Illness: The Great Asceticism

Transcript

As awful as illness of any kind can be, Amma Syncletica tells us that we can nonetheless benefit from such an ordeal:

If illness weighs us down, let us not be sorrowful as though, because of the illness and the prostration of our bodies, we could not sing, for all these things are for our good, for the purification of our desires. Truly fasting and sleeping on the ground are set before us because of our sensuality. If illness then weakens this sensuality, the reason for these ascetic practices is superfluous. For this is the great asceticism: to be self-controlled in illness and to sing hymns of thanksgiving to God.