Yesterday I did something I rarely do: I threw away some books. The three books were Bible commentaries on the gospels by English Protestant scholars. G.B.Caird’s commentary on St Luke went in the trash along with J.C.Fenton’s commentary on St Matthew’s gospel and D.E.Nineham’s work on St Mark. “Why throw away some perfectly good books?” you [...]
Idleness is the enemy of the soul, and so monks should be occupied at some times with manual labor, and at certain times with holy reading. — Rule of St Benedict I've written here on the importance of reading and study for the spiritual life. As a consequence, a few readers have asked me [...]
This post is an excerpt from my book St Benedict and St Therese, The Little Rule and the Little Way. Go here to learn more. Benedict of Nursia was born around the year 480 in the Umbrian province of Italy. According to his biography, written by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Benedict was born into a ‘family of [...]
The Cappadocian Fathers Have you ever thought you should know more about the Apostolic Fathers of the church, but have been daunted by shelves of intimidating dusty volumes with long homilies by someone who might be named St Pachyderm of Anastasia? You like the story of St Nicholas slapping a heretic, but you've been [...]
Today we celebrate St Athanasius, and can somebody beam him down? The place is crawling with Arians again. The simple version is that Arius--a Bishop of Alexandria--taught that Jesus Christ was not fully divine. Nearly the whole church followed this new teaching. It made sense, after all for lots of reasons it was a bit of [...]