The body is the handmaid of the soul, and the soul — its queen. Therefore it often happens that by the mercy of God our body is debilitated by illnesses. Passions weaken because of illnesses, and the person becomes well. Sometimes bodily illness itself is born of passions. To bear illness with patience and gratitude is regarded as a feat, and even more than one.
One elder, suffering from dropsy, told this to the brethren who came to him, desiring to heal him: "Fathers, pray, that my inner person is not subjected to a similar illness. But concerning the present illness, I ask God that he not suddenly relieve me of it, "for though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
