Chapter 49
Lessons of Illness and the Path of Spiritual Restoration
49.2.1 May the mercy of God be with you!
49.3.1 You’ve been ill? But glory to God that you’re recovering or have already recovered. Glory to God also that you didn’t endure the illness without benefit. The lessons you’ve drawn for yourself from these circumstances are very significant in life generally, and all the more so in spiritual life. To expect nothing from people, and to cast all your cares upon the Lord, and also to constantly await death... and, believing that the Lord has left you still to live for the purification of sins, to turn all your attention to that. These points are the levers and guides of spiritual life.
49.4.1 Don’t judge your spiritual father harshly, not knowing for certain why he behaved so inattentively toward you. The Athonite fathers—may the Lord save them! They acted well. But your brother and son... they’re peculiar judges... how does it all fit together for them?
49.5.1 The illness was not caused by your way of life; consequently, you shouldn’t change it on account of the illness. The type of food in restoring strength is a secondary matter... The main thing is fresh food (unspoiled), clean air... and most of all – peace of spirit. Unrest of spirit and passions spoil the blood – and substantially harm health. Fasting and the ascetic life in general are the best means for preserving health and its flourishing. The German Hufeland wrote a science of long life, in which he extols the ascetic life. Scientists ought to listen to him, but we have other teachers, more important than this German. Prayer leads the spirit into God’s realm, in which is the root of life – and from the spirit the body also partakes of that same life... A contrite spirit, feelings of repentance and tears don’t diminish strength, but give it: for they place the soul in a joyful state. You did well not to give in to their suggestions. However, with a view to restoring your health more quickly so that you can work more fully for the Lord, you may without sin make some allowance for the weaknesses of the body—in sleep, labor, standing, and in food. This is after Passion Week.[1]
49.6.1 Now it’s summer… you may sometimes take milk, and even broth, also eggs… go out of town, because in the city there is no clean air. There’s always some impurity in it… The ancient elders wrote that they treated the body harshly—not with the aim of killing it, but through mortifying the flesh to put the passions to death.
49.7.1 You desire that contrition and tears never depart. Better to desire that a spirit of deep humility always reign in you. From it come tears and contrition... and from it also comes the fact that they don’t puff you up... for the enemy manages to produce these harmful weeds even from them. There are also spiritual joys interspersed with contrition... True contrition knows how not to hinder pure spiritual joy and to live peacefully with it, hiding somehow beneath it. Your present compunction and contrition are partly the fruit of your past or passing illness.
49.8.1 The arising of prayer during handiwork is the mercy of God—so pray right there as you work. You regret that the Jesus Prayer is not continuous—that you don’t recite it unceasingly—but this isn’t required... What is required is a constant feeling toward God, which can be present even during conversation, during reading, and during observation and examination of something... But since the Jesus Prayer, when you pray it, is in its proper form, continue to act this way, and this prayer... will expand its domain.
49.9.1 Since you found my little books so much to your liking, go ahead and read them… There are books that have come out, titled *My Life in Christ*, by Fr. John of Kronstadt… of the same sort as mine. But in them there’s much that’s written better than in mine. So it won’t be superfluous if you come across them and read them…
49.10.1 But the main storehouse of spiritual instruction is in the Philokalia. Ask the Athonite fathers to let you read the second volume of the Philokalia. Everything there is about the struggle with the passions, which is extremely important for anyone engaged in ascesis to know well. Read and note the signs by which the passions manifest themselves... Then use these indications to examine and correct yourself.
49.11.1 And how is your self-will?[2] Take up the sword, or rather keep it always at hand—the sword of humility and self-abasement—and mercilessly cut off, continually cut off, the head of our first enemy.
49.12.1 May the Lord bless you!
49.13.1 I give thanks for your prayer for me—and I ask you to continue.
49.14.1 Be saved!
49.15.1 Bishop Theophan.
49.16.1