Until the intellect has seen God’s glory with ‘unveiled face’ (2 Corinthians 3:18), the soul cannot say from experience of that glory: ‘I shall exult in the Lord, I shall delight in His salvation (Psalm 35:9). For its heart is still shrouded in self-love, so that the world’s foundations–the inner essences of things–cannot be revealed to it. And it will not be free from this shroud until it has undergone both voluntary and involuntary sufferings.
~Ilias the Presbyter
Prayerful Life 