Here is a saying by St Mark the Ascetic:
If we see someone who certainly sins and does not repent, without anything bad happening to him even until he dies, be sure that God’s judgment for him will be merciless. (in Greek)
St Mark the Ascetic is one of the most significant Fathers included in a collection of Greek patristic texts known as Philokalia. The saying belongs to a “cycle” answering the question why some people suffer and others not.
If what we call misfortunes – illness, poverty, etc – provide for us mercy in the final judgment, why God prefers to deny this mercy to some people, and gives them goods even when they sin?
If St Mark is right then goods are given precisely or at least more often, to people who sin more than others, and if God is not unjust, these goods represent even more mercy, a giving that exhausts all of God’s efforts to help them, trying to bring them to Him even as slaves.
St Mark means in this saying, if I understand well, that the more we sin the more we love nothing, so that God brings us in a direct relationship with Him, free from all created goods, but if we don’t want that, he tries at least to have us love His goods instead of nothing.
Cf. Patristic texts in English
