Keep your conscience keen and bright, and refrain from hankering after, or expecting, consolation. Leave that to God. He knows when, where, and how to give it to you.
The enemy constantly endeavors to awaken in the abyss of the human heart a great turmoil about trifles. This is one of his tricks to blind our soul to the sun of truth, Christ our Lord, hidden in the heart's core of every one of our neighbors.
We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that 'the eyes of the Lord are looking on the good and the evil in every place.' But we should believe this especially without any doubt when we are assisting at the Work of God. To that end let us be mindful always of the Prophet's words, 'Serve the Lord in fear' and again, 'Sing praises wisely' and 'In the sight of the Angels I will sing praise to Thee.' Let us therefore consider how we ought to conduct ourselves in the sight of the Godhead and of His Angels, and let us take part in the psalmody in such a way that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.
The most important thing during illness is to offer to God patience and thanksgiving for His merciful visitations. Sickness purifies sins and gives one time to meditate on the past.
According to the teaching of the Fathers, any impression which, touching the heart, fills it with a great irritation, must come from the region of passions. Therefore impulses which spring from the heart should not be followed at once, but only after careful examination and fervent prayer. God preserve us from a blind heart! It is well known that passions do blind the heart and screen the shining sun of the mind that we should all strive to gaze at.
'If our prayer is not in harmony with our deeds, we labor in vain,' Abba Moses often told the young monks. 'How are we to accomplish such harmony?' they asked him one day. 'When we make that which we seek fitting to our prayer,' explained the saint. 'Only then can the soul be reconciled with its Creator and its prayer be acceptable, when it sets aside all of its own evil intentions.'
God rests in holy places; that is (in) the Theotokos and all the Saints. These are they who have become likenesses of God as far as it is possible, since they have chosen to cooperate with divine election. Therefore, God dwells in them.
Do not think that even here any one of us constantly enjoys consolation. No: here, as everywhere, flesh and mind are at war; here as everywhere, there is falling into pride and purification through humbling: here, as everywhere, we long for consolations but must learn to carry a weighty cross. This cross tests our love. Can we, do we love God even under the weight of the most bitter adversities?
God's Scripture gives proof in numerous passages that man must undergo many disturbances in this life; and also that many consolations are at hand. With these, a spirit of sufficient vigor and awareness of the right should overcome present discomforts and look to those things that promise everlasting joy.
You ask for some way of completely eradicating irritability. The inclination to irritability is given us to use against sin, and we were never meant to use it against our fellow men. When we do, we act contrary to our true nature.
Pray that you may be granted the grace to read the Fathers with the right understanding, the grace to live up to the standards they put before you, and the grace clearly to see your own frailty. You will not long be left wanting and waiting. God will give you help.
Remember that a good action is always either preceded or followed by temptations. God permits this so that the virtue, exercised in that particular action, may be confirmed, consolidated, steeled.
In the eyes of God, it is always preeminently right that a man should spend himself in devising new means for spreading consolation to his subordinates, who are his charges.
He stands, then - but not alone, for before Him go angels, saying: 'Lift up the gates, O ye the princes.' What gates? Even those of which the Psalmist sings in another place also: 'Open to me the gates of righteousness.' Open, then, thy gates to Christ, that He may come into thee - open the gates of righteousness, the gates of chastity, the gates of courage and wisdom. Believe the message of the angels: 'Be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in, the Lord of Sabaoth.'
