Suffering

"God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pains. Pain is His megaphone to rouse a dulled world."
~ C.S. Lewis

"Praying together with the one who suffers is the just response to the suffering. The cruelest response to suffering is the attempt to explain it away, to tell the one who suffers: "This is why this is happening. I'm sorry that you can't see the answer, but it's clear to me."

~ Msgr. Lorenzo Albacette

When Suffering Is Sweet

"It has come to this, that I can no longer suffer because all suffering is sweet. Besides, it is a mistake to worry as to what trouble may be in store; it is like meddling with God's work. We who run in the way of love must never allow ourselves to be disturbed by anything.
If I did not simply suffer from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I look only at the present moment forget the past; and I take good care not to forestall the future. When we yield to discouragement or despair it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future. "

"Pray for me; often when I cry to heaven for help it is when I feel most abandoned. But when I turn to God and his saints and thank them notwithstanding I believe they want to see how far I shall trust them. But the words of Job have not entered my heart in vain: "Even if God should kill me, I would still trust him" (Job13: 15)."

"I admit it has taken a long time to arrive at this degree of self-abandonment; but I have reached it now, and it is the Lord himself who has brought me here."

~ St. Therese of Lisieux



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