monks Archives - Page 3 of 6

The Desire for Happiness

09/20/2018

Most people probably understand happiness in very earthly and materialistic terms, ranging from having no responsibilities or cares to having two beautiful cars in the garage. For others, it means enough prestige, power, money, and health that they need never worry. But is this what happiness means? The very fact that human beings always and everywhere (barring some kind of psychological dysfunction) desire and try … to attain some degree of happiness in this world

Our Aim in Life

06/20/2018

In St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, it happened that once I had up to fourteen functions at the same time. I spoke about it to my spiritual father. I told him: ‘I don’t manage to carry out my work; I have fourteen jobs!’ He answered me: ‘You are wrong; you’ve only got one job’. ‘But no, Father’, I replied, ‘I have fourteen!’ Again he said, ‘No, you are only doing one thing at a time. So, do

Silence as Sacrament

06/19/2018

“For God alone my soul waits in silence.” (Ps. 61:1) “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1) “Silence is the sacrament of the world to come.” (St. Isaac the Syrian) Silence is not just the absence of ambient noise. Nor does it mean the lack of laughter or music or shared reflection. Silence is a state of mind and heart, a condition of

What the Fathers Sought

06/12/2018

What the Fathers sought most of all was their own true self, in Christ. And in order to do this, they had to reject completely the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion in “the world.” They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand. They sought a God whom they alone could find, not one who was “given” in a set,

Society: Compassion (Part II)

02/07/2018

One of the most difficult problems faced in Christian life, and one that the desert monks experienced acutely, is the problem of our temptation to seek distance from the struggles of others, and to promote a sense of separation from the sins of the world around us. There is a certain passing resemblance to Christianity in doing so. Indeed, we certainly do not actively desire temptation for ourselves, nor do we approve of engaging in

The life of Saint Anthony the Great, the Anchorite of Egypt, and The Father of All Monks

01/17/2018

On January 17, we commemorate the venerable and God-bearing Father Saint Anthony the Great. Our venerable and God-bearing Father Saint Anthony the Great was born into a wealthy family in upper Egypt about 254 AD. Also known as Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, and Anthony the Anchorite, he was a leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Orthodox Church

Patience (Part VIII): Patience Is a Trustworthy Guide for Living with Other People

10/13/2017

There were two monks living in one place, and a great old man came to visit them with the intention of testing them. He took a stick and began to bang about the vegetables of one of them. Seeing it, the brother hid himself, and when only one shoot was left, he said to the old man, “Abba, if you will, leave it so that I can cook it that we may eat together.” Then

Patience (Part II): The Biblical Roots of Patience in Desert Asceticism

07/18/2017

The sources of desert wisdom are the sayings of the abbas and ammas and written accounts of incidents from their lives. The wisdom embodied in their actions and teaching was formed through years of meditation and teaching about the Bible and the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The Greek words used for patience in these sources can help us understand the role of patience in the lives of the desert monks. The Greek verb “hypomeno”

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part IV)

01/09/2017

There is a second key mistake that we often make in our assumptions about the essential nature of life in the world, which mistake makes monastic literature difficult to approach. We often conceive of worldly life as merely a kind of default existence that anyone who is not specially called to monasticism or ordination simply ends up leading. We assume that it is only the monk, nun or priest who has a special call, while

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part II)

11/04/2016

It often seems that we Orthodox only end up spinning our wheels when we try to answer questions… with reference to monastic literature. While we probably have a clear sense that there is something to be learned about such topics there, we do not always have a good picture of how to really find this value while also respecting the basic integrity and purpose of these texts. One of the key sources of this problem

Tags

The Desire for Happiness

Our Aim in Life

Silence as Sacrament

What the Fathers Sought

Society: Compassion (Part II)

The life of Saint Anthony the Great, the Anchorite of Egypt, and The Father of All Monks

Patience (Part VIII): Patience Is a Trustworthy Guide for Living with Other People

Patience (Part II): The Biblical Roots of Patience in Desert Asceticism

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part IV)

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part II)

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