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Fragment from an article posted in the Orthodox blog
"Somewhere I happened to read a line written by Archimandrite
Sophrony (Sakharov), “Grace comes to the heart that has
suffered.”
It seems it was in a letter to Hieromonk Dimitry (Balfour)… And a
line by the Apostle Paul was something I didn’t come across by
chance—I have read it many times, over and over: For just as we
share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort
abounds through Christ (2 Cor. 1:5)…So, on Saturday at the Vigil
Service, during the Polyeleos I was looking at the icon of St. Gregory
Palamas and thought about his amazing life, about the light of
Mt. Tabor, the nature of which he so wisely explained and in which
he himself abided—being transformed, illumined, “reaching for the
heights”. What grace he lived in! But then it was as if a spear pierced
my heart: How he also suffered!
And not only he, but anyone who with time had become no longer a
slave but a friend of God, one of those who pleased Him, and became
like unto Him insofar as that is possible for a human being. No
matter whom we talk about—martyrs and passion-bearers, holy
hierarchs and monastic saints, about righteous women and fools-
for-Christ they all had to suffer. Only they had all different kinds of
sufferings—some were physical, others emotional, caused by ill-
intentioned people, or sometimes from the demons, hateful and
inhuman.
But no one, absolutely no one, as St. Isaac the Syrian said, “has ever
ascended to heaven by living coldly.” And from what we have come
to know and are still learning, he also testifies that a person is
especially looked after by God when the Lord sends him constant
sorrows. Abba Isaac also adds that there is no other path to draw
closer to Christ other than the path of sorrows."
Please continue reading here.
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