Therefore, the holy fathers accepted diseases, sorrows with great joy (blessed are those who hunger, those who are persecuted, blessed are those who are “unfortunate” on earth—rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven, that is, you have the opportunity to heal, to know the real cause of misfortune—sin; because for those who are “well”—Christ is unnecessary) and mourned when they were not physically ill, because theoretically they knew they were sinful (although they were careful not to accept a bad, sinful thought), but without diseases, sorrows it is very easy to forget about this and give freedom to pride— “cancerous,” malignant tumor of the whole being.
We, unfortunately, only do what we want to remove symptoms (physical-mental diseases), to live longer(!?), happily(!?) on earth. That is, we mindlessly postpone the time of death and do not want to understand that the purpose of our life (and happiness, if you want) is not health (physical-mental comfort), happy earthly life, but the treatment of the disease—death, with which we are all infected through sin (godless life), and union with God—the source of happiness and life. And treating the flesh only postpones death, but does not cure it.
You might say: why then get treatment, if we all die anyway, is it really just to relieve pain?! We must be treated (in the earthly sense), to extend our biological form of existence with one purpose—to have more time for repentance—this is the only, God-worthy reason for treating physical-mental diseases (see the introduction for an example St. Sisoes). And health for the sake of health is folly, you still will not be eternal in this form of existence, because the functioning of the stomach is needed here, not after the transition to another form of existence, which Christians call dormition, sleep, and pagans—death).
In the process of afflicting oneself with sin—detaching oneself from God,—first the soul begins to rot and die, then the body.
“You shall surely die,” was told to Adam if he departs from God, turns away from Him. You might say that God lied, or the text in this place is distorted, because Adam after the Fall lived for over nine hundred years. No, everything is correct here. For understanding, let’s give an example: a branch with flowers, which was just cut from a tree—is beautiful, smells and pleases the eye and is indistinguishable from those growing, except for one thing—it is dead, and it cannot but wither (of course, if not intervened and not grafted to a life-giving tree). First, the soul “withered,” then the body, to which the “juices” of life no longer reached.
Therefore, we, as children of Adam, born in a perishable, earthly form of existence, begin to die immediately, move towards death, that is, towards the end of life in the earthly form. But while I am here—I have one task, one goal—to be saved, to move from death to Life, to initiate an irreversible process of deification, that is, at least, to start repentance for the unrepentant (unchanging—V.A.). Time and space are given to us to acquire eternity through proper spiritual life (in this form of existence), to be born healthy into eternal life—that is, to be baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, to become a partaker of the divine essence in the Holy Spirit. Not for nothing do the holy fathers say “to the ascetics not by reason,” the reckless— “PROTECT HEALTH,” so that you can bear the labors of repentance. Thus, we treat mental and physical diseases (which are symptoms of the single disease—godlessness, spiritual death), to slow down the time of dying, to still have time to repent, to manage to be born here into eternity—there, in eternity, the pangs of childbirth are unspeakable, hellish. Since physical-mental diseases are symptoms, we do not cure them completely (this is impossible as long as there is disease), but only treat them, that is, keep them within bounds, not allowing them to lead to lethal consequences. For example, a temperature of 37-37.5 degrees Celsius is not reduced—the body itself fights the virus or other disease, but when the temperature reaches 40 degrees and above—it is necessarily reduced, because it is deadly dangerous for the whole organism (36.6 will not be, because the disease has not gone anywhere, when we reduced the temperature, removed the symptom; but we reduced the symptom to an acceptable level). Similarly in spiritual life—sorrows, sufferings, trials, diseases are useful and necessary (according to the spiritual strength of each: God-Doctor gives medicine to each in such a dose as each individually can bear with benefit for spiritual health) for the healing of the spirit, the establishment in us of the hypostatic beginning—the image of God and the acquisition of god-likeness. But if a person adds personal sorrows to what the Doctor gave, through wrongful living, sins—the total dose of sorrows becomes lethally dangerous—therefore they need to be reduced to permissible, bearable, salvific levels. (About the invaluable benefit and good, and the only need in spiritual life from sorrows, diseases, trials we will talk in detail in the second part). Let’s draw a picture-example for a better understanding of the above: a ship is sinking, there is a big hole in the hull— so the ship will sink, but we can slow down the sinking process, so that more people are saved. And if everyone is already safe, there is no need to fight for what will happen anyway (has to happen)! (And we often, like fools, instead of saving ourselves, do a luxury renovation in the cabin of a sinking ship—health for the sake of health). A branch cut from a tree dies, withers—this branch can be put in a vase with water—it will wither slower… In the first and second cases—we gain time for repentance, salvation. We need to hold on, until another ship comes to the rescue, or the branch is grafted onto a life-giving tree. And in spiritual life—while here, still in earthly form of existence, we do not move from death to Life: