How to Console Those Who Suffer a Life Threatening Disease?

One of the most difficult things I face is trying to console someone who is suffering from a serious life threatening disease. Often they are scared and wanting to hide from their difficulty. Often, even their family members are afraid. When this happens they seem to be blocked from God and are unable to receive His help and consoling love. In such cases I have found there is little I can to do to help someone who is in this state.  About all I can do is let them know I care about them, listen and patiently wait. I would like to offer them some consoling words from Scripture, help them pray, or offer a healing Sacrament, but often they are not able to receive. I listen and pray for them. 

I don't have any direct personal experience with such suffering, having never faced a life threatening disease or accident.  I have experienced this with those who are close to me. I have lost my mother and both of my wife's parents as well as close friends and relatives.  My wife recently went though a battle with breast cancer.  When we heard the news it was a shock. She did not panic but did not want anyone to know about her condition. I don't think either of us were cast into a state of fright. But, it is hard to understand her need to not let anyone know about her plight. We followed the doctor's advice and prayed for the Lord's help. I can't say either of us were ever afraid. Deep down we knew that our Loving God would be with us no matter the outcome.  

A reader of this blog sent me a sermon given by Saint Nicholas Velimirovic on suffering that I wanted to share.

Homily by St.Nicholas Velimirovic

"Do not be afraid of anything that you are going to suffer. Remain faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). 

By His suffering our Lord eased our suffering. He endured the greatest of pain and emerged as the Victor. That is why He can encourage us in our lesser sufferings. He suffered and endured in righteousness while we suffer and endure in expiating our own sins. This is why He can doubly remind us to endure to the end as He, the Sinless One, endured. Not one of us has helped nor alleviated His pains and endurance, yet He stands along side each one of us when we suffer and alleviates our pains and misfortunes. That is why He has the right to tell each one who suffers for His Name's sake: "Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid of anything that you are going to suffer," says Christ, for I alone have endured all suffering and am familiar with them. I was not frightened at not a single suffering. I received them upon Myself and, in the end, overcame them all. I did not overcome them by dismissing them or fleeing from them but receiving them all upon Myself voluntarily and enduring them all to the end. And so you also should accept voluntary suffering, for I see and know how much and for how long you can endure. 

If your suffering should continue to death itself and if it is the cause of your death, nevertheless, do not be afraid; "I will give you the crown of life." I will crown you with immortal life in which I reign eternally with the Father and the Life-Giving Spirit. God did not send you to earth to live comfortably, rather to prepare for eternal life. It would be a great tragedy if your Creator were unable to give you a better, longer, and brighter life than that which is on earth which reeks of decay and death and is shorter than the life of a raven. 

O my brethren, let us listen to the words of the Lord and all of our sufferings will be alleviated. If the blows of the world seem as hard as stones, they will become as the foam of the sea when we obey the Lord. 

O Victorious Lord, teach us more about Your long-suffering; and when we become exhausted, extend Your hand and sustain us.

We all do or will suffer in some way. Maybe you have some advice to share with us. 

How Can God Be Inside Man?

The following is written by Saint Nikolai Velimirovic: 

HOW CAN GOD BE INSIDE MAN?

You asked somebody, "where is God"? And you got an answer that God is inside you. And you marvel at this answer. How can that be? Kind of like light in a room, or like fire in a stove. When you are able to feel God within you, you will feel and know that He is inside you, but you will not be able to explain it to someone else. But you will look for images in nature and then you will speak to the other person as I speak to you: God is within me like light in a room, or a like fire in a stove, or like air in the lungs, or like life in every creature, or like force and love and thought inside of man. Of course, these are just images and likenesses, and they cannot express what a man feels when God dwells within him in His fullness. God’s apostle, our spiritual father Paul, wishes for the faithful to be filled with all fullness in God [Eph.3: 19]. God works from within a man in two ways - by helping and by governing.

When helping, God works within a man of medium or weak faith, who only occasionally remembers God and only keeps His Commandments partially. God does not abandon him because he also does not completely abandon God. However, God acts through governing in a man of great faith, who has opened wide the doors of his soul to his Creator. And it is written, "He who opens the door I will enter to him" [Rev.3: 20]. Such a man does not rely on himself at all but only on the Almighty. He feels the presence and the working of the Spirit of God within himself and has great love toward his Lord. And Christ has promised to the one who loves God that God will come and dwell within him. "He who loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him. And we will come to him and will make our abode within him". You will not be able to understand this. If you forget that God is a Spirit, who can enter everything and be everywhere, according to his power, and will. He is high above all matter, like the Sun is high above the earth but its light can enter every open thing. As the apostle says: "One God and the Father of all who is above all and through all, and in us all" [Eph. 4: 6]. He writes this about the holy and the faithful.

But when someone rejects God, starts thinking ugly thoughts and speaking against God, God also leads him. It is the same as if somebody would close off the windows of a room and prevent the light from coming in and illuminating everything. For God’s prophet Samuel said to the self-willed King Saul, "You have rejected the word of the Lord and for this the Lord has rejected you... and the spirit of the Lord abandoned Saul". But even one God abandons a soul of a stubborn man, He does not stop working on him from without, the way he works on water and stone and wood. But if a man remains stubborn and resists God until the end and refuses to repent, then God allows an evil spirit to enter in. Like it is written about Saul when the Spirit of the Lord abandoned him, "and an evil spirit disturbed him from the Lord". Or as it is written, even worse, about Judas the betrayer, "Satan entered into him".

Such people, who rise against God, of course, can never feel God within themselves or say, "God is inside of us". And those who love God, and desire Him, and see Him, and entreat Him to come they feel God within themselves and they can say, "God is within us by His Holy Spirit". Blessed are such bright souls, for they will always reign in the kingdom of Christ. As the Lord has promised to those who love Him saying, "I will take you to myself so that you may be where I am".

SAINT NIKOLAI VELIMIROVIC

Thanks to Presbytera Candace Schefe of Holy Transfiguration GOC in Anchorage, Alaska, for sharing this word with us...

A Prayer - Teach Me Your Love

Your birds awaken me in the morning, and the murmur of the lake lulls me to sleep in the evening. But it is not the birds that awaken me, nor the lake that lulls me to sleep, but You, 0 Lord, Master of the voice.

You lend Your voice to the birds and the midnight murmur to the lake. You have lent a voice to every throat, and have put a story into every creature. I am surrounded by Your heralds, as a student by many teachers, and I listen to them tirelessly from day until dusk.

     O Lord, Master of the voice, speak more clearly through Your heralds!

The sun speaks to me about the radiance of Your countenance, and the stars about the harmony of Your being. The sun speaks in one language, and the stars speak in a different language, but all the languages flow out of the same vocal cords. The vocal cords belong to You, and You uttered the first sound that began to tremble in the deafness and formlessness of nothingness, and it broke into countless sounds and heralds, as a thundercloud breaks into rain drops.

     O Lord, Master of the voice, speak more clearly through Your heralds!

One exclamation escaped the breast of the Bride of God when She saw Your Son––a voice filled with a love that could not be contained in silence. And that exclamation echoed in the heart of Her Son, and this echo––this response to the love of His Mother––the Holy Spirit has spread with His powerful arms throughout the entire universe. Therefore, all the universe is filled with Your heralds, O my Song and my Love.

     O Lord, Master of the voice, speak more clearly through Your heralds!

For this reason You also spoke in parables, O Son of God, and You would explain things and events as stories about the Most High God. You cured the sick with words and raised the dead with words, for You recognized the mystery of love. And the mystery of love is a mystery of words. Through all creatures, as through piercing and blaring trumpets, words pour forth––and through words, the Love of Heaven.

     O Lord, Master of the voice, teach me Your Love through all Your heralds.

From Prayers by the Lake by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich