The first is the worldly view, the view of those outside the Church. These will do anything to avoid sickness and death: burn their bodies with radiation, poison it with chemicals, edit their genes, and all the rest of it.
The
second is the view of the Orthodox Church, in which sickness is viewed as a
means to end: as a way for us to cleanse
our bodies and souls of the befouling and deadly effects of sin that we might
be truly prepared to meet our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ when we leave
this plane of existence.
A
great ensample of someone embracing the Christian mindset about sickness is St
Pimen the Much-Ailing (+1110). There is quite
a lot our COVID-obsessed populations can learn from his life:
Saint Pimen the Much-ailing attained the
Kingdom of Heaven by enduring grievous illness. This Russian ascetic was both
born and grew up sickly, but his illness preserved him from illness of the
soul.
For a long time he besought his parents to
send him to the Kiev Caves monastery. When they brought their son to the famed
monastery, they then began to pray for him to be healthy. But the sufferer
himself, conscious of the high value of suffering, instead asked the Lord both
for the continuation of his sickness, and also his tonsuring into monasticism.
One night, radiant angels appeared in the
guise of monks, and tonsured him. They told him that he would receive his
health only on the day of his death. Several of the brethren heard the sound of
singing, and coming to Saint Pimen, they found him attired in monastic garb. In
his hand he held a lit candle, and his tonsured hair could be seen at the crypt
of Saint Theodosius. Saint Pimen spent many years in sickness, so that those
attending to him could not tolerate it. They often left him without food and
water for two or three days at a time, but he endured everything with joy.
Compassionate towards the brethren, Saint
Pimen healed a certain crippled brother, who promised to serve him until death
if he were healed. But after a while the brother grew lax in his service, and
his former ailment overtook him. Saint Pimen again healed him with the advice,
that both the sick and those attending the sick receive equal reward.
Saint Pimen spent twenty years in grievous
sufferings. One day, as the angels had predicted, he became healthy. In church,
the monk took leave of all the brethren and partook of the Holy Mysteries.
Then, having bowed down before the grave of Abba Anthony, Saint Pimen indicated
the place for his burial, and he himself carried his bed there.
. .
.
Then Saint Pimen lay down upon his bed and
fell asleep in the Lord. The brethren buried him with great honor, glorifying
God.
May
the Blessed and All-Holy Trinity help us also to use every opportunity to grow
in oneness with Him.
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema
to the Union!
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