St. John Chrysostom: relevant words to us today

We think we live in bad times?  Here's an excerpt from a letter of St. John Chrysostom (c. 350-407), bishop of Constantinople, which he wrote from prison near the end of his life to his dear friend and colleague, the Deaconess St. Olympias:

Please listen to what I have to say.  I am going to try to make you a little less depressed and get rid of the dark clouds in your mind.  Why are you so worried, sad, and agitated?  Because the storm that has attacked the churches is harsh and menacing, and because it has wrapped everything in unrelieved darkness?  Because it is reaching crisis point?  Because it brings dreadful shipwrecks every day, while the whole world collapses about us?

We see the ocean whirling up from its uttermost depths and sailors' bodies floating on it.  We see others overcome by the force of the waves. . . . It is all so hopeless they can only scream, groan, cry, and weep. . . .  Everywhere monsters of the deep rise up and threaten travelers.  But no mere words can express the unutterable.  No terminology I can think of can adequately convey the terror of these times.

Though I am aware of all these miseries, I never cease to hope.   I always remember the universal Pilot.  He does not rely on steersmanship to suffer the storm and come through it.  He merely nods to calm the roaring oceans, and if he takes his time in doing so, well that is the Pilot's way.  He does not stop dangers straightaway, but banishes them only when they get close to their most ghastly point, and almost everyone has abandoned hope.  Only then does he show us marvels and miracles.  Only then does he reveal the power which he alone possesses, and teach the suffering how to be patient.

Quoted in the new full edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints, September, p, 112.   St. John Chrysostom, continue to pray for us.