“Don’t despair; we have a great God Who watches over us and it is through afflictions that we approach Him. It was after the Cross that God arose and ascended into heaven in the flesh. After afflictions follow consolation, visions and revelations, to the suffering soul. They don’t come during times of happiness but when the soul is being strangled by bitter afflictions and attacks of infernal darkness.”
(Elder Joseph the Hesychast quote in ‘Elder Joseph)

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