Many sayings of the fathers start out from the assumption that we must first die to the world in order to be up to the tasks that the world sets us: “A brother asked Father Moses, ‘I see a task before me and I cannot fulfill it.’ The old man said to him: ‘If you do not become like a dead body, like those who are buried, you cannot master it.’” If I completely identify
Saint Paul has always been a hero of mine. Unfortunately, Christians have often misunderstood Paul, seeing him as a moralist rather than a mystic. Yet Paul has so much to teach us. He never knew Jesus in the flesh, so Paul’s experience of the Risen Christ is much closer to what our own could be. For the next two weeks we are going to focus especially on Paul’s teachings on love, which is the theme
You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God all the time and everywhere. You have no choice in the matter, except to bring it to consciousness. St. Patrick said it well in the prayer attributed to him: God beneath you, God in front of you, God behind you, God above you, God within you. You cannot earn this God by any practice whatsoever. You cannot prove yourself worthy
In all forms of ego-defense, from the generation of bodily aches and pains and itches to distract one from quiet to the beginning stages of spiritual narcissism as manifested in expectations and false dark nights, the ego is reacting against an intentional attempt to enter into willingness and surrender. It is defending itself against an outright, self -imposed attack. People whom William James considered to be a “once-born” or “healthy” mentality may be spared all
By Fr. Antony Hughes But the Cross and Resurrection present an unprecedented challenge to us. The coming of Jesus is the invasion of Reality into our fallen world. To embrace the message of Christ means the end of delusion, the opening of new doors, the renewal of the mind. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost punctuates the invasion even more, making it strikingly personal. Looking back I’ll bet the apostles said to themselves
By Fr. Antony Hughes (Mark 10:32-45) In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! I would love to make NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION by Thomas Merton the great Trappist monk and mystic required reading. It is a continual source of inspiration for me. I will refer to it in today’s sermon. When James and John heard Jesus tell of his
Fr. Maximos never ceased repeating that our greatest enemy is our ego, what psychologists would call “narcissism,” and that we can work on that ego as we go about our daily affairs. He then mentioned Abba Dorotheos, an early Father of the Ecclesia who instructed his monks on how to confront their desires so that they might undermine their egotism. “He taught them simple exercises. If for example they were hungry and curious to find
All God appears to want from us is honesty and humility (and they are finally the same thing). If God is holding out for human perfection, God is going to have a long wait. There is no other way to read Jesus’ stories of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) or the publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14). In each story, the one who did wrong ends up being right—simply because he is honest and humble
The problem of “ego” is so recurring in different religions, through successive periods of history and under various disguises, that we know we are dealing with some foundational and core issue, and one that must be almost unconscious. It is an issue that cannot be dealt with by simply being “moral” about this or that, or joining the right group; but by a fundamental “dying” which almost all of us are afraid to do. As
Fr. Maximos went on to comment on the next fruit of the Holy Spirit, which according to St. Paul is kindness. “In the Greek original, Paul refers to kindness as chrestotis, with the Greek e in the chre and not with an i as it is in Christotis, meaning ‘being anointed by Christ,’ or ‘becoming Christified.’ Chrestotis with an e means something different. It means usefulness. It seems that what the apostle meant is that
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