SUFFERING, more or less, we shall necessarily encounter in simple resignation and even in perfect abandonment. Our organic faculties cannot but be affected by sensible evil. Our superior powers are subject to fatigue which they must feel whether they like it or not. Besides, we are in a fallen state, where we experience an attraction towards forbidden fruit, an aversion for disagreeable duties; and consequently all the agonies of interior strife. When God requires us to sacrifice some pleasure or to suffer some affliction for His love, despite the fact that the superior part of our souls submits courageously to the divine will, the inferior part must nevertheless feel the bitterness of the sacrifice. And this cannot fail to be of frequent occurrence. For God is all intent on purifying us, detaching us, and enriching us. He desires particularly to cure us of pride by means of humiliations, of sensuality by sufferings and privations; and since the maladies are stubborn the remedies must be applied frequently and for long.  —Abbot Dom Abbot Vitalis Lehodey ‘Holy Abandonment’