THE SPIRITUAL EXTENT OF ILLNESS
THE SPIRITUAL EXTENT OF ILLNESS

Summary/Abstract: Any disease constitutes an interpretation, which is all the more alive and profound as it is not in any way abstract and gratuitous, but rather enrolled within an oftentimes heartbreaking ontological experience. Most frequently, this interpretation is crucial. Because the disease calls into question (more or less) the groundwork, framework and forms of our own existence, our referential values, our relationships with others and our life itself. In many instances, the disease constitutes a spiritual trial which employs our entire being, decisively leaving its mark on the dynamics of life. Thus, in the conditions of an authentic clerical life, overcoming this trial, in one way or another, the assumption of the disease, of the different types of suffering that accompany it and finding theoretical and practical solutions to the problems which arise is imposed. Every one of us, in the course of his existence, not only has to expect suffering and illnesses (trials or consequences of sins), but, when these occur, to continue to live and to find out, despite and within them, his fulfillment. Christ comes and shows Himself to the world as doctor, and the redemption He brings is the recuperation of man, because mankind is truly diseased. The parents and the whole Tradition, counting the primordial Adamic state as the health condition of mankind have naturally seen a complex condition which has seized the whole human being. This study registers within our intention to highlight the decisive role of love in the process of healing the sick. Therefore it was detailed the spiritual meaning of disease and the positive significance of suffering, the divine-human cooperation in love emphasizing the closeness of man to life eternal.

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