Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Beneficial to me?



"These tortures are very beneficial to me.  Just as wheat cannot arrive at the granary before it is cleansed from the chaff, so my soul cannot enter into paradise if my body is not humbled by tortures beforehand."

- The Holy Martyr Agatha (251)
   Commemorated February 5th

The path of descent is essential to the path of ascent.  One must go down in order to be raised up.  One must die in order that one might truly live.  One must embrace suffering as a fountain of life.  For it is Christ who revealed this path to us, and in so doing reveals the path of salvation to us if we have eyes to see.  When the urge to avoid pain arises we must walk into the fire, for it is in the fire that we are purified of our passions, and the scales slowly peel back from our blinded eyes and we are illumined to reality....the reality that Christ is in our Midst......He is and ever shall be!