Nowadays the monastic fathers could show us a way out of the superficial debates about the structure of the church or the exhaustion of spirituality. They invite us onto the path of longing. The longing for God sends us off through all obstacles on the chase for the hare, for oneness with God, for the coming of Jesus Christ, “who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). The striving
When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life. Preachers who reduce mysteries to problems and offer Band-Aid-type solutions are depressing because they
The Cell “The anchorite leaves the world and travels toward the desert. There he builds the cell of his repentance, the place of his rebirth, where he settles.” [6] The Physical Environment of the Cell As we have seen, the cells of the desert monks, both male and female, were often caves or built onto caves, portions of abandoned forts or villages, tombs carved into rock cliffs, natural rock formations, simple hand-built dwellings within or
Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) was a Byzantine Christian monk and mystic revered to this day by Eastern Christians. Symeon believed humans had the capacity to experience God’s presence directly. He visualized this union happening within the “force field” of the Body of Christ. This cosmic embodiment is created both by God’s grace and our response. Symeon’s Hymn 15 in his Hymns of Divine Love beautifully names the divine union that God is forever inviting
‘To be restored to life we needed a God incarnate and put to death’ (St Gregory Nazianzen). In the face of all the accusations brought against God – or caricatures of God – by modem atheism, the only possible answer that Christians can give is the Innocent one, crucified by all the evil devised by human beings, who thus offers us resurrection. In the Risen Christ, in his glorified body, in the very opening of
To many people today the sayings of the fathers and the writings of the early monks may look like a strange and distant world. It is not always simple to feel our way into this language, so different from ours. But once we have discovered the wisdom that inhabits the words of the monastic fathers, we will not easily let them go. They are a treasure trove not just for the spiritual life, but also
During the Roman imperial persecutions of Christianity martyrdom was esteemed as the highest offering of one’s self to God. Martyrdom in blood, red martyrdom, was the most esteemed path toward sainthood. When the persecutions ended a new path to heaven led, for many, to the desert and a life of self-denial, white martyrdom. As we have seen, the first step was withdrawal, anachoresis. This was accompanied by xeniteia, or “indifference toward worldly values,” through non-attachment
It is this inner solidarity which prevents self-righteousness and makes compassion possible. Thomas Merton, the monk, expresses this well when he writes: Once God has called you to solitude, everything you touch leads you further into solitude. Everything that affects you builds you into a hermit, as long as you do not insist on doing the work yourself and building your own kind of hermitage. What is my new desert? The name of it is
But God is patient, with all the patience of love. The evil that he cannot prevent, because it is born of the freedom in which his omnipotence is at once fulfilled and limited, God will use to open us to his love. Thus death, ‘the wages of sin’, paradoxically becomes a remedy for sin. Precisely because it is against nature, it makes us aware, if we do not run away from it, of our true
Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians are a tour de force on the pure meaning of grace and the serious limitations of morality and religion to lead you to God. “Cursed be the law,” Paul even says (Galatians 3:13). No wonder he has been called a “moral anarchist” by people who are still seeking any well-disguised path of “self-realization.” But it seems Christianity has paid little heed to Paul’s revolutionary message, or even to
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