In our modern day and age, we have been taught to be allergic to suffering (to put it mildly), especially suffering for the sake of Christ. Yet it is to the glory of the gospel that the Christian Tradition has long recognized that essential role of suffering for and with Christ as a path to greater holiness. Here Theophan muses correctly and faithfully on this truth. Unlike the secular aversion to suffering, suffering can and does have a redeeming value for the Christian interested in becoming more like his or her Savior. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

It must be realized that the true sign of spiritual endeavor and the price of success in it is suffering. One who proceeds without suffering will bear no fruit. Pain of the heart and physical striving bring to light the gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed in holy baptism upon every believer, buried in passions through our negligence in fulfilling the commandments, and brought once more to life by repentance, through the ineffable mercy of God. Do not, because of the suffering that accompanies them, cease to make painstaking efforts, lest you be condemned for fruitlessness and hear the words, “Take the talent from him’ (Matt. 25.28).

Every struggle in the soul’s training, whether physical or mental, that is not accompanied by suffering, that does not require the utmost effort, will bear no fruit. ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force’ (Matt. 11.12). Many people have worked and continue to work without pain, but because of its absence they are strangers to purity and out of communion with the Holy Spirit, because they have turned aside from the severity of suffering. Those who work feebly and carelessly may go through the movements of making great efforts, but they harvest no fruit, because they undergo no suffering. According to the prophet, unless our loins are broken, weakened by the labor of fasting, unless we undergo an agony of contrition, unless we suffer like a woman in travail, we shall not succeed in bringing to birth the spirit of salvation in the ground of our heart.

—Theophan the Recluse