Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Suffering

SUFFERING

MEN who love God are so far from complaining of their sufferings, that their complaint and their suffering is rather because the suffering which God's will has assigned them is so small. All their blessedness is to suffer by God's will, and not to have suffered something, for this is the loss of suffering. This is why I said, Blessed are they who are willing to suffer for righteousness, not, Blessed are they who have suffered.

All that a man bears for God's sake, God makes light and sweet for him.

If all was right with you, your sufferings would no longer be suffering, but love and comfort.

If God could have given to men anything more noble than suffering, He would have redeemed mankind with it: otherwise, you must say that my Father was my enemy, if he knew of anything nobler than suffering.

True suffering is a mother of all the virtues.

Eckhart

6 comments:

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus said...

Hmmmmmm....please see related post:

http://commentarius-ioannis.blogspot.com/2009/09/have-you-ever-felt-like-jeremiah.html

I entered that last night without having read your post, Linda.

Amazing!

Gabriella said...

Very deep :)

I think we should all be very happy to help Christ carry His cross.

Linda said...

Sounds like we are all going through the same interior sufferings right now Paul. Gabriella nice to see you post!

Blessings,
Linda

Anne said...

Linda, I have always wanted to read more of Meister Eckhardt. The little I have read of his works are outstanding! Time to head back to the library!

Mary N. said...

Linda,
Suffering is powerful and nobody escapes it, so it is good when we embrace it. That's why I love the name of your blog.

Linda said...

Anne,
The title links to ccel.org and you can download the html for free. It was very good reading. Mary I offer up so much that my husband said he is going to start to offer me up! lol. I think that is cheating. He has his own suffering. He has 3 blood clots in his legs and groin area. He can barely walk across the floor because his feet are so bad. I don't know how he stands 10 hours a day at work. Poor man!