It is impossible to escape tribulation in this world but the man who is given over to the will of God bears tribulation easily, seeing it but putting his trust in the Lord, and so his tribulations pass.
Saint Silouan the Athonite
It is good to learn to live according to the will of God. The soul then dwells unceasingly in God, and is serene and tranquil; and from the fulness of joy man prays that every soul may know the Lord, know His great love for us and how richly He gives us of the Holy Spirit, who rejoices the soul in God. And all things are then dear to the soul, for all things are of God. The Lord in His mercy gives man to understand that he must suffer affliction with a grateful heart. My whole life long I never once rebelled against affliction but accepted all things as physic from the hand of God, and I ever offered up thanks to God, wherefore the Lord enabled me to bear all affliction lightly.
No one on this earth can avoid affliction; and although the afflictions which the Lord sends are not great, men imagine them beyond their strength and are crushed by them. This is because they will not humble their souls and commit themselves to the will of God. But the Lord Himself guides with His grace those who are given over to God's will, and they bear all things with fortitude for the sake of God Whom they have so loved and with Whom they are glorified for ever.
It is impossible to escape tribulation in this world but the man who is given over to the will of God bears tribulation easily, seeing it but putting his trust in the Lord, and so his tribulations pass.
When the Mother of God stood at the foot of the Cross, the depth of her grief was inconceivable, for she loved her Son more than any one can realize. And we know that the greater the love the greater the suffering. By the laws of human nature, the Mother of God could not possibly have borne her affliction; but she had submitted herself to the will of God, and the Holy Spirit sustained her and gave her the strength to bear this affliction.
And later, after the Ascension of the Lord, she became a great comfort to all God's people in their distress.
+ Glory to God for All Things +
Saint Silouan the Athonite, was born in 1866, of devout parents who came from the village of Sovsk in the Tambov region. At the age of twenty-seven he received the prayers of St. John of Kronstadt and went to Mt. Athos where he became a monk at the Russian monastery St. Panteleimon. He received from the Holy Theotokos the gift of unceasing prayer, and was given the vision our Lord Jesus Christ in glory, in the church of the holy Prophet Elijah adjoining the mill of the monastery. After the withdrawal of that first grace, he was oppressed by profound grief and great temptations for fifteen years, after which he received from Christ the teaching, "Keep they mind in hell, and despair not." He reposed on September 24, 1938.
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