“All temptations and afflictions require patients to be overcome and this constitutes their defeat. Note the names of all those who have endured until death during temptations, whose saliva becomes blood in their mouth so that they would not speak. You should have great reverence for them and honor them as marketers and confessors. These are the people I love and regard with affection and for them I should shed my last drop of blood in Christ’s love every day because you see that such a person prefers to endure thousands of deaths rather than to let a harsh word slip out of his mouth. And when people oppress him, but also of justice oppress him, when internal thoughts also oppress him, he fights back but becomes weak and collapses as if he were dead. If he still fights no ethically with temptation and takes all the burdens upon himself, aching & as if he were at fault. So nothing greater do I love and desire to hear that you are being patient in your temptations.”
Elder Joseph
~Monastic Wisdom  (*today, August 15, marks the 55th year from the Elder’s falling asleep)