May the Lord grant His peace and salvation to you.
I have received your letter. The Lord has visited you with a disease, because it was necessary for your salvation. The way into the Kingdom of God lies through many sorrows. Such is the spiritual law. Apostles, martyrs, the righteous and saints –all came into glory through many great sufferings. The Lord corrects whom He loves and beats every son, whom He accepts. Evidently there is no other way to the Kingdom of God but the narrow way of the cross, and therefore you should not fall into depression when you are ill and weak, but instead you should cheer up spiritually and take comfort in the thought that the Lord has become closer now and that in the future He may accept you among His children, if to the end you remain faithful to Him and without complaints endure all sufferings which He may find necessary to send to you. Who will endure to the end will be saved. We should appeal to God as often as possible and beg Him to grant us endurance when difficulties become overwhelming. As a poisonous snake we should avoid grumbling. The imprudent thief has not only increased his suffering by grumbling and swearing, but also perished himself for ever; the prudent one, on the contrary, realizing that he deserved the requital awaiting him, alleviated his sufferings and inherited the Kingdom of God.
The morning prayer of St. Macarius the Great, says: “Oh, God, cleanse me, a sinner, who has done nothing good for Your sake.” If this is how the great men pleasing to God felt, what is there for us to hope for? Our only hope is to look forward to the mercy of God. Without remembering all our good works, we must, like the publican, appeal to God from the bottom of the heard, saying: “O God, merciful be to us, sinners!” The publican was forgiven all his sins thanks to this prayer alone, so we also should believe that the Lord will be merciful to us as well if we pray as sincerely and heartily as he did. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to pray and hope for the mercy of God. No any illness can prevent us from addressing the Lord with our repentance at least once during a day.
There is no case known when the Lord would deny forgiveness to a repentant. The Lord does not forgive us only if we do not forgive other people. So, let us make peace with all others in order that the Lord may make peace with us.
Let us give our forgiveness to others to get the Lord’s forgiveness for us.
May the Lord’s protection be with you and may He grant you endurance and prayer and through them – spiritual joy that overcomes all bodily diseases and all the sorrows of this transient world.
The end is close… but you care not. Be of good cheer and strong at heart.
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