If we meet God in our suffering and sorrows, then we know God’s joy and comfort. We don’t easily feel His comfort in earthly joys, because we are overwhelmed by the body’s sensations and the soul’s feelings related to pleasure. It is only when we experience sorrows that we lack entirely any perception of pleasure of the senses, and we become receptive to the comfort that God gives us. What prevents us from feeling this comfort in our sorrows is that we forget God.
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Good doesn't come to us from lack of sorrows, because they will not disappear before this world ends, but from God. Living with God and doing His will, we (and those around us) are delivered only from sorrows that stem from ourselves and from how we relate to the commandments - especially the commandment of love. But suffering will not disappear, because we don't all progress at the same pace on the Way of love, and many of us obstinately refuse to do it. But this will not take from us the joy of being with the Lord, and living how He teaches us, and not how the impulses of "the old man" prompt us.
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Accepting reality and blessing those who take part in it, and not accepting and blessing suffering as a lifestyle: when we accept and bless a reality, God Himself, the Source of blessing and the Author of the Commandment, enters into that reality and turns it into something else, into a meeting place with Him, a door of entrance into His Joy! Suffering is nothing but that moment when we entrust ourselves to His loving hands - hands that are pierced, however, by the nails of the crucifixion. Fear makes us run away from the cross; it makes us imagine that accepting the cross would mean great and permanent suffering. This is the work of the father of lies!
(from an upcoming book with daily thoughts from Mother Siluana Vlad)
If you want to read more of Mother Siluana’s words, the following books are available on Amazon:
“God, Where is the Wound?” (ebook)
“Offering Ourselves, We Enter into His Joy - Volume 1” (paperback and ebook)
“Offering Ourselves, We Enter into His Joy - Volume 2” (paperback and ebook)
Bless you for this insightful post sharing the words of Mother Siluana. I look forward to reading more