You ask for prayers for your brother’s bodily pain from kidney stones. It is good to entreat the Divine Mercy for relief. Yet while we pray for the stones to vanish, do not let this be your only plea. For there is a sickness far more grave: the disease of sin which, if unhealed, delivers a man to torments from which no brother can redeem. A brother cannot ransom; each shall be judged according to his works.
I speak not to trouble you, but because I must. We who are entrusted with the word must sometimes give pain, not willingly but under compulsion, that you may escape the everlasting pain. So receive this medicine: submit to the affliction of the body with patience and thankfulness, for a little bodily suffering may spare one far greater. Let your brother examine his life. Let him repent of every idle word, every look of lust, every root of evil, for of these he must give account. Let him build upon the foundation of faith with gold and costly stones, with alms, prayers, and tears, not with wood and stubble that the fire will consume. Let him contribute from his substance for the poor, for such loans ascend to heaven and bring back profit better than any earthly healing.
Yes, pray for the pain to cease. Beseech God, and we shall join our prayers with yours. But pray more earnestly that this trial may be turned to his soul’s health, that he come forth from it cleansed, more zealous, more watchful. Often a tree that resisted many strokes falls at last by one blow, and what seemed fruitless hearing bears fruit suddenly. So too, this bodily stone may break the hardness of his heart. I entreat him and you: refuse not the pain of these words, for they are given in love. If we bear the gentle cautery now, we shall not endure the unquenchable fire then. May the Lord grant him relief and recovery, but above all, grant him a contrite spirit and a life acceptable in His sight.