Romans 6:23
Douay-Rheims
23 For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
and
Romans 5:12
Douay-Rheims
12 Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.
Sin in our individual lives has consequences and illness may be one.
A third reason for illness is simply that God wants to slow us down and make us reflect. Reflection is extremely difficult when on is ill, but reflect one must try and do. The slowing down of one's activities because of asthma cannot be denied. In the very cold weather, one becomes a prisoner inside. One lives in a half-world of fatigue and lowered resistance to other respiratory illnesses. One must curtail certain duties and pleasures. This halting of normal routine forces one to think of sin and death, one's predominant faults, the purification of the senses and the soul. Illness frequently accompanies the Dark Night of the Soul.
If one is "smart", one will cooperate with this enforced slowing down and praise God for His Wisdom. One learns to wait for health, to be patient, to be humble by having to share with others one's limitations. One cannot be "super" trad mum, but just "tired trad mum" and so on. Cooperating with the grace of the present moment, one looks into one's soul and sees the great need for purification. One is aware of the great need for grace, and not merely working and living out of one's own energies.
One walks in the daily awareness that Eden is lost and not to be found again until heaven.
A fourth reason for suffering is that God wants to get our attention about something.
This need for focusing could be intercessory prayer, or the revelation of a sin, or even the preparation for a new stage in the ladder of perfection. In the Dark Night, illness may be a step to the total abidication of the will to God's Will, the final giving over of self-love.
As when a person grows older and loses natural beauty, the inner beauty of a person comes forth, if it is there. As the body falls away, the spirit is more obvious. So, too, in illness, this happens naturally.
If God is calling one to pray for others in illness, this cannot mean praying as if one is well. Concentration is almost impossible in fatigue, so one learns new way of prayring. The prayer of "being" in God's Presence bcomes more real. Or, if one is in the Dark Night, the prayer of being in God's Absence (which is a perception, as His removal of comforts does not mean He has removed Himself) is learned. One learns to be in God without any comforts at all, relying totally on Divine Providence and the darkness of the unseen God.
This type of suffering provides one with the chance to live entirely by faith alone, one of the reasons for the Dark Night. If one is ill, in a sense, this dynamic is more obvious and even easier to endure as the body reflects the soul-weak, needy, having to totally rely on God.
to be continued....
