You may well be content to serve our Lord in illness, for when he calls people to suffer instead of working for Him, He is calling them to a higher state… This idea explains Saint James’ words: “Patience hath a perfect work” (Js 1:4). Receive your illness, then, willingly, and be grateful to our Lord, who sent it. If you bear this cross and burden well, He will send you interior and more painful trials, which he keeps for His dearest friends, to conform them to Himself. For although Christ’s visible Cross was great, it was not to be compared with that which, unknown to men, He bore in His soul.
Saint John of Ávila
To Suffer or to Work: Which is Greater?
1–2 minutes
3 comments on To Suffer or to Work: Which is Greater?
3 responses to “To Suffer or to Work: Which is Greater?”
-
[…] ← Previous […]
-
I have been ill for a while – years, decades, on and off. For the most part in the past year when the illness returned I have been glad of what God has revealed to me, but on Wednesday night and all of Thursday I was in pain all over my body, which worsened through Friday. I couldn’t eat, I was exhausted but everything hurt so I couldn’t sleep. When my husband tried to comfort me I had to tell him to stop because even my skin hurt. Then around midnight on Friday night it went away. Yesterday I had terrible stomach cramps all afternoon and through the night. I’m weary today, but thankfully not in pain.
Through Thursday I tried repeating the Lord’s prayer, and I did listen to my Lent audiobook, but I wasn’t up to much. Pain is such a distraction. I can’t say I was anything but glad it had gone, though it did make me think more of my brothers and sisters in Christ who live with constant pain. I must remember to pray for them more. I wonder which is the thorn in the flesh, the illness itself, or the thoughts that say ‘I must do such-and-such’ and then get frustrated because the illness prevents it? Hmm. Plenty of time to think must be a blessing, though :-)-
Thank you for sharing this!
-
Contemplative in the Mud 