Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Excerpts from Basil Shereghy's Book

On the petition in the Eastern liturgy "That we be delivered from all affliction, wrath, and need, let us pray to the Lord":

The Church prays first of all for temporal and external peace. Such peace is desirable and necessary because without a minimum of political stability the development of Christian virtues, the preservation of Christian culture and especially the exercise of public Christian worship is scarcely possible. The Christian way of life demands at least a minimum of external well-being for the supernatural development of man...

It is true that affliction, pain of body or mind, grief, illness, calamity, and misery can serve as a springboard for heroic virtue. But, for an average Christian, they do not create a suitable atmosphere for well-being and spiritual balance. Wrath or violent anger, not to speak of rage, deprives man of proper vision and forces him to act unnaturally. Very often they cause false evaluations of self and others. To suffer need means to be always troubled and worried, to be without internal peace. Think of the millions of those who hardly have their daily bread, who do not have shelter over their heads, who are naked and deprived of the necessities of life. How many people suffer need in the intellectual and spiritual life! Think of the people who cannot read or who are limited as to the choice of reading material. Consider the problems of millions of people without priests, churches or religious freedom. Such a situation, naturally, cannot create peace of soul.

Regarding a later petition - for "a Christian, painless, unashamed and peaceful end of our life":

After "a peaceful and holy" life we ask for "a Christian, painless, unashamed and peaceful end of our life." These four adjectives amply characterize the requisites of a happy death. It must be Christian, which means that the dying person should depart from this valley of tears fully reconciled with God and in the state of grace. A happy death is "painless": we always pray and hope that God would spare us great suffering, unbearable mental torments and physical agony. A happy death includes dying with dignity, preserving, in the moment of the great departure, a human decorum and stateliness. This is why we pray for an "unashamed" death. And finally we pray for a "peaceful" death. To die after settling all our affairs and earthly interests to die "with a smile on our face," reconciled with God and men, to go to sleep peacefully in God.

Taken from "The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom" by Basil Shereghy