The Girl Next Door ☎︎: The Seven Heavenly Virtues #5: Courage Under Suffering and Persecution

My Quiet Place

Courage Under Suffering and Persecution

I did not expect the counterpoint of gluttony to be courage under suffering and persecution. Before my study, I would not have been able to connect the two traits together. I learned that while gluttony is indiscipline, courage takes discipline. Gluttony is being consumed with food. Courage is being consumed with God. In his book, John of the Cross explains that persecution is the way God prepares our souls to meet Him like “wood is prepared for transformation into the fire”. During the transformation process of the wood, it goes from ugly to beautiful. In the end, its “weight and its quantity...is denser than the fire”. Suffering may reveal all the nasty and sinful parts of my heart, but, once the trial is over, I am humbled and amazed at the mercy of God who loves me despite my wickedness. While gluttony searches for happiness in pleasing the body, it searches in vain. Patience and courage in the midst of suffering may lose happiness, but it finds Christ. During tribulation, may we be confident that suffering for the sake of God never goes without great reward.

Check out beautiful picture of suffering John paints here:

"For the sake of further clarity in this matter, we ought to note that this purgative and loving knowledge, or divine light we are speaking of, has the same effect on a soul that fire has on a log of wood. The soul is purged and prepared for union with the divine light just as the wood is prepared for transformation into the fire. Fire, when applied to wood, first dehumidifies it, dispelling all moisture and making it give off any water it contains. Then it gradually turns the wood black, makes it dark and ugly, and even causes it to emit a bad odor. By drying out the wood, the fire brings to light and expels all those ugly and dark accidents that are contrary to fire. Finally, by heating and enkindling it from without, the fire transforms the wood into itself and makes it as beautiful as it is itself. Once transformed, the wood no longer has any activity or passivity of its own, except for its weight and its quantity that is denser than the fire. It possesses the properties and performs the actions of fire: It is dry and it dries; it is hot and it gives off heat; it is brilliant and it illumines; it is also much lighter in weight than before. It is the fire that produces all these properties in the wood.Similarly, we should philosophize about this divine, loving fire of contemplation. Before transforming the soul, it purges it of all contrary qualities. It produces blackness and darkness and brings to the fore the soul's ugliness; thus one seems worse than before and unsightly and abominable. This divine purge stirs up all the foul and vicious humors of which the soul was never before aware; never did it realize there was so much evil in itself, since these humors were so deeply rooted. And now that they may be expelled and annihilated they are brought to light and seen clearly through the illumination of this dark light of divine contemplation. Although the soul is no worse than before, either in itself or in its relationship with God, it feels clearly that it is so bad as to be not only unworthy that God see it but deserving of his abhorrence. In fact, it feels that God now does abhor it."

{ Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4 }
{ Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. Revelation 3:10 }