Chrysostom
Beloved of All
The danger is great, and the flesh trembles, yet a far greater Physician stands ready. Night and day, praying exceedingly, let us entreat Him to guide the hands of the surgeons. But while we ask for the body’s repair, we must not neglect the soul’s deeper wound. What is the true and lasting health you seek for him? It is not merely a change of diet or habit, but a rending of the heart. For what profit is it if the aorta is mended, yet the heart remains far from God?
Let him take this second approach to the brink of the grave as a sacred mystery, a furnace allowed that the dross might be burned away. Do not merely ask that his body be patched, but that in this terror he learns to be meek and lowly in heart, taking upon him the easy yoke and light burden of the Master. This is the wholesome change of life he needs: to account himself earth and ashes, to cry out from the depths, not just for a successful surgery, but for the Lord to perfect that which is lacking in his faith. His very soul hangs in the balance, and we are obliged not merely to invest the prayer of a moment, but to attempt more, to storm heaven with a zeal that will not rest, that by all means he might be saved. A healthy lifestyle is a vessel; the new creature within is the treasure. Pray that he will not merely survive, but that, having seen the Lord with his own eye through this ordeal, he will live a sacrifice of thanksgiving, singing with grace in his heart to God, and proclaiming the miracle not just of a beating heart, but of a cleansed soul.
Let him take this second approach to the brink of the grave as a sacred mystery, a furnace allowed that the dross might be burned away. Do not merely ask that his body be patched, but that in this terror he learns to be meek and lowly in heart, taking upon him the easy yoke and light burden of the Master. This is the wholesome change of life he needs: to account himself earth and ashes, to cry out from the depths, not just for a successful surgery, but for the Lord to perfect that which is lacking in his faith. His very soul hangs in the balance, and we are obliged not merely to invest the prayer of a moment, but to attempt more, to storm heaven with a zeal that will not rest, that by all means he might be saved. A healthy lifestyle is a vessel; the new creature within is the treasure. Pray that he will not merely survive, but that, having seen the Lord with his own eye through this ordeal, he will live a sacrifice of thanksgiving, singing with grace in his heart to God, and proclaiming the miracle not just of a beating heart, but of a cleansed soul.
