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Keeping Death before our Eyes Every Day (Part III)

Becoming like the dead doesn’t mean becoming insensible, but what happens in baptism: dying to the world, that is, human beings with their expectations and demands, their standards and judgments, have no more influence on us. We no longer identify with the world. We live beyond the threshold. We live in a spiritual reality, over which the world has no power. That makes us free. When we are constantly aiming to be praised, we will

Keeping Death before our Eyes Every Day (Part II)

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

Keeping Silence, Not Passing Judgment (Part III)

Again and again the monks sing the praises of silence. For them silence is the way to encounter themselves, to discover the truth of their own hearts. But silence is also the way to become free from constantly judging and condemning others. We are always in danger of evaluating, estimating, and judging every person we meet. And often enough we find ourselves on the verge of condemning and passing sentence on them. Silence prevents us