Some people have what are commonly called today “abandonment issues,” meaning some psychological or emotional affliction or impediment stemming from the childhood experience of a parent’s death or departure, or practically any sort of rejection by a “significant other” at any stage of life. It’s not my intention here to discuss legitimate claims vs. spurious [...]
“I perceive that in every way you are very religious,” remarked St Paul to the Athenians. “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god’” (Acts 17:22-23). Paul was pleased to find people who were seekers of God, but he [...]
There is a character in C.S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength who was sometimes referred to as the “Mad Parson.” He was an insider in the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), which was a kind of Orwellian organization whose new-speak propaganda presented the organization as the great friend of mankind that would take human [...]
A few days ago I was rather rudely reminded of my lack of splendid isolation when I perceived on the floor of my cabin, shortly after awakening in the early morning hours, a scorpion positioned perilously close to my bare foot. I did manage—thank God—to carefully remove myself from harm’s way and to send the [...]
When you want to find something that Jesus said during his public ministry, you go to the four Gospels, right? Right. But there’s something He said that isn’t found in the four Gospels. You will find it in the Acts of the Apostles (and I don’t mean Jesus’ short pre-Ascension speech in the beginning). It [...]
Sitting in a muddy and stinking pig-sty, wasted with hunger, bowed down with shame, humiliated by the quick exit of his fair-weather friends, the prodigal son decided to make an examination of conscience. What were the events that led to this disastrous state of affairs, and how could he make things right again? He used [...]
Much has been written about praying with icons and the way they can help draw one into a place of inner peace and awareness of the mystery of God. There’s something about the hieratic style, the light shining from within the figures, and the sense of sacred serenity that exudes from these blessed images. For [...]
The young Moses was full of zeal (the kind that St Paul would later call “unenlightened”). He had been brought up in Pharaoh’s house, but he knew he was a Hebrew by birth. So “he went out to his people and looked on their burdens” (Exodus 2:11), with a desire to help them. He saw [...]
If anyone thinks that the Church in apostolic times was peaceful and serene, one has only to read the Acts of the Apostles to get a different view. St Paul and his disciples were thrown out of town after town, their preaching caused arguments and even riots, and they were persecuted, imprisoned and beaten as [...]
I just discovered an insightful passage about new life in Christ and his Spirit. It is taken from The Life of the Soul, by Samuel Howard Miller. I found it on the Bruderhof site: www.bruderhof.com. I think most of us can see ourselves somewhere in the following reflection and can use a shot of renewing [...]
