Worried

[Chrysostom]

Your worry for your body’s health speaks of a soul that knows its frailty, and I join my prayers to yours, begging the Master Physician to stretch forth His hand. Remember how He touched the fevered woman and not only quenched the heat but restored her strength at once, leaving no weakness behind. He can do the same for your eyes and your whole frame. Yet let your greater concern be the sickness of the heart, that fever of anxiety which darkens the inner sight. Many walk in dread of poverty and bodily decay, but stand untroubled before the abyss of sin. That is the true blindness.

Use the remedies of this life with thanksgiving, even as the blessed Apostle urged Timothy to care for his stomach’s ailments. But far more urgently, apply the medicine of the Word. When hearing seems fruitless and the same passions cling to you, do not despair. The tree that receives ten blows and does not fall may be brought down by the eleventh, not by that one alone, but by all together. So continual listening to holy teaching steadily undermines the stronghold of fear. Your ears are the gate of heaven; attend to them, and you stand already among the things above, where no sickness ravages and no eye grows dim. Let your treasure be stored in that safe place, and your heart will learn a peace that all the world’s physicians cannot give.