Formation, Knowledge and Desire

A bewildering array of semi-professionalized terminology awaits anyone who simply wants to know how to fulfill Christ’s command to make disciples. Formation. Paedagogy. Spiritual direction. Ascetical theology. This doesn’t even touch on methodology. Cell groups. Class rooms. Home studies. But one thing you can be sure that nearly all of these “programs” and “methods” will [...]

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Saved Through What Is Given

A person going through a time of intense personal suffering was counseled that salvation would come precisely through these evil events.  Not salvation in spite of; nor salvation from.  But salvation through these very things. One can intuit that this pastoral counsel did not feel very comforting. When confronted with suffering, the argument turns immediately [...]

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Joy is the Thing

Long ago, before we were married, H. was haunted all one morning as she went about her work with the obscure sense of God (so to speak) ‘at her elbow,’ demanding her attention. And of course, not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a question, as it usually is, [...]

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Godparenting 101

To be a godparent is at the same time a great honor and a tremendous responsibility. God asks each godparent to assist in leading souls along the narrow path which leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. For this reason the role of the godparent is not to be minimized or trivialized. It is in fact [...]

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The Third Kind of Monks

From St. Benedict’s Rule: The third kind of monks, a detestable kind, are the sarabaites. These, not having been tested, as gold in the furnace, by any rule or by the lessons of experience, are as soft as lead. In their works they still keep faith with the world, so that their tonsure marks them [...]

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St Benedict, Stability, Discontentedness and the Goodness of God

Fourth and finally, there are the monks called gyrovagues, who spend their entire lives drifting from region to region, staying as guests for three or four days in different monasteries. Always on the move, they never settle down, and are slaves to their own wills and gross appetites. In every way they are worse than [...]

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The Failure of Reason in the Face of Human Suffering

Although this post was sparked by reading my priest’s, Father Patrick Reardon’s The Trial of Job and by a conversation with fellow parishioner and dear friend, Dr. Michael Rhodes, one should not think that the failures and infelicities of my thoughts here are in any way generated by these two men. Rather, they have served [...]

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Good Zeal and Life Together

Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from vices and leads to God and to life everlasting. This zeal, therefore, the monks should practice with the most fervent love. Thus they should anticipate one another in honor; [...]

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Noetic Battles Revisited

In a previous post, I cited some ancient Christian teaching regarding the mind and the spiritual battle waged in the arena of thoughts. I want to return to the topic again, this time with some personal reflections. The past three months in particular have been a rather specific engagement with the notion of spiritual warfare [...]

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The Christian Catacombs of Rome

Nice site over all. This page–The Christian Catacombs of Rome–deals with the liturgy and theology of the catacombs.

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