Complain as little as possible about the harm they did to you; because complaining without sinning is a very rare thing; Our self-love always exaggerates in our eyes and in our hearts the injuries we receive. If there is a need to complain or to calm your spirit or to ask for advice, do not do so to people who are easy to get excited and to think and speak badly of others. But complain to people who are measured and fear God, because, on the contrary, far from calming your soul, you would disturb it even more and, instead of pulling the thorn out of your heart, you would drive it in even deeper.

Many people, when they are sick or in any other tribulation, refrain from complaining and showing their lack of virtue, knowing well (and this is true) that it would be weakness and lack of generosity; but they seek that others will pity them, complain of their sufferings and even praise them for their patience. In truth, we have here an act of patience, but certainly a false patience, which in reality is nothing more than a very subtle pride and refined vanity.

Yes, says the Apostle, there is something to boast about, but not before God. Truly patient Christians do not complain about their sufferings or wish others to lament them; if they are spoken about, it is with great simplicity and ingenuity, without making them bigger than they are; if others complain about them, they listen to them patiently, unless they have in mind a suffering that does not exist, because then they modestly tell them the truth; They thus maintain the tranquility of their soul between truth and patience, naively expressing their sufferings, without complaining.

In the setbacks that come your way on the path of devotion (for you will not lack them), remember that we can achieve nothing great in this world without first going through many difficulties, but that, once overcome, we soon forget about them. everything, for the intimate joy we then have of seeing our aspirations fulfilled. Well then, Philothea, you absolutely want to work to form Jesus Christ, as the Apostle says, in your heart, as in your works, through the sincere love of His doctrine and the perfect imitation of His life. It will cost you some pain, no doubt; but they will pass and Jesus Christ, who will live in you, will fill your soul with an ineffable joy, which no one will be able to steal from you.

If you fall into illness, offer your pains, your prostration and all your sufferings to Jesus Christ, begging Him to accept them in union with the merits of His passion. Remember the bile He drank for your love and obey the doctor, taking the medicine and doing everything He determines for the love of God. Desire health to serve Him, but do not refuse to remain ill for a long time to obey Him and even be willing to die, if it is His will, to go and enjoy His glorious presence eternally.

Remember, Philothea, that bees, while they make honey, live on a very bitter food, and that we can never more easily fill our hearts with this holy sweetness, which is the fruit of patience, than by patiently eating the bitter bread of the bees. tribulations that God sends us; and the more humiliating they are, the more precious and pleasant virtue will become to our hearts.

He often thinks of Jesus crucified; consider Him covered with wounds, saturated with opprobrium and pain, penetrated with sadness to the depths of His soul, in complete helplessness and abandonment, loaded with slander and curses; you will then see that your pains cannot compare to His, neither in quantity nor in quality, and that you will never suffer for Him anything similar to what He suffered for you.

Compare yourself to the martyrs, or, without going so far, to people who currently suffer more than you, and exclaim, praising God: Ah! my thorns seem to me like roses and my pains like consolations, if I compare myself to those who live without help, without assistance and without relief, in a continuous death, oppressed by pain and sadness.

Saint Francis de Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life (Philoteia)

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I like this more than “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”