For those of us who are now under the advisory to quarantine or isolate or practice social distancing, we are now finding ourselves in entirely novel territory. Where once we thought nothing of bouncing around from place to place and store to store we are now to practice some discipline about our comings and goings.... Continue Reading →
Adam, Eve, and Acedia: Despondency and Me
In the age of the cell phone, instant information, constant updates and never-ending distraction, we would do well to heed the words of our forebears regarding the noon-day demon. We hate the present moment and yearn for the next one, only to hate that moment in turn. Soon we grow agitated, anxious, and dejected that life holds no meaning for me anymore. God instructs Adam and Eve that the way to combat this particularly dangerous thought is by persisting in our work and through the remembrance of death-that we live for more than the next moment we yearn for. We should become free to live here and now, towards the Kingdom.
Despondency; The Modern Plague?
The demon of acedia [despondency], also called the noonday demon, is the most oppressive of all the demons. He attacks the monk from about the fourth hour [10am] and besieges his soul until the eighth hour [2 pm]. First of all, he makes it appear that the sun moves slowly or not at all, and... Continue Reading →
Prayer as Participation in God
For God is indeed present to all, but all are not present to Him. But then, when we have invoked It [The Trinity], by all pure prayers and unpolluted mind, and by our aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to It.
Distractions at Prayer
When the demons see you yearning to pray truly, then they propose representations of certain things that are supposedly necessary and shortly thereafter they raise up and implant the memory of them, setting the mind in motion to search for them. When the mind does not find them, it is deeply grieved and discouraged. Then... Continue Reading →
And The World Did Not Know Him
“The theologian very quickly counters these things by saying, ‘The world did not know him.’ He does not say that he was at fault for being unknown. Let the world blame its own weakness. The Son enlightens, but the creature blunts the grace. The creature was loaned the sight to conceive of the one who... Continue Reading →
An Ancient Faith For a Modern World 