We must patiently endure the tribulations of this life-- ill-health, sorrows, poverty, losses, bereavement of kindred, affronts, persecutions, and all that is disagree able. Let us invariably look on the trials of this world as signs of God's love towards us, and of his desire to save us in the world to come. And let us, moreover, be fully persuaded that the involuntary mortifications which God himself sends us are far more pleasing to him than those which are the fruit of our own choice.
--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist
