Письмо 151

You write that you are exhausted in illness and have the thought that you have been abandoned by God for your careless life; but then you reason that through illness you got rid of great troubles in a certain way, then isn’t God’s mercy clearly pouring out on you by visiting you, albeit with a cruel illness? But if it hadn’t existed, wouldn’t you have suffered more severely, and perhaps even come closer to despair? But now, due to the multitude of your illnesses, it is impossible for the consolations of God not to visit you. - But if even that were not the case, then may faith confirm you in the hope that everything that God does does good, and we, since His creation, should not accept His punishments with magnanimous patience, when He wants to send us the cross; Apparently this very path is one that saves and cleanses you. The love of God does not appear in us when we love Him for the blessings sent down to us; and for the sorrowful we already fall away from love: no! This is where we must endure with devoted faith and thereby express our love for God. He is consoled by this when we complacently and gratefully accept illness or sorrow at His hand. Everyone wants to have fun with Christ, but few want to suffer with Him. Many will follow Him even to the breaking of bread, but few to the cup of the Passion. Many want to be with Christ on Tabor, but Golgotha ​​runs away. If we want to be glorified with Him, then we must suffer with Him, and suffer what He wants to send us. Accept the illness sent to you as a sign of God’s love for you, and trust in His mercy, which will cleanse your sins, and especially when you regret them, sincerely repent, and, as much as possible, restrain yourself from them. You write that all your sins have been revealed to me from God, and that I see through all your deeds. On the contrary, I know nothing; but what you recognize yourself in, that’s all I know, and I pray to the Lord, may He forgive you all your sins, and I wish that the Lord will protect you from all the snares and snares of the enemy, and confirm and strengthen you in the grateful patience of illness, as long as He pleases to keep you in it. Mnogohreshny I.M. July 6, 1836. You can carry the relics on yourself with faith, calling on their holy prayers. You might be interested in: