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SUFFERING CAN BE GOD'S TOUCH BUT OFTEN WE CAN AVOID ILLS WITH BALANCE, DISCIPLINE

Discipline and balance equal joy. An odd combination.

Or at least one we don't think of very often.

When we think of intense happiness, we think of family. We think of good times. We think of Christmas morning.

And joy there is at such times.

But long-lasting, continual joy comes by way of spiritual discipline, it comes in exaltation of the Cross, which brings balance and brings us closer to the love and Mind of God.

You can go from "drug" to "drug": from money and sex and vacations and consumerism and indulgent eating to every form of past-time and entertainment and you will not find yourself content in a permanent fashion until the inside is purged and there is an evenness in your life that opens the door to grace.

Often, we commit excesses -- we are out of balance -- because we are trying to fill an inner void.

In most such cases, that's caused because we have distanced ourselves from God.

Discipline is what purges and discipline places us above the flesh and thus closer to Heaven. It raises us from the depths. It clarifies, it unshackles us, it strengthens us -- especially fasting.

But discipline can be the way you work, the way you rise in the morning, the way you think, the way you do chores. Particularly, it is the way we pray.

For the more we pray the more numerous are ministering angels.

With discipline we cleanse the inside and set ourselves right with the Lord.

With that control comes a sense of well-being that dismisses darkness. There is a settlement. Our emotions are reined in and there is health around us.

Good spirituality brings health. Dark blotches -- blotches in which illness can fester, through which demons can enter -- are purged as we draw close to God.

Just last week, a major study showed that people who attend church once a week live on average five years longer than those who don't -- 84 to 70, while those who attend church more than once a week live on average to 85!

Studies show:

*People who attend religious services frequently have stronger immune systems.

*Patients in intensive care units who are prayed for have fewer complications and need fewer drugs.

*Religious patients with depression make better recoveries.

*When people say the Rosary their heart beats become synchronized, and powerful.

"The strongest and most consistent finding across all the studies is the finding that people who are attending public worship more frequently are living longer," said George Fitchett, PH.D., chaplain at Rush University Medical Center.

Much of this is due to the self-discipline of going to Mass, praying more than quick prayers, and fully practicing the sacraments -- through which health emanates. That control manifests both spiritually and also in ways that are practical. When we control our spirits, we control not only the mind and nerve center but also the organs and flesh that are all encompassed (and vivified) by the spirit -- sometimes with incredible results.

A clean spirit cleans the physical. What is around us is the true "us."

Does that mean that with discipline we never again have to worry about illness? Does that mean that there are no further trials -- no "down" periods? Of course not. No one knows the entire mystery of God. Often, He sends trials like infirmity because we need a new perspective. We need redemptive suffering. He sends events in our lives -- including ill health -- to let us see things in a dramatically new and more accurate and holier fashion.

That's why saints called sufferings blessings!

They are new challenges.

But often, when we exercise discipline, God does not have to do it for us -- He doesn't have to send what in His goodness He might otherwise have to send. Discipline allows us to see in a way we don't usually see; it allows us to have the kind of fresh view we attain when we are suddenly faced with a crisis without actually facing the crisis.

Did you ever experience the way your perspective takes a radical shift when a big problem arises -- when your very health, or the health of someone you love, may be in jeopardy?

A story ran recently about how a woman in New York dropped a spoon on her kitchen floor. As she bent down to pick it up, her house exploded. Fire officials said because she was bending down when the explosion occurred, the kitchen sink and counter helped keep debris from hitting her.

She lived because the spoon fell.

How many spoons fall in our own lives?

How many times have you heard a cancer victim say that he or she now sees that cancer as the greatest blessing?

A new perspective was opened to such a person -- a new unification with the Cross, which gives us the highest view -- and with that perspective came a new balance.

There are also illnesses that come from the dark side, or from our wayward ways, and we have a chance to purge these through discipline and regain balance of the spirit. Prayer and fasting shield us -- and so do other forms of discipline, such as watching our thoughts and making sure that our thoughts are pure and thus transmitting purity.

When that purity engulfs our bodies, so does health, and so does an equilibrium that brings us peace which brings us closeness -- this is the definition of joy -- to the Mind of God.

[resources: The God of Miracles]

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