Undusted Texts

This past week of Gems From the Treasury on my Twitter featured quotes from St. Ephraim (Ephrem) the Syrian, a Doctor of the Church. 12/24/12: "Divinity flew down to rescue and lift up humanity."-- Hymns on Virginity 48.17 12/25/12: "Blessed is the birth on which a generation thundered with hallelujahs of praise."-- Hymns on the Nativity 21.3 12/26/12: "Blessed is He Who made our body a Tabernacle for His hiddenness.  Blessed is He Who with our tongue interpreted His secrets."-- Hymns on the Nativity 3.7 12/27/12: "Blessed be the Babe Who made His mother the lyre of His melodies."-- Hymns on the Nativity 15.4 12/28/12: "Blessed is the Unlimited Who was limited."-- Hymns on the Nativity 23.2 Next week's series of Gems From the Treasury, to continue the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, will contain quotes from various Byzantine liturgical hymns from throughout this season of the Nativity. St. Ephra...

I am a compulsive collector of quotes, most notably those of saints and other Christian spiritual writers.  My collection is large and growing, and I do not want to keep them to myself.  Therefore I have decided to start a new project using my little-used Twitter account.  Each weekday I will tweet a quote from my collection, and I will place the quotes along with their bibliographical information in posts here.  Each week will have some sort of theme, beginning with a week of St. Ephraim the Syrian, Doctor of the Church, with quotes from his Hymns on the Nativity (except for the Eve of the Nativity).  I hope this project inspires readers with its quotes from throughout the Catholic (and probably also Orthodox) tradition.  May St. Josemaría Escrivá, who understood the power of short quotes, as seen in his writings, pray for me throughout this endeavor.  If you wish to be inspired by this project, you can follow my Twitter account with the link to the...

 "Induebar cilicio, humiliabam in ieiunio animam meam, et oratio mea ad sinum meum revertetur." "I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting.  I prayed with head bowed on my bosom."--Ps 35:13. No Christian life is without suffering, for Christ suffered.  Even the most joyful Christian recognizes the necessity of suffering, whether voluntary or no.  The Seraphic Father, St. Francis of Assisi, was no different in this regard.  Yet so many portray him as solely a lover of God's creation (which he most assuredly was).  How many know of his tears, his tears so plentiful that they ran furrows in his cheeks, that they took away his sight?  Who knows of his public self-deprecation when he took a spoonful of meat broth while fasting?  Who knows of his flight into a thorn bush to conquer the passions of the flesh? St. Francis was not just a man of joy who loved God's creation, but he was a man who suffered for the Lord, who mortified hi...

Happy feast of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra!  Though usually known only for his work of charity in giving dowry money to a peasant so his daughters could be married (and from that gift-giving the figure of Santa Claus eventually appeared), St. Nicholas was also a holy bishop and a slapper of heretics (famously slapping Arius at the First Council of Nicea), and he is also the patron of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.  To celebrate his feast day, above is the 8th movement from the cantata Saint Nicolas by Benjamin Britten , a 20th-century Anglican composer.  If the music interests you, the entire cantata can be found at the website of the St. Nicholas Center , with full text available here. I pray that your Nativity Fast or Advent is proceeding prayerfully, and once again, happy feast of St. Nicholas! St. Nicholas of Myra, pray for us!

Requested by a reader. [I apologize for the long span of time between my last post in this series and the present post.  Life has intervened, as it does among those of us who are not monastics.  I once again apologize for my excessive tardiness.] This is my second in a series of three posts on the major themes of Eastern Christian monastic spirituality.  In my earlier posts you can learn about the sources of Eastern Christian monasticism and the first major theme: solitude .  I apologize if I misrepresent any part of monastic spirituality.  I just hope that this is in some extent helpful. *** St. Diado chos of Photiki "Flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the sources of sinlessness," said the Lord to Abba Arsenios (AP, Arsenios #2).  Having covered the theme of solitude in my first post, now it is time to move on to silence . As with solitude, there is definitely a literal aspect to how to live out silence.  "To live with...

"Bethlehem, make ready.   Ephrathah, prepare yourself!"   "Behold, a   virgin shall conceive and bear a son."   The Nativity of our Lord has not yet come: we still await this great feast.   Christ is not yet born. It is true that we do not deny His historical birth, and we still proclaim in the Creed and in the Hymn to the Only-Begotten that the Son of God was made man.   Yet we do not particularly celebrate this fact, this momentous event, for we are still awaiting.   "The people who wait in darkness": this describes the Church at this time.   All creation is waiting with Her, with us, though the great event has occurred.   Despite this, we wait for the dawning of that day: Christ is not yet born. This time of preparation, while it may vary in length, is present throughout the Church.   In the East it is the Nativity Fast, and in the West it is Advent.   It is a time of waiting and of penance before that great, great...

Requested by a reader. In an earlier post , I discussed the historical origins of Eastern Christian monasticism, from St. Anthony to St. Basil.  In this post and two later ones, I will discuss some of the major themes of Eastern Christian monastic spirituality.  This will be by no means comprehensive, and I apologize if I misrepresent any part of monastic spirituality.  I just hope that this is in some extent helpful.  *** Abba Arsenios "Flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the source of sinlessness."  Abba Arsenios heard God command him thus in prayer (AP, Arsenios #2).  This summarizes three of the key themes of monastic spirituality: solitude, silence, and unceasing prayer. Monasticism begins with solitude .  The saint marked as the founder of monasticism, St. Anthony, was a recluse in the desert.  He lived alone, battling demons and growing closer to Christ.  Though he attracted disciples and sometimes visited th...

 As many will have heard by now, St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), or St. Hildegard of Bingen (for English speakers), was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI on October 7, 2012.  Though she had little education as a child, she became a polymath, composing hymns, penning a musical morality play, corresponding with people from monks and nuns to popes and emperors, explaining the Rule of St. Benedict and the Athanasian Creed, preaching commentaries on the Gospels, and writing two books on medicine, along with being a Benedictine abbess and recording (with the help of others) three books of the visions that she received starting from the age of 15.  Truly, St. Hildegard was (or is, since she lives now in Heaven) an extraordinary saint and woman.  I thought it would be a helpful service for those wishing to learn about this new Doctor of the Church to have a list of links to complete translations of her works into English.  Most of ...

Requested by a reader. It does not take one long in studying Eastern Christian spirituality to realize that the influence of monasticism is immense .  A common view is that, in the Eastern Church, monasticism is the basis of all spirituality and that the spirituality of a Christian in the world should only differ from a monastic's in degree, not in essence.  Having a knowledge of monastic spirituality is thus a necessity to understanding Eastern Christian spirituality in general. My approach to this introduction will be to first, in this post, outline the major saints and writings that are basic to monasticism and then, in a later post, to outline some of the major themes of monastic spirituality.  Since this will be so brief, there will be much left out, and I am sorry for any misinformation and glaring omissions, but I encourage you to read deeper if you are interested. *** The traditional founder of Eastern Christian monasticism is St. Anthony of the Des...

I have not posted on here in months, partly due to busyness, partly due to lack of motivation.  I do not like to write solely for the sake of writing or solely for myself.  I want anything I write to be useful to others.  Trying to guess what others would want me to write is a possibility, but I would rather know that someone will get something out of what I write.  That's why I want to start this new idea: Request-A-Post.  It's very simple: if you have an idea of a post you would like me to write,—on theology, on spirituality, on events, on media, etc.—send me an e-mail with a description, and I'll do my best to write it well and post it if I think I can.  If I don't think I can do a good job with it, or if I know a post by someone else that is far better than anything I could write, I'll tell you.  I do not know if anyone will even see this post, but if so, I hope that this idea will lead to my being able to actually help others with my writing....

  "There is no other virtue that is either higher or more necessary than sacred Prayer, because all the other virtues--I mean fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, ascesis, chastity, almsgiving, and all the rest--even though they are ways of imitating God, even though they cannot be taken away from us and constitute the immortal ornaments of the soul--do not united man with God, but only render man fit to be united.  Sacred Prayer, and it alone, unites.  It alone joins man with God and God with man, and makes the two one spirit." Nikodemos (Nicodemus) the Hagiorite (of the Holy Mountain) (1749-1809), a Greek Orthodox saint, wrote the above passage on the necessity of Prayer.  This view of the necessity of Prayer led to what is probably Nikodemos' most famous work: the Philokalia .  The Philokalia is a collection of texts by saints and other holy writers from the origins of Christianity until around the 15th century, compiled by Nikodemos an...

  Icon of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Mother of Carmel) by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Terre Haute, IN One of the biggest difficulties Western Christians have in appreciating icons is a lack of understanding.  I have previously discussed some of the theology behind iconography, but in this post I will discuss another big difficulty: the symbolism of iconography.  Even if one can understand the theology of the icon and why one should venerate it, it is still difficult to venerate something that seems to be such a strange mess of non-understood symbols.  This post will hopefully clear up some of that difficulty so that others can better understand icons and venerate them more worthily. Monograms The language used in iconography is often difficult by itself, since it is usually written in either Greek or Russian, often with a strange script that combines letters on top of each other or uses less common forms of letters.  Even after getting past...

[Though the term "Holy and God-Bearing Fathers" is used for those great saints that went before us in the faith, it does not only apply to men, as this post will show.] St. Mary of Egypt (344-421 or d. 522) was a hermitess who lived in the desert near the River Jordan after repenting from a life of prostitution.  She is patron of penitent women and reformed prostitutes, and she is also a patron asked for intercession against sexual temptation.  In the Western Church, she is liturgically celebrated on April 3, while in the Eastern Church she is celebrated both on April 1 (the day of her death) and on the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent. At the age of twelve, St. Mary ran away from her parents in Alexandria in order to live a life of dissolution.  She became a prostitute merely for the sake of fulfilling her lustful desires, rejecting money for men, instead gaining her living by begging and spinning flax.  After seventeen years of this sinful life, she went to J...