The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints by Martin Ralph

Author:Martin, Ralph [Martin, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 1931018367
Publisher: Emmaus Road Publishing
Published: 2006-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Our Health

We normally like to be and to appear healthy, strong, handsome or beautiful, young looking, and so on. And yet illness, old age, bodily defects of various kinds, genetic and acquired, sweep over the whole race. This is one of the reasons why the Resurrection of Jesus and our own promised resurrection are so important and give us so much hope and joy. We can respond to the distress of these bodily afflictions with pride, anger, rebellion, vanity, and deception, or we can respond with humility, meekness, and deeper trust in God—the choice is ours.

Francis advises that when evil befalls us we should try to remedy it in reasonable ways but “wait with resignation for the results it may please God to send.” If God relieves us of the evil we should humbly give Him thanks; if He wills that we continue to endure the evils we should humbly give thanks and trust in the goodness of His purpose and the power of His providence. As regards illness, we should follow the advice of competent physicians, and desire to get well so we can serve God, but not refuse to remain ill if that would serve Him better. In the meantime, while we are sick and the outcome is not known, we can very meaningfully offer our suffering in union with the suffering of Jesus for the salvation of the world.

We recall Francis's advice in this regard.

When you are sick offer up all your grief, pain, and weakness as a service to our Lord and beseech him to join them to the torments he suffered for you. Obey your physician; take your medicine, food, and other remedies out of love of God, remembering the gall he drank out of love of you. Desire to get well so that you may serve him, but do not refuse to lie ill so that thus too you may obey him and prepare for death, if that is his will, so that you may praise him and be happy with him forever.55

Appropriate detachment regarding our health also has to extend to the very type of illness that God may permit us to experience.

One man has a cancer in his arm and another on his face; the first has only the disease, while the other suffers contempt, disgrace, and abjection along with the disease. Hence I hold that we must not only love the disease, which is the duty of patience, but we must also embrace the abjection, and this is done by the virtue of humility.56

Francis though, as always, is remarkably balanced and attuned to the nuance.

If I should have some disagreeable infection in my face, I will try to have it cured, although not with an intention to forget the abjection I received from it.57

Teresa of Avila is amazingly insightful—and very witty—in her comments about our tendencies to exaggerate little illnesses and use them as excuses to pull back from prayer and service. She points out that the more we pamper and comfort our bodies, the more pampering and comfort we will think we need.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.