Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The Lord is good to those who wait for him;
to the soul who will seek him, it is a good thing.
And it will remain and keep quiet for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man when he carries a yoke in his youth.
He will sit alone and be silent, for he lifted it up upon himself.
He will give his cheek to the one who strikes him; he will be fed with reproaches.
For the Lord will not thrust away forever.
For He who humbled will have pity, even according to the abundance of His compassion.
He did not answer from His heart, and He humbled the sons of a man. (Lam 3:25–33)

But all those who call their lands by their own names and have wood and hay and stubble in their thoughts; such as these, since they are strangers to difficulties, become aliens from the kingdom of heaven. Had they however known that “tribulation perfects patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope makes not ashamed,” they would have exercised themselves, after the example of Paul. He said, “I bring my body into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” They would easily have borne the afflictions that were brought on them to prove them from time to time, if the prophetic admonition had been listened to by them: It is good for a person to take up your yoke in his youth. He shall sit alone and shall be silent, because he has taken your yoke on him. He will give his cheek to him who strikes him. He will be filled with reproaches. The Lord does not cast away forever. When He abases, He is gracious, according to the multitude of His tender mercies. For though all these things should proceed from the enemies, stripes, insults, reproaches, yet shall they avail nothing against the multitude of God's tender mercies; for we shall quickly recover from them since they are merely temporal, but God is always gracious, pouring out his tender mercies on those who please Him. Therefore, my beloved, we should not look at these temporal things but fix our attention on those that are eternal. Though affliction may come, it will have an end; though insult and persecution, yet are they nothing to the hope that is set before us. For all present matters are trifling compared with those that are future; the sufferings of this present time not being worthy to be compared with the hope that is to come. For what can be compared with the kingdom? Or what is there in comparison with life eternal? Or what is all we could give here, to that which we shall inherit yonder? For we are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” Therefore it is not right, my beloved, to consider afflictions and persecutions but the hopes that are laid up for us because of persecutions.

Athanasius, Festal Letters 13.4