How can tribulations help us pursue the life of repentance?

While Archbishop Basil was suffering from several consecutive illnesses, he felt a constant need to live the life of repentance. In the year 373 A. D., he wrote to Eusebius Bishop of Samosata: “But, since it is the scourge of the Lord which augments our sufferings by additional trials according to our deserts, I have acquired one infirmity after another. The

1441 St. Basil of Caesarea, The Morals 1.2 (FOTC 9:71).

1442 St. Basil of Caesarea, The Morals 1.5 (FOTC 9:73).

consequence of this is evident even to a child—that this bodily shell of ours must certainly go hence, unless, perhaps, the loving kindness of God, granting us in His forbearance time for repentance, would also now, as frequently before, bring about some release and a way of escape from inconceivable sufferings. At all events, these matters will be as is pleasing to Him and beneficial to us.”¹⁴⁴³