Spiritual Health
“… Health comes first!...most people who cite this saying think exclusively of bodily health, which…is undoubtedly very important. This form of health enables us to live a quality life and to carry out our daily activities without hindrance; as such, it represents a gift from God that should be carefully preserved and nurtured…bodily health, however significant and necessary it may be, has its own “expiration date”—sooner or later it will leave us. Ultimately, earthly life itself has physical limitations that will one day bring an end to bodily health even for the healthiest person in the world. There is, however, a form of health that has no temporal limitations and that is incomparably more important. This is spiritual health, that is, the health of our soul. If we struggle constantly to achieve bodily health until the grave, then we should struggle even more intensely for spiritual health (which must be distinguished from psychological well-being), since it endures beyond the grave, for the soul is immortal. This means that the attainment of spiritual health is our primary task, and it is precisely in relation to this form of health that the proverb is fulfilled in its fullest sense: Health comes first!” (Rev. Dr. Oliver Subotic)
“God has created human persons as body, soul, and spirit. The journey to theosis [Christ-likeness] includes the whole person, as witnessed by prayers for the holiness of the body, the miracles worked through relics of the saints, and hope for the resurrection of the dead. Physical actions reflect the state of one’s soul and impact the spiritual health of the person. Views of personhood for which the characteristics of the body become somehow irrelevant for discerning one’s vocation underwrite a disembodied view of the self that resonates more with Gnosticism…” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“It is obvious that we need to eat. “And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food” (Gen.1:29). There is creation given to us as food – but not as commodity. It is the modern heresy of a secularized, monetized world that reduces food to commodity. It is little wonder that our age has seen the development of foods that are unsafe and unhealthy. They are cheap (a word that reveals its commodification) and they are sweet (serving our pleasure and not our health). “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,” (Is. 55:2). “Eat what is good.” How do we go about such eating? It is not for nothing that the most central, repeated sacrament of the Church is given in an act of eating and drinking. To eat the Body of Christ and to drink His Blood is also a lesson in eating that which is good, truly Good. It is a lesson that points us towards the proper relationship with everything we eat.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“People need God daily as they need material food and drink. We starve spiritually and physically when we are deprived of nourishment that gives us our overall health and wellbeing. …just prior to our Lord Jesus Christ’s miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fishes, when the disciples complain to Jesus to dismiss the people after a long and tiring day. Testing His followers, Christ addresses them: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” [Matthew 14:16]The misunderstanding is that physical food alone will satiate the people’s appetite. Christ wants to give to the throngs of well over five thousand men, women, and children not physical food — He wants to give them God. And when they have God, the physical food is just the icing on the cake, the dessert.” (Fr. Stelyios Muksuris)
“Every healing that comes from God fulfills a purpose greater than our immediate health: God wills to restore us that we might fully embrace and serve Him.” (Dynamis 7/4/2020)
“…part of what it means to say we live in a fallen world is that people are in a weakened state, in poor spiritual health, likely to stray from the good path, to be tempted to leave the path that leads to fullness of health, and that therefore we all need the healing, nourishing, guiding, and protecting that the Scriptures provide. These various images also imply that entering into the new life in Christ isn’t just a matter of mentally accepting some ideas as true. If we need protection, then it isn’t an easy process; it involves struggle, deep change, a cross.” (Mary S. Ford)
“The culture of modernity imagines itself to be a champion of a therapeutic approach to life. “Healing” is popular in an array of forms. The Christian faith is not immune to this cultural predilection – how could Christianity be opposed to healing? Nevertheless, much of our modern concept of therapeutics, at least on the popular level, remains shallow and devoid of truth. The culture satisfies itself with “making you feel better.” Oftentimes, wanting to “feel better” is precisely the thing that has made someone sick. In a consumer-driven world, feeling better sells. A Christian version of “feeling better” also sells – but at the expense of the gospel.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Often the reason people fall into unhealthy or even sinful habits, such as comfort eating, mindless web surfing, or substance abuse, is that they have not identified wholesome ways to self-soothe and recharge. In the long term, disordered ways of recharging only suck more energy out of us.” (Robin Phillips)
“Every person has self-medicated at some point. Perhaps it was something as benign as eating a bowl of ice cream on arriving home after a stressful day of work. However, often it is not so benign. When we self-medicate, we are trying to self-soothe. We are trying to reach out for something that will numb the pain of feelings of loss, grief, sadness, pressure, stress, or anxiety. This is the root cause of addiction. Addiction is an attempt to cope with and avoid emotional pain…self-medicating not only blocks out pain in an unhealthy way, it also blocks insight and self-awareness. Through self-medicating we pause the inner work that is needed for our theosis. Only when the medication is removed does the reality of one’s inner world emerge.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“Sobering up and coming to our senses, we realize that here, in this world today, we’re in exile. We’ve been sent here in exile. Man, left without God, has turned his life into hard labor. He suffers by the sweat of his brow, laboring for his bread, yet he still lacks everything. He tries to find some special doctors, special medicine, health improvement systems (everyone wants to improve their health now), but he’ll still die—that’s the thing. No matter how much you recover, soon or later you’ll die. Those are our prospects without God. But when man begins to live spiritually and pulls himself up, crawls out of these swamps he’s stuck in, there are completely different prospects. If we’re truly religious people, God gives us everything we need. However, we lose a lot due to our stupidity and sins.” (Archpriest Andrew Lemeshonok)
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