of old by means of the Lord Jesus’ death on the cross led to eternal salvation. However, this did not remove the law of sin existing within man: not that God was unable to—for just one drop of the awesome and holy blood of Jesus Christ could transform everything—but providentially He let it coexist in man so that by means of it He could not only instruct him, but also make manifest the intentions of each person. The Scriptures say that God did not permit Joshua the son of Nun to destroy all the surrounding idolatrous nations, but he left some so that through them He could teach the art of war to the sons of Israel
   (vid. Josh. 17:13 ). So when this law of sin does not find a brave adversary (that is, one with good intentions and with the divine commandments and precepts as weapons ), then it vanquishes and captures the spiritual struggler; it strips him of his divine weapons and then drags him to the life of sin. From all these and many other things, we reach the truthful conclusion that all the distressing events and things in human nature are a consequence of its fall from its original immortality to mortality. Furthermore, we see that the salvific sacrifice of the God-man Jesus providentially did not remove the law of sin existing within man in order to instruct him, as well as for many other reasons pertaining to our salvation, so that by them He may make him a wise heir of His eternal blessings.