Practice of God's Presence: 11th letter
Eleventh Letter: I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains; but I pray earnestly that God gives you strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases. Comfort yourself with Him who holds you fastened to the cross. He will loose you when He thinks fit. Happy are those who suffer with Him. Accustom yourself to suffer in that manner, and seek from Him the strength to endure as much, and as long, as He judges necessary for you.
Worldly people do not comprehend these truths. It is not surprising though, since they suffer like what they are and not like Christians. They see sickness as a pain against nature and not as a favor from God. Seeing it only in that light, they find nothing in it but grief and distress. But those who consider sickness as coming from the hand of God, out of His mercy, and as the means He uses for their salvation, commonly find sweetness and consolation in it.
I pray that you see that God is often nearer to us and present within us in sickness than in health. Do not rely completely on another physician because God reserves your cure to Himself. Put all your trust in God. You will soon find the effects in your recovery, which we often delay by putting greater faith in medicine than in God. Whatever remedies you use, they will succeed only so far as He permits. When pains come from God, only He can ultimately cure them. He often sends sickness to the body to cure diseases of the soul. Comfort yourself with the Sovereign Physician of both soul and body.
I expect you will say that I am very much at ease, and that I eat and drink at the table of the Lord. You have reason. But think how painful it would be to the greatest criminal in the world to eat at the king's table and be served by him, yet have no assurance of pardon. I believe he would feel an anxiety that nothing could calm except his trust in the goodness of his sovereign. So I assure you, that whatever pleasures I taste at the table of my King, my sins, ever present before my eyes, as well as the uncertainty of my pardon, torment me. Though I accept that torment as something pleasing to God.
Be satisfied with the condition in which God places you. However happy you may think me, I envy you. Pain and suffering would be a paradise to me if I could suffer with my God. The greatest pleasures would be hell if I relished them without Him. My only consolation would be to suffer something for His sake.
I must, in a little time, go to God. What comforts me in this life is that I now see Him by faith. I see Him in such a manner that I sometimes say, I believe no more, but I see. I feel what faith teaches us, and, in that assurance and that practice of faith, I live and die with Him.
Stay with God always. He is the only support and comfort for your affliction. I shall beseech Him to be with you. I present my service.
Questions:
I admit, when I read this letter I cringe. I cringed the first time and I cringe today. We of the 21st century are privileged to live in the days of modern medicine and miracle drugs. Many of the ills that plagued people in Br. Lawrence's day are not issues for us thanks to modern medicine. So does this letter have anything to say to us today?
Perhaps the first thing we have to look at is our comfort zone. Perhaps we are too comfortable with the idea that modern medicine will cure us of many ills and so we will not have to suffer. So if we don't have to suffer, why should we? somehow this has segued into the idea that suffering is bad.
I suggest that suffering is. It's value neutral. And what Br Lawrence has to offer to us today is an approach to dealing with suffering because it is, after all, unavoidable. It will come to us. We do have to experience it.
What specific attitudes does Br. Lawrence advise we take toward suffering? Are they different from yours? How so?
He contrasts the attitudes of "worldly people" with that of Christians. which category best describes you?
In previous letters, we have seen that it is the monk's custom to concentrate on the positive aspect of things. Might it be that he has found a way to find positives in suffering? That through his embrace of suffering, he experiences God in a different way? Perhaps more intimately?
In what ways might you change your attitude toward suffering? How might you go about it?
I don't know about you, but I would very much need to ask for help with this from God and from trusted people. Are you willing to take such a risk with God? What help do you need for this journey? Where can you find it?
Worldly people do not comprehend these truths. It is not surprising though, since they suffer like what they are and not like Christians. They see sickness as a pain against nature and not as a favor from God. Seeing it only in that light, they find nothing in it but grief and distress. But those who consider sickness as coming from the hand of God, out of His mercy, and as the means He uses for their salvation, commonly find sweetness and consolation in it.
I pray that you see that God is often nearer to us and present within us in sickness than in health. Do not rely completely on another physician because God reserves your cure to Himself. Put all your trust in God. You will soon find the effects in your recovery, which we often delay by putting greater faith in medicine than in God. Whatever remedies you use, they will succeed only so far as He permits. When pains come from God, only He can ultimately cure them. He often sends sickness to the body to cure diseases of the soul. Comfort yourself with the Sovereign Physician of both soul and body.
I expect you will say that I am very much at ease, and that I eat and drink at the table of the Lord. You have reason. But think how painful it would be to the greatest criminal in the world to eat at the king's table and be served by him, yet have no assurance of pardon. I believe he would feel an anxiety that nothing could calm except his trust in the goodness of his sovereign. So I assure you, that whatever pleasures I taste at the table of my King, my sins, ever present before my eyes, as well as the uncertainty of my pardon, torment me. Though I accept that torment as something pleasing to God.
Be satisfied with the condition in which God places you. However happy you may think me, I envy you. Pain and suffering would be a paradise to me if I could suffer with my God. The greatest pleasures would be hell if I relished them without Him. My only consolation would be to suffer something for His sake.
I must, in a little time, go to God. What comforts me in this life is that I now see Him by faith. I see Him in such a manner that I sometimes say, I believe no more, but I see. I feel what faith teaches us, and, in that assurance and that practice of faith, I live and die with Him.
Stay with God always. He is the only support and comfort for your affliction. I shall beseech Him to be with you. I present my service.
Questions:
I admit, when I read this letter I cringe. I cringed the first time and I cringe today. We of the 21st century are privileged to live in the days of modern medicine and miracle drugs. Many of the ills that plagued people in Br. Lawrence's day are not issues for us thanks to modern medicine. So does this letter have anything to say to us today?
Perhaps the first thing we have to look at is our comfort zone. Perhaps we are too comfortable with the idea that modern medicine will cure us of many ills and so we will not have to suffer. So if we don't have to suffer, why should we? somehow this has segued into the idea that suffering is bad.
I suggest that suffering is. It's value neutral. And what Br Lawrence has to offer to us today is an approach to dealing with suffering because it is, after all, unavoidable. It will come to us. We do have to experience it.
What specific attitudes does Br. Lawrence advise we take toward suffering? Are they different from yours? How so?
He contrasts the attitudes of "worldly people" with that of Christians. which category best describes you?
In previous letters, we have seen that it is the monk's custom to concentrate on the positive aspect of things. Might it be that he has found a way to find positives in suffering? That through his embrace of suffering, he experiences God in a different way? Perhaps more intimately?
In what ways might you change your attitude toward suffering? How might you go about it?
I don't know about you, but I would very much need to ask for help with this from God and from trusted people. Are you willing to take such a risk with God? What help do you need for this journey? Where can you find it?
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 9:28 AM
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