Prayer And Tribulation

Decima utilitas tribulationis est, quod orationes tuas facit exaudiri, et offerri ante Deum ; quia non est consuetudo in conspectu Dei quod repellat orationem tribulati, sed eam potius exaudiat. Unde Salomon, Deprecationem laesi exaudiet Dominus. Ideo enim multoties Deus verberat homines et tribulaliones eis immittit, ut eos misericordiam postulare compellat, ut aperiat os eorum ad petendum eum in tribulatione, quia clausum ilbid habuerunt in prosperitate. Unde Augustinus: Deus immittit tribulationes aliquibus, ut excitentur in tribulatione, et petant illud a Deo quod ipse vult illis conferre. In persona talium dicit Psalmista : Ad Dominum cum tribularer clamavi, et exaudivit me. Et si forte contingat quod tu Deum in prosperitate invoces, ut prosperitas te totaliter dormire non faciat, tamen te somnolentum aliquando reddit, ita clamor tuus in prosperitate non fit ita efficax sicut in adversitate. Et si forte adeo adversitas occupaverit cor tuum, quod non sit ita intentum orationi in adversitate sicut in prosperitate, tamen ipsa adversitas orationem pretiosiorem facit. Si vero tantum tribulatio te oppresserit, quod non potes aperire os ad clamandum ad Dominum, tribulatio tamen orat pro te, dum tu patientiam habes : Dicit enim magister Petrus Lombardus de Lazaro, quod quot habebat vulnera, tot habebat ora clamantia ad Deum : quia quando Lazarus ore suo tacebat, vulnera sua pro se clamabant. Unde Dominus dicit ad Cain de Abel fratre suo quem occidit: Vox sanguinis fratris tui clamat ad me de terra. Sic ergo patet quod tribulatio orationem pretiosiorem reddit et acceptabiliorem. Tribulationes enim sunt quasi solutio pro una bullata littera liberationis sese. Unde Job dicit: Quis mihi det ut veniat mihi petitio mea, et quod expecto tribuat mihi Deus ; qui coepit, ipse me conterat, solvat manum suam et scindat me, et haec mihi sit consolatio, ut affligens me dolore non parcat. Nota, quod Job, qui possessiones suas, filios et filias amiserat, percussus est vulnere pessimo a planta pedis usque ad verticem, afflictus ab amicis, vituperatus ab uxore, tamen videbatur quod Deus parum eum affligeret, nec in alio consolationem quaerebat, nisi tantum in hoc quod Deus ei non parceret. Sed si quaeris, quid pertinet ad liberationem afflictionis suae ; ad hoc responderi potest, quod afflictio ejus est solutio litterarum suarum. Sicut quando pauper bibit vinum in taberna, et non habet unde solvat escotum suum, petit ut verberetur, et sic dimittatur. Si autem, in quo erat ipsius Job consolatio quando petebat affligiat hoc responderi potest secundum quod Deus aliquibus in praesenti non parcit, ut in futuro parcat eis. Consolatio Job in hoc erat, quod in praesenti tribulatione sciebat se evasurum futurara. Consolare ergo, quia si in praesenti fueris afflictus, patienter sufferens in futuro parcet tibi Deus. Nam dicitur quod non judicabit Deus bis idipsum. Unde Job, qui petebat ne sibi parceret Deus in praesenti, alibi petit ut sibi parcat Dominus in futuro, dicens: Parce mihi Domine, nihil enim sunt dies mei. Ut ergo in futuro parcat tibi Deus, sustine in praesenti tribulationem ; quia tribulatio animam sanat, sicut dicit Job, ipse vulnerat et medetur; vulnerat enim corpus, immittendo tribulationem, sed sanat animam. Petrus Blenensis, De Utilitate Tribulationum Source: Migne PL 207.1003b-1004c

The tenth usefulness of tribulation is that it makes your prayers heard and to be offered before God, because it is not the way of God to dismiss the prayer of one who is troubled, but rather He more keenly attends to it. Whence Solomon says, 'The Lord shall hear the prayer of the wounded.' 1 Therefore as many times as God strikes men and sends tribulations upon them, it is so that they be driven to ask for His mercy, that they open their mouths to seeking Him in tribulation which have been closed in prosperity. So Augustine says, 'God sends tribulations on some that He rouse them by tribulation and that they seek from God that which He wishes to give them.' The Psalmist speaks of such things, saying, 'I cried out to the Lord when I was troubled and He hearkened to me.' 2 And if perhaps it happens that you call on God in prosperity, if your prosperity has not utterly lulled you to sleep, yet only sometimes and drowsily do you turn to it, and so your cry in prosperity is not as efficacious as it is in adversity. And if perhaps adversity has occupied your heart to such an extent that you are not as intent on prayer in adversity as in prosperity, yet the adversity makes the prayer more precious. If, however, tribulation oppresses you so, that you do not open your mouth to cry out to the Lord, yet tribulation prays for you as long as you endure. For the master Peter Lombard said concerning the beggar Lazarus that as many were his wounds, so as many were the cries to God from his mouth, for even when the mouth of Lazarus was silent, his wounds cried out for him. 3 Whence the Lord says to Cain concerning Abel his brother whom he murdered, 'The voice of the blood of your brother cries out to me from the earth.' 4 So, then, it is obvious that tribulation offers a more precious and more acceptable prayer. For tribulations are as the revealing of the words of release from a  sealed letter. Whence Job says, 'Who shall give to me that my petition may come to me and that what I hope God gives to me, that what He has begun, He crush me with, dissolving all my strength and tearing me apart, and that this be my consolation, that afflicting me with suffering, He give no quarter.' 5 Note that Job who lost his possessions and his sons and his daughters, and was struck with the wost of wounds, from the sole of his foot to the top of his head, and was afflicted by his friends, and abused by his wife, yet perceived that God had afflicted him but lightly, nor did he seek consolation in anything else, unless that in this God not spare him. But if you ask, how his affliction pertains to his liberation, to this one is able to say that his affliction is the opening of his letter. As when a poor man drinks wine in a tavern, and has no money to pay his bill, and so he seeks to be beaten and cast out. Or indeed one may say that Job's consolation when he sought to be afflicted is that those who God does not spare in the present, He shall in the future. The consolation of Job was in this, that in present tribulation he knew that he would escape future chastisement. Therefore be comforted, that in the present afflicted, patiently suffering, in the future God shall be merciful to you. For it is said that God will not judge us twice for the same thing. Whence Job, who prayed that God not spare him in the present, sought that God be merciful to him in the future, saying, 'Spare me, O Lord, my days are nothing.' 6 And so that in the future God spare you, endure present tribulation, because tribulations heal the soul, as Job said, 'He wounds and He heals'; 7 for He wounds the body in the sending of tribulation, but He heals the soul. Peter of Blois, On The Usefulness of Tribulations 1 Sirach 35.16 2 Ps 119.1 3 Lk 16.19-31 4 Gen 4.10 5 Job 6.8-10 6 Job 7.16 7 Job 5.18