Philokalia Ministries

The Fathers insist that the spiritual life is decided long before words are spoken or actions are taken. It is decided in the hidden conversation of the heart. Every thought arrives carrying a question: Where have I come from, and where will I lead you? Most of us are far more careful about what enters our homes than what enters our minds. Yet a single unexamined thought can become a passion, a passion can become a habit, and a habit can slowly become our character. This is why the desert fathers watched their thoughts with such sobriety. They knew that not every thought deserved hospitality. Some thoughts came from grace and awakened gratitude. Others came from pride, fear, resentment, or the enemy himself. The tragedy is not that these thoughts appear. The tragedy is that we welcome them without interrogation, allowing them to settle into the heart until we can no longer distinguish their voice from our own. The holy elders possessed a remarkable gift: they could transform every circumstance into a call to God. A successful businessman became a lesson in zeal. A builder became a reminder to build the dwelling place of God within the soul. Even the sight of an actress moved Abba Pambo not to judgment but to tears for his own lack of love. The purified heart instinctively translates earthly events into heavenly instruction. The impure heart does exactly the opposite. It converts every blessing into comparison, every success into competition, every disappointment into accusation. Few passions reveal this distortion more clearly than guile. Guile is not merely deception. It is the division of the heart. It is smiling while secretly resenting, praising while inwardly competing, speaking peace while quietly nourishing suspicion. Such a soul gradually loses the capacity for prayer because prayer demands truth. We cannot stand honestly before God while wearing masks before one another. The Fathers therefore speak with startling severity: every spiritual labor is endangered when the heart becomes divided. Not because God withdraws His mercy, but because we ourselves have become strangers to simplicity. Then comes envy, perhaps the most hidden of all passions. Envy is sorrow at another’s good. It cannot rejoice because someone else has received a gift. It quietly interprets another’s blessing as a personal loss. Left unchecked, it poisons relationships, communities, and even prayer itself. The envious person eventually sees enemies where there are none and offenses where none were intended. Yet the astonishing wisdom of St. Maximos the Confessor goes even further. He does not merely tell us to endure the envious person. He tells us to protect him. This is extraordinarily difficult because envy is often irrational. It does not respond to logic because it was not born of logic. At times love requires us to conceal what would unnecessarily inflame another’s weakness, not because the passion is justified, but because the person is precious. We do not accommodate sin; we make every reasonable effort to prevent a brother from being consumed by it. This requires profound humility. It means surrendering the need always to be understood, always to defend ourselves, always to insist upon our rights. There are moments when charity quietly accepts misunderstanding if doing so protects a weaker soul from falling deeper into darkness. Such restraint is not weakness. It is cruciform love. Of course, there are limits. The Fathers never ask us to cooperate with falsehood or deprive many for the sake of one person’s passion. Truth remains truth. The common good must still be served. But within those boundaries, love willingly bears burdens that reason alone would reject. Perhaps this is one of the hardest lessons in the Christian life. Our responsibility is not merely to conquer our own passions but also to walk carefully enough that we do not become occasions for another’s destruction. We cannot heal another’s envy, but we can refuse to feed it. We cannot remove another’s guile, but we can answer it without becoming guileful ourselves. We cannot prevent every misunderstanding, but we can choose humility over self-vindication whenever love allows. The spiritual life is therefore not simply about becoming holy. It is about becoming safe. A heart purified by Christ becomes a place where others are not provoked toward darkness but quietly invited toward light. Such a soul examines every thought before believing it, every word before speaking it, every action before defending it. It asks not only, “Is this true?” but also, “What will this produce in me and in my brother?” For every thought has a destination. Every hidden movement of the heart is already becoming tomorrow’s life. The wise Christian learns to discern the path while it is still only a whisper. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:28:19 James Hickman: No disagreement here, but sometimes I wonder why the elders don’t go and repent on her behalf or go preach to her or something named in the story. He’s just sad, it seems, that her soul is lost. But I think there must be more. 00:28:21 Forrest: The Greek has "lecherous men", not "dregs of humanity" 00:29:57 James Hickman: Yes, that makes sense. 00:31:41 Danny Moulton: St. Jghn Chrysostom had a lot to say about the theater.  Apparently there were also alot of theater goers back then. 00:37:27 Julie: It’s like as if death we regard as far off or spend our time planning for this life and not as much or more for our souls destiny 00:40:44 Danny Moulton: Does God sometimes use big egos to create things of great beauty that serves generations of the faithful? I'm think of some of the great classical artists/ sculptors, but it might be other things like certain lasting institutions. I hope they all had loe of God, but ego seemed to play a large role for some of them. 00:43:06 James Hickman: The artist’s art seems to reveal the interior life that might be hidden on the surface by a man’s rough edges 00:43:28 Kathryn Rose: Reacted to "The artist’s art ..." with ❤️ 00:44:08 Julie: Like Caravaggio 00:44:36 James Hickman: Chiesa Nuova 00:45:14 Julie: I can’t turn camera around 00:46:16 John ‘Jack’: St Hildegard was known as quite an artist 00:47:48 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 42, A. 00:56:02 James Hickman: Re: secret contempt for your brother: My friends said they put all their kids in the same bedroom to force them to deal with their emotions. They can’t just storm back to their own bedroom when frustrated. The kids learn to process and forgive/ask forgiveness. It made me think of the Rule of St. Benedict having all the monks sleep in the same dormitory. 00:57:19 Danny Moulton: Sons of THunder 01:03:53 Danny Moulton: actually referring to the snoring 01:04:12 James Hickman: Reacted to "actually referring to the snoring" with 😅 01:08:45 James Hickman: Yes on the family!! 01:15:17 Forrest: The Greek "object of their envy" προτέρημά is not limited to material things. It can mean any advantage, or virtue, even. 01:15:20 Catherine Opie: So would one encourage them to celebrate the success of others? 01:20:28 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:48 Catherine Opie: Thank you sorry for the tech issues my end

The Christian life is not first the struggle to become better people, but the gradual unveiling of what we have already become through Christ. We have been fashioned to be the dwelling place of the living God. Every act of repentance, every hidden prayer, every battle against the passions, every tear shed in sincerity serves this one purpose: that the heart might become a temple in which God delights to dwell. For St. Isaac, holiness is never an end in itself. He does not call us to a perfection rooted in fear or spiritual achievement, but to the purification of the heart so that it may receive the divine Guest. As one cleans and adorns a sanctuary before the arrival of a beloved friend, so we are called to cleanse the inner chamber of the soul through humility, watchfulness, and prayer. The goal is always communion. God does not seek servants who merely obey Him outwardly; He desires children whose hearts have become His resting place. Seen in this light, repentance is transformed. It is no longer the anxious rehearsal of failures, nor the despairing gaze of one consumed by guilt. It is learning to see life beneath the light of eternity. Isaac continually asks us to remember that we will one day stand before Christ, not because he wishes to frighten us, but because only in that light do we begin to understand what truly endures. The honors we pursued, the comforts we clung to, and the anxieties that consumed us will all pass away. What remains is love. Whom did we comfort? Whom did we forgive? For whose sake did we endure hardship? Into whose hands did we entrust our heart? These are the questions that reveal whether we have already begun to live in the Kingdom. This vision gives extraordinary dignity to the hidden life. Every unnoticed act of patience, every quiet sacrifice, every refusal to judge another, every secret prayer offered for the world becomes part of the adornment of the temple. The soul is gradually made spacious enough for God. Holiness is formed less by extraordinary deeds than by thousands of small acts of fidelity that no one but Christ may ever see. Perhaps nowhere does Isaac’s tenderness appear more clearly than in his understanding of tears. He knows that true repentance cannot be manufactured. We cannot force ourselves to feel sorrow, nor produce compunction by sheer effort. Even repentance is a gift. Therefore the heart finally prays with complete honesty: “I have no repentance. I have no tears. My heart has grown cold.” Such a confession is itself the beginning of healing, for it abandons every illusion of self-sufficiency. The soul no longer presents achievements to God, but poverty. And this poverty becomes the place where grace quietly enters. The prayer that follows reveals the very heart of the Gospel. Every wound of Christ becomes healing for our wounds. His Passion heals our passions. His Blood purifies our corruption. His Cross raises the mind that has been dragged downward by sin. His pierced hands lift us from the abyss into communion with the Father. Salvation is not merely the forgiveness of sins but the gradual healing and transfiguration of our entire humanity through participation in the life of the crucified and risen Christ. This is why Isaac never leaves us gazing at ourselves. Even after the deepest self-examination, he directs every thought toward Christ. The purpose of seeing our poverty is not discouragement but desire. We discover our need so that we may discover the inexhaustible mercy of God. The deeper the wound is known, the more wondrous the Physician appears. In the end, the Christian life is astonishingly simple. We become what we behold. We learn to welcome Christ into every corner of the heart until His presence becomes our peace, His humility our strength, His tears our repentance, His love our very life. Then the promise of the Apostle is fulfilled. The temple is no longer empty. The cloud of divine glory overshadows the soul, the light of Christ quietly dawns within, and the heart discovers the joy for which it was created from the beginning: to become the dwelling place of the living God. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:03:48 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-summer-retreat 00:09:56 susan: US plays at 8 tonight  I will miss the first part to hear you Father 00:10:58 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-summer-retreat 00:19:48 David Swiderski, WI: Does anyone have the page I was on vacation near Lake Superior last week and forgot my book. 00:32:02 Kate: Could you explain what he means by “words which give rest to your God…” 00:33:26 David Swiderski, WI: I am reminded of something my Grandfather used to say revelation did not stop 2000 years ago it occurs everyday, in every person,  we meet every moment and each day we are called to learn to reach for the divine. 00:38:15 Julie: These passages feel like the most beautiful tools to awaken in us how to get closer to what God wants from us…all love, to see our unworthiness our wretched selves 00:39:03 John ‘Jack’: I find the more I feel “touched by God” or have a God moment, the less I can share it, because I KNOW what I’ve experienced, and if I share it with another that hasn’t it is often lost on them and o find myself somehow disappointed at the lack of communion over the moment. 00:42:18 John ‘Jack’: Replying to "I find the more I feel “touched by God” or have a God moment, the less I can share it, because I KNOW what I’ve experienced, and if I share it with another that hasn’t it is often lost on them and o find myself somehow disappointed at the lack of communion over the moment." I keep a LOT to myself now 00:44:35 David Swiderski, WI: This is so true one can't really explain in language the love for their children, loved ones without it seeming transactional to others. Even the northern lights one can't explain without experiencing them sometimes it is best to just leave it vague it shines, awesome, amazing. 00:48:25 Erick Chastain: So that works by love of Christ? Or how does it work? 00:48:41 Erick Chastain: (The passion curing our passions) 00:49:02 David Swiderski, WI: Father I had been reading a lot on the meditation of the 5 wounds in fact this is on every altar, the Jerusalem cross when did this tradition go away. I have been trying to take on this practice on Fridays in adoration 00:53:50 David Swiderski, WI: https://www.fisheaters.com/5wounds.html 00:54:42 David Swiderski, WI: Once I started doing it I had to buy a new crucifix. ha ha 00:56:17 David Swiderski, WI: Even some of the wounds have disappeared in modern art. I love the Latin American versions very expressive in churches 00:59:46 Maureen Cunningham: Shoulder Of  Christ from carrying the cross 01:12:48 David Swiderski, WI: I have realized in the past few years my efforts still lead to faults it is only begging let me love you more that grace seems to come and while I cherish it I know I am full of faults daily.. I just keep the hand outstretched hoping to be more than I am. 01:14:22 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "I have realized in the past few years my efforts still lead to faults it is only begging let me love you more that grace seems to come and while I cherish it I know I am full of faults daily.. I just keep the hand outstretched hoping to be more than I am." with 👍 01:16:50 David Swiderski, WI: Every morning rise with gratitude and thanks giving and every night with  asking for forgiveness for any faults and humility. Day by day. 01:17:14 Jesssica Imanaka: Reacted to "Every morning rise w..." with 👍 01:17:15 David Swiderski, WI: Another saying from Grandpa Fabro 01:19:41 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you 01:20:17 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:22 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you and love you, Father. 01:20:23 Janine: Thank you Father 01:20:27 Rachel: Thank you 01:20:29 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you Ren and your mother 01:20:29 Jesssica Imanaka: Thank you, Father!

Nazareth and the Hidden Life Retreat Reflection IV The Hidden Life and the Healing of Desire Epigraph “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” — St. Matthew 5:8 “Paradise is the love of God.” — Saint Isaac the Syrian ⸻ At the center of every human life there is desire. Not simply desire for pleasure, though pleasure is part of it. Not simply desire for comfort, recognition, intimacy, or meaning. Deeper still there is a longing for communion. The human person was created not merely to exist, but to participate in divine life. We are beings fashioned for relationship, for love, for beauty, for self- offering, for union with God. The fathers understand this with tremendous seriousness. Human desire is not treated by them as something shameful in itself. Desire belongs to our creation in the image of God. The tragedy is not that we desire. The tragedy is that desire has become fragmented. This fragmentation lies beneath so much of modern suffering. People hunger endlessly yet do not know for what they hunger. They seek intimacy yet fear vulnerability. They seek pleasure yet remain restless afterward. They seek visibility yet feel unseen. They seek stimulation yet become emotionally numb. They seek escape yet remain inwardly trapped. 1 The modern world intensifies this confusion constantly because it trains desire outward continually. We are surrounded by invitations to consume: images, experiences, identities, bodies, possessions, attention, recognition. The soul gradually becomes dispersed among countless impulses and fantasies. Desire loses depth because it no longer knows how to remain still long enough to encounter its true object. And thus many people experience life as a continual cycle of longing and disappointment. The fathers would say that the heart has forgotten where it belongs. This is why purity of heart is so important in the Christian tradition. Purity does not mean emotional sterility or repression. It means the gradual healing and reunification of desire. The pure heart becomes capable once more of seeing rightly because it is no longer divided continually among competing passions. Christ reveals this purity perfectly. And astonishingly, He reveals it first not through miracles or preaching, but through the hidden life of Nazareth. This matters deeply. The hidden years reveal desire completely at rest within the will of the Father. Christ does not grasp at visibility. He does not seek identity through recognition. He does not consume experience in order to feel alive. He remains rooted entirely within communion. This is why the silence of Nazareth possesses such healing power. Modern humanity suffers from exhaustion partly because desire has become detached from communion. We seek endlessly yet remain inwardly unsatisfied because the heart cannot be nourished by consumption alone. Human beings were created not for endless stimulation but for participation in divine love. 2 And yet the modern person often no longer knows how to receive love except through fantasy, control, performance, or emotional intensity. This distortion affects every dimension of life: relationships, sexuality, prayer, work, friendship, even the way we imagine God. Many people secretly approach God Himself through the logic of performance. We imagine we must construct a spiritual identity worthy of love. We attempt to secure ourselves through achievement, moral success, productivity, usefulness, or emotional experiences. Even repentance can become subtly performative. But Nazareth dismantles these illusions slowly. The hidden Christ reveals a form of existence rooted not in self-construction but in communion. He does not need to prove Himself continually because His identity rests entirely in the Father. And this freedom allows Him to remain hidden peacefully. This exposes something painful within ourselves. Much of our restlessness comes from trying continually to establish ourselves apart from communion with God. The ego seeks to secure existence through: recognition, desire, admiration, sexual validation, success, spiritual intensity, or being needed by others. But none of these finally heal the heart because the deepest human longing is not for self-expansion but for union. This is why the saints become increasingly peaceful. Not because desire disappears. But because desire becomes purified. 3 The fragmented heart slowly becomes whole. This purification usually unfolds through hidden struggle rather than dramatic experiences. The fathers speak continually about watchfulness because they understand that the battle occurs largely within attention and desire itself. Thoughts arise. Fantasies emerge. Memories awaken passions. The imagination drifts continually toward self-protection, possession, resentment, vanity, lust, and fear. And the person slowly learns: not hatred of desire, but discernment. The ascetical life is therefore not rejection of humanity. It is the healing of humanity. Fasting teaches desire not to rule tyrannically. Silence teaches desire to listen. Prayer teaches desire to remain before God. Hiddenness weakens the craving for recognition. Repentance heals the fragmentation caused by shame. Love slowly restores communion. All of this unfolds gradually. Modern people often become discouraged because they expect immediate transformation. We want healing quickly. We want prayer to become easy. We want temptation to disappear. We want certainty. But the fathers describe purification as long, hidden, patient work. And much of this work occurs precisely within ordinary life. This is another revelation of Nazareth. Christ heals human existence not only through dramatic moments but through daily hidden fidelity. The years of ordinary labor are not spiritually empty. The hidden life itself becomes salvific because Christ fills ordinary existence with divine presence. And perhaps this is where many souls begin finally to breathe again. When they realize that holiness is not primarily the construction of an extraordinary spiritual identity. 4 It is communion. The mother caring for an aging parent. The monk remaining faithfully in dryness. The husband learning patience slowly. The woman enduring hidden loneliness without bitterness. The person returning quietly to prayer after failure. The exhausted soul continuing simply to offer small acts of love. All of this belongs to the hidden life of Christ. This does not romanticize suffering or ordinary life. Nazareth was not sentimental. Hiddenness can feel humiliating. Repetition can feel empty. Desire does not become purified without struggle. The false self resists relinquishment continually. And yet beneath this struggle something beautiful slowly emerges: the heart begins to simplify. One no longer needs constant stimulation. One no longer seeks identity through performance so desperately. One becomes more capable of silence, presence, attention, gratitude, and tenderness. The soul begins slowly to recover the capacity to behold. This is profoundly important because modern life trains us primarily to consume. We look quickly, use quickly, discard quickly. The gaze itself becomes restless and acquisitive. But the pure heart learns another way of seeing: reverently, patiently, eucharistically. Persons cease to become objects. Ordinary moments cease to feel disposable. Even suffering becomes capable of communion. And perhaps this is ultimately what Nazareth reveals: 5 that salvation is not escape from human life but the transfiguration of human life from within. Christ enters ordinary existence fully in order to heal desire at its roots. Not by destroying longing, but by leading longing home. For the deepest hunger of the human heart is not finally for pleasure, recognition, intensity, or even relief from suffering. It is for God. And every fragmented desire is ultimately healed only when the soul begins once more to rest in Him.

Nazareth and the Hidden Life Retreat Reflection III The Silence of Nazareth and the False Self Epigraph “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.” — Isaiah 42:2 “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” — Abba Moses the Black ⸻ One of the most frightening things about silence is that eventually it begins to tell the truth. At first silence feels peaceful to us because we imagine it as relief from noise, pressure, and obligation. We dream of quiet places, slower days, hidden monasteries, cabins in the woods, empty churches, long evenings without interruption. We imagine silence as rest. And sometimes it is. But if a person remains within silence long enough, another dimension begins to emerge. The distractions weaken. The constant stimulation subsides. The usual methods of self-maintenance no longer function in the same way. And gradually hidden things begin to surface: anxiety, fantasy, anger, loneliness, grief, resentment, compulsions, memories, self-hatred, and the deep fear of being nobody. This is why so many people flee silence almost immediately. 1 Not because they hate peace. But because silence exposes the instability of the self we have constructed. The fathers understood this profoundly. When the Desert Fathers speak about entering the cell, they are not romanticizing solitude. The cell is not merely a room. It is the place where illusions begin to collapse. A man enters silence expecting holiness and instead encounters himself. The hidden passions rise into consciousness. The noise within becomes audible. One begins to discover how fragmented the heart truly is. And yet the fathers insist: remain there. Do not flee. Do not panic. Do not construct a new image of yourself. Do not despair. Remain. Modern humanity finds this extraordinarily difficult because we live in an age almost entirely organized around avoiding interior exposure. Noise surrounds us constantly. Even solitude has become saturated with stimulation. A person can sit alone for hours without ever truly entering silence because the mind remains flooded with images, conversations, music, scrolling, distraction, fantasy, and self-construction. The modern self is rarely still enough to encounter itself honestly. And this has profound spiritual consequences because much of what we call “identity” is actually performance. We learn gradually to create versions of ourselves for different audiences: competent selves, religious selves, intellectual selves, desirable selves, successful selves, helpful selves, wounded selves, 2 special selves. Some of these identities become so deeply ingrained that we no longer recognize them as constructions. We experience them instead as who we are. But silence threatens these structures. This is one reason hidden life feels so unsettling. The ego survives partly through reflection from others. We know ourselves through response, recognition, affirmation, usefulness, accomplishment, attention, and comparison. Hiddenness interrupts these reinforcements. The false self begins to weaken because fewer mirrors remain available to sustain it. And this weakening often feels initially like death. A person may enter a quieter life expecting peace and instead encounter profound restlessness: the urge continually to check, to speak, to explain oneself, to seek affirmation, to fantasize, to escape, to become visible again somehow. The fathers would not be surprised by this. They knew that much human activity functions defensively. We remain busy not only because life requires labor, but because movement protects us from encountering our deeper poverty. Constant activity allows the ego to preserve itself through usefulness and distraction. Nazareth dismantles this slowly. The hidden Christ remains almost entirely outside visibility. He does not announce Himself continually. He does not seek recognition. He does not construct identity through public affirmation. The silence of Nazareth becomes a revelation of divine humility itself. This is deeply threatening to the ego because the ego wants to secure existence through visibility. To be unseen feels almost like annihilation. 3 This is especially true in modern technological culture where visibility itself has become a form of psychological survival. Many people now experience themselves largely through presentation. Identity becomes increasingly externalized: how one appears, how one is perceived, how one performs, how one is received. And thus silence becomes terrifying because it removes the external reinforcement through which the self remains stabilized. The fathers call us into something radically different. Not the destruction of personality. Not emotional emptiness. Not passivity. But the gradual surrender of the false self built upon performance, fantasy, comparison, and self-construction. This surrender is painful because the false self often develops precisely to protect vulnerability. Human beings construct identities partly to avoid shame, helplessness, rejection, and dependency. The ego creates structures through which the person feels more secure, more admirable, more protected from exposure. But these structures also isolate us. One cannot truly love while continually performing. Nor can one encounter God deeply while remaining hidden behind spiritual self- constructions. This is why the saints become so simple. Not simplistic. Simple. The fragmentation gradually diminishes. The inner divisions weaken. One no longer needs continually to present oneself, justify oneself, or maintain identity 4 through performance. There emerges instead a quieter, poorer, more transparent way of existing before God. The path toward this simplicity is rarely dramatic. Usually it unfolds through hidden humiliations. The failure that exposes our weakness. The years that dismantle our fantasies. The obscurity that wounds vanity. The prayer that feels empty. The relationships that reveal our selfishness. The repetitive duties that strip away grandiosity. The hidden life that slowly confronts us with ourselves. This is why Nazareth matters so profoundly. Christ enters fully into hidden existence without resistance. He consents to ordinariness. He consents to gradualness. He consents to years that appear outwardly uneventful. The eternal Logos lives within silence, labor, family life, repetition, and obscurity. And in doing so, He sanctifies the very places where the ego most resists dying. Many people secretly believe holiness should feel emotionally elevated or spiritually impressive. But often the deeper work of God feels instead like simplification. One becomes less dramatic internally. Less fascinated with oneself. Less dependent upon emotional intensity. Less driven by comparison. Less hungry to secure identity through being exceptional. This can feel disappointing initially because the ego experiences simplification as diminishment. But in reality it is liberation. The soul slowly discovers the freedom of no longer needing to construct itself continually before others. This is why the fathers speak so highly of hiddenness. Not because hiddenness itself is magical, but because hiddenness deprives the ego of many of its usual methods of self-preservation. The soul gradually learns to exist more directly before God rather than through performance. 5 And perhaps this is one reason modern people find ordinary hidden life so difficult: it confronts us with the terrifying possibility that we are loved not because we are impressive, visible, productive, or extraordinary, but simply because God is merciful. That kind of love dismantles the false self completely. For if I do not need to earn existence through performance, if I do not need to secure myself continually through recognition, if I do not need to become extraordinary in order to matter, then I can begin at last simply to remain before God truthfully. This is the silence of Nazareth. Not emptiness. Not absence. Communion without spectacle. And perhaps the hidden years of Christ reveal that the deepest transformation often occurs not when we become extraordinary, but when we finally stop trying to save ourselves through the images we construct.

The Fathers understood something that we have almost entirely forgotten: very few souls fall suddenly. Almost every great collapse begins with something so small that it escapes notice—a hidden expectation, a wounded pride, an unspoken resentment, an interior complaint, a passing judgment, or a thought left unchallenged. What appears insignificant is often the first movement of the heart away from God. This is why the Evergetinos spends so much time speaking about ordinary conversations, simple requests, disappointments, misunderstandings, and the countless interactions that make up our days. We imagine that holiness is determined by extraordinary moments. The Fathers insist that it is determined by the invisible disposition we carry into ordinary ones. How revealing it is that they tell us to prepare ourselves before asking another person for something. Not merely to think about what we will say, but to prepare ourselves interiorly for the possibility of hearing “no.” They know that disappointment is often less dangerous than the thoughts that follow it. “He doesn’t care about me.” “I would have helped him.” “Why am I always treated this way?” Within moments the imagination begins weaving a story that has little to do with reality and everything to do with our passions. We assign motives. We judge hearts. We nurture resentment. We quietly withdraw from love. Yet the Elder teaches something almost scandalously simple: perhaps the person cannot help you. Perhaps he truly needs what you requested. Perhaps God did not permit it because it would not benefit you. How rarely we allow such thoughts to enter our minds. Instead, we become advocates for ourselves and prosecutors of everyone else. The Fathers would say that this is how hell begins—not with hatred, but with interpretation. The same honesty is demanded when we ourselves possess what another seeks. If we truly need it, we should simply say so. If we deny our need out of pride, wanting to appear detached, generous, or spiritually advanced, then we are to return and confess our deception immediately. How foreign this is to us. We carefully manage impressions. We curate virtue. We protect the image of ourselves we hope others will admire. The Elder is interested in none of this. Better an embarrassing confession than a hidden lie. Better humility than reputation. One heals the heart. The other slowly poisons it. Even more searching is the teaching on scandal. We often imagine scandal to consist only in dramatic moral failures. The Fathers understand something much subtler. We become occasions of stumbling every time our pride, impatience, sarcasm, coldness, gossip, or self-importance weakens another’s courage or burdens another’s heart. How many souls leave communities not because doctrine failed them, but because charity did. How many people stop praying because Christians made God appear severe rather than merciful. How many children quietly abandon faith after years of watching resentment flourish beneath religious language. We rarely recognize how much weight our ordinary demeanor carries. Then comes one of the most astonishing scenes in all of the Evergetinos. A courtesan passes before a gathering of bishops. Most lower their eyes in horror at her immodesty. Bishop Nonnos does not deny her sin, but he sees beyond it. Instead of condemning her, he condemns himself. He sees a woman who labors tirelessly to beautify what will perish. He sees himself neglecting what will live forever. The others saw an object of judgment. He saw a mirror. That is the difference between a proud heart and a purified one. The proud heart encounters every person asking, “What is wrong with them?” The humble heart asks, “Lord, what are You showing me about myself?” This single movement changes everything. The proud leave every conversation confirmed in their righteousness. The humble leave every encounter more repentant, more grateful, and more compassionate. Perhaps this is why the saints become incapable of condemning others. They are simply too occupied by the work God is accomplishing within their own hearts. The tragedy of our age is not merely that we sin openly. It is that we have become almost completely unaware of these hidden movements within us. We speak carelessly. We assume motives. We interpret silence. We cultivate grievances. We justify irritation. We rehearse conversations that never happened. We allow passing thoughts to become settled convictions. And then we wonder why peace disappears. The Fathers would tell us to return to the beginning—to the very first thought. Guard that. Question that. Humble that. For the first movement of the heart is often the only place where the battle can still be won. Once the thought is welcomed, entertained, defended, and repeated, it gradually becomes our character. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness both begin there—in the hidden places where no one but God can see. --- 00:05:30 Janine: Hello Father! 00:05:47 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-summer-retreat 00:05:57 Janine: I’m fine! Isn’t your birthday soon! 00:06:43 Janine: Yes…the older the faster! Me too Mrs A! 00:07:28 Janine: Yes…the retreats are so essential now! 00:08:20 Janine: No….not at all! We all look forward to it and I’m sorry when it ends 00:08:35 Janine: So it was great you announced the next! 00:09:52 Janine: That is perfect for me…I started the Jesus prayer NOV 2022 00:10:00 Janine: I wrote it down 00:10:23 Janine: No….i wrote when I started it 00:10:57 Janine: It was after I reread The Way of the Pilgrim 00:11:25 Janine: It was the third time and it suddenly spoke it me 00:13:41 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-summer-retreat 00:14:11 Janine: There is a young man in our church in Watervliet NY who has spent time at your monastery…apparently he is going to visit again soon… 00:15:24 Janine: basil Gutch 00:16:01 Janine: I just found this out…his dad is our Deacon…. 00:16:11 Janine: Ukrainian Catholic Church 00:16:44 James Hickman: This might be old news, but Audible now has several recordings of Fr. Zacharias Zacharou’s books available. 00:17:21 una: You can also listen on YouTube, "Athonite Audio" 00:18:08 una: It 00:18:11 Janine: Athonite has so so many good talks 00:18:12 una: It is great! 00:18:18 Janine: I listen all the time 00:18:27 una: Me too! 00:18:49 una: The latest for me is The Angelic Life by Fr. Ephraim of Arizona 00:20:44 Anna: Glory forever! 00:22:33 Joseph Muir: Is the volume level all over the place yet consistently low for anyone else, or just me?😫 00:23:47 Forrest: Replying to "Is the volume level all over the place yet consistently low for anyone else, or just me?😫" OK for me. 00:23:58 Janine: Replying to "Is the volume level all over the place yet consistently low for anyone else, or just me?😫" Ok here too 00:26:51 Julie: Can asking be feeding our ego 01:10:55 Julie: How do you make them captive 01:15:47 Anthony Rago: There has got to be a way to appreciate human and human-made beauty, while decoupling it from concupiscence. 01:21:34 James Hickman: Is there anything in the wording in the paragraph “considering her appearance as that of a harlot…” — these bishops looked out and saw someone to judge rather than seeing a person to heal, to assist, to love? 01:22:01 Anna: While on here my daughter and I just got accepted for an Illustration Bachelor in Fine Arts Degree program. We're hoping to be experts in Icongraphy. Thanks for prayers. Please pray as we continue to get better from biolab chemical fire exposure from 2024.  01:22:40 James Hickman: Reacted to "While on here my daughter and I just got accepted for an Illustration Bachelor in Fine Arts Degree program. We're hoping to be experts in Icongraphy." with ❤️ 01:22:57 Anthony Rago: Reacted to While on here my dau... with "❤️" 01:23:22 Anthony Rago: Replying to "While on here my dau..."  What school? 01:25:36 Maureen Cunningham: Saint Paul  said ,there more excellent way.   Broken women under the garments, 01:26:29 Maureen Cunningham: Her value was the exterior 01:28:29 James Hickman: Reacted to "Her value was the exterior" with ❤️‍🩹 01:29:49 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You 01:30:19 Janine: Thank you Father 01:30:24 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:30:35 Anna: Reacted to While on here my dau... with "❤️" 01:31:10 James Hickman: Happy early birthday, Father! Prayers for you. 01:31:13 Anna: 😂 Scones!

One of the most striking characteristics of St. Isaac’s writings is that he never asks us to renounce the world because the world is evil. Rather, he continually places before us something infinitely more beautiful. He speaks so often of the sweetness of communion with God, the boldness of prayer, the radiance of divine light, and the immeasurable mercy of Christ that worldly pleasures gradually lose their attraction by comparison. For Isaac, the spiritual life is not sustained by fear but by love. Yet because he knows the human heart so well, he also warns us with remarkable honesty. The heart is changeable. We imagine ourselves steadfast, yet we are easily drawn away. A single hour of distraction can cool the warmth of prayer. Idle conversation, endless amusement, frivolity, curiosity, and the restless pursuit of novelty slowly scatter the attention that had been gathered before God. This is why the anonymous elder can say that when he lives in stillness, his hunger diminishes, his prayer becomes bold, and his soul delights in the divine light. But after only a brief conversation, he immediately notices the change. His appetite increases, his rule weakens, and the clarity of prayer fades. Isaac is not describing a rule. He is describing a law of the heart. Whatever fills the mind eventually governs the heart. Our own age makes his words even more urgent. We no longer need companions to distract us. We carry distraction in our pockets. We wake to it and fall asleep with it. News, entertainment, endless commentary, social media, notifications, and perpetual noise have become so ordinary that many no longer recognize how profoundly they shape the soul. We often wonder why prayer feels difficult while rarely questioning the thousands of impressions that fill our imagination throughout the day. The demons need not persuade us to abandon Christ outright. They need only keep us endlessly occupied. This is why Isaac joins stillness to humility. The deepest obstacle to prayer is not simply noise but pride. Pride always seeks stimulation because it continually seeks itself. Humility, however, is content to disappear. It has no need to be seen, entertained, admired, or constantly occupied. The humble heart finds its rest in God alone. For this reason Isaac’s final exhortation is so beautiful. He does not tell us merely to become more disciplined. He tells us to imitate the humility of Christ. Christ Himself entered silence, accepted obscurity, embraced poverty, endured misunderstanding, and descended into the deepest humiliation out of love for the Father and for us. Only that same humility can preserve the fire of divine love within us.   The Christian life is therefore not primarily about giving things up. It is about guarding a flame. Every choice either shelters that flame or exposes it to the winds of distraction. Every act of recollection gathers the heart toward God; every needless dissipation scatters it again.   Isaac continually returns us to this single question: What helps the heart remain before God?   Everything that deepens humility, stillness, repentance, and love should be embraced. Everything that leaves the heart agitated, distracted, self-absorbed, or spiritually numb should be gently but resolutely laid aside.   In the end, the goal is wonderfully simple. To become so captivated by the beauty of Christ that nothing in this passing world seems worth exchanging for His presence.   The one thing necessary is not found by striving after extraordinary experiences, but by quietly protecting the heart in which Christ has chosen to dwell.   ---   Text of chat during the group:    00:01:35 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 208 paragraph 18 00:56:00 Aaron: To be honest, this seems difficult for me to grasp, given how easily a person like myself may be carried away by the concerns and distractions of the world. When God is remembered, things appear clearer; when that remembrance fades, even passing matters can begin to seem important, and the  One Thing necessary is easily forgotten. How might this be lived out by those in the laity while fulfilling their responsibilities in the world? 00:56:30 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "To be honest, this s..." with 👍 00:56:41 Erick Chastain: The humility of christ does he speak about ways one might best imitate this? 00:56:48 Julie: A stumbling block for other, can you give me an example Father.. 00:57:28 Ryan Ngeve: Father how does one force themselves to “imitate the humility of Christ “ 01:04:46 una: Can you talk about daydreams? 01:05:47 una: I'm a fiction writer. In a way, daydreams are part of this work. What's the difference? 01:06:23 Julie: Reacted to "A stumbling block for other, can you give me an example Father.." with 🙏 01:09:42 Larry Ruggiero: Sometimes when it’s not working like I thought it would I just go before God in silence and the prayer flows at times and at other times I only get credit for showing up. 01:11:08 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Sometimes when it’s ..." with 🙏 01:12:52 Julie: That’s so beautiful ❤️ 01:13:12 Aaron: How might one find balance between the fear of God and seriousness of sin on one hand, and trust in His mercy and forgiveness on sincere repentance on the other, without falling into despair or presumption? It can feel like two ends of a scale that keep swinging back and forth, making it hard to understand how both belong together. 01:13:13 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: jn         The Jesus Prayer helps with this 01:14:36 Julie: Reacted to "jn         The Jesus Prayer helps with this" with 🙏 01:15:21 Maureen Cunningham: Help of Holy Spirit 01:18:32 James Hickman: His name really does heal 01:20:09 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: There is an article or booklet with the title "the Power of the Name" that is powerful 01:20:30 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: I think it's by the Monk of the Eastern church 01:20:34 Aaron: Reacted to "There is an article or booklet with the title "the Power of the Name" that is powerful" with 👍 01:20:51 James Hickman: Yes, please!! 01:22:08 Maureen Cunningham: Blessing thank you 01:22:10 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:22:12 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you, and bless you, Father! 01:22:21 Aaron: Thank you father! 01:22:56 David Swiderski: Thank you Father may God bless Ren and her husband, you , your mother and this group 01:23:16 James Hickman: Which Zachary Zacharou book on the Jesus Prayer were you referencing?  

The Fathers place before us a vision of the human person that is almost unbearable in its simplicity and demands. We do not live with others because we have learned techniques of communication or conflict resolution. We can live with others only to the degree that we fear God and have begun to see all men as one. This is why the Elder says that if we remembered how Lot was saved because he condemned no one, we could live even among wild beasts. The greatest beasts are often not around us but within us: our judgments, our suspicions, our secret comparisons, our readiness to define another by his weaknesses. We imagine that our difficulties with others arise from their faults. The Fathers suggest something far more painful—that we cannot live with others because we have not yet learned to love them. Judgment begins in the mind long before it reaches the lips. St. Ephraim is remarkably precise: “Do not disparage a layman in your mind.” We may preserve an outward courtesy while inwardly diminishing another. We may smile while secretly placing ourselves above them. Yet the Lord alone knows the secrets of the heart. Every judgment is, in some measure, an attempt to occupy God’s place. The Elder who struggled for twenty years to see all men as one reveals something essential about holiness. The spiritual life is not an effort to become extraordinary. It is the gradual dismantling of every illusion of separateness. The one before me is not an interruption of my life, nor an obstacle to my peace, nor an object for my evaluation. He is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. His wound is my wound. His weakness is my weakness. His salvation and mine are mysteriously intertwined. From such a vision arises great care regarding scandal. The Fathers are astonishingly sensitive about harming another’s heart. They ask not merely, “Is this permissible?” but, “Will this burden my brother? Will this put troubling thoughts in his mind? Will this diminish his peace?” Love willingly limits itself for the sake of another’s weakness. At the same time, the Fathers teach us not to become scandalized ourselves. The Egyptian monks judged the brethren of Sketis because they saw them eating hungrily. They knew nothing of their ascetic labors. How often we do the same. We glimpse one action and construct an entire narrative around it. We see a person’s fatigue and call it laziness. We witness their weakness and imagine mediocrity. We know almost nothing, yet judge as though we know everything. Discernment requires humility. We do not excuse sin, but neither do we presume to know the secrets of another’s struggle. Love leaves room for mystery. It says quietly, “Perhaps there is a story here that I do not know.” The Fathers also insist that when we have harmed another, even unintentionally, we should hasten to bring peace to their heart. If our words or actions have troubled our brother, our concern is not our reputation, nor our fear of humiliation, but the healing of communion. We make a prostration because the wound of another cannot be regarded as someone else’s problem. We are one body. To see all men as one is to become incapable of contempt. It is to walk through life gently. It is to guard the minds of others from unnecessary burdens and to guard our own minds from suspicion and judgment. It is to honor every person for the Lord’s sake and to remember that each human being stands before God bearing hidden wounds, secret battles, and unspoken grief. Perhaps the struggle of twenty years described by the Elder is the work of an entire lifetime. Yet this is the path of the Kingdom: to become so united to Christ that we begin to look upon every human face and say, “This one, too, is my own.” --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:42 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 31 paragraph 37 End of Hypothesis II 00:44:23 James Hickman: “Wanted to put them at ease…” Nun Christina translates this line “Learning this, the presbyter sought to heal them.” The healing of discipline puts us at ease — the grace of humility will, it seems, remove us of the ailment of (or passion) of judgment, judging others. 00:47:32 James Hickman: The healing seems to have worked…”The Egyptians repented and left with joy, having been helped by the experience.” 00:53:56 Danny Moulton: I find it can also feel manipulative 00:54:44 Danny Moulton: right 01:05:31 James Hickman: The elder spoke boldly words of rebuke to the visiting monks from Scetis and those monks were healed by his stern correction. It was medicinal. 01:08:56 Forrest: Can I ask James Hickman how Nun Christina has translated these?  The Greek word in the text is not παρρησία(FRANKNESS), but Ἐλευθερία (FREEDOM). And I think that shifts the meaning of this last one in particular.  There was a previous hypothesis about Parrhesia. 01:09:33 James Hickman: Yes, boldness of speech has been translated by her as freedom the last few paragraphs 01:09:58 Forrest: Freedom seems more appropriate, to me. 01:12:49 John ‘Jack’: It would seem that if we TRULY spoke in love we should be free and bold in speech. 01:15:50 Julie: For me an example, I made scones at 9 pm for my husband, with cream and berry jam all layer out nicely, He ate said nothing walked away and I waited for his thanks 01:16:15 James Hickman: Reacted to "For me an example, I made scones at 9 pm for my husband, with cream and berry jam all layer out nicely, He ate said nothing walked away and I waited for his thanks" with ❤️ 01:16:19 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "For me an example, I made scones at 9 pm for my husband, with cream and berry jam all layer out nicely, He ate said nothing walked away and I waited for his thanks" with 😒 01:16:27 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "For me an example, I..." with 😂 01:17:36 Bob Čihák, AZ: But can't women read minds, and men can't? 01:17:42 James Hickman: Reacted to "But can't women read minds, and men can't?" with 😂 01:18:04 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "But can't women read minds, and men can't?" with 😂 01:18:05 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "But can't women read..." with 🤯 01:18:51 Bob Čihák, AZ: Reacted to "But can't women read minds, and men can't?" with 😂 01:18:59 Bob Čihák, AZ: Reacted to "But can't women read minds, and men can't?" with 🤯 01:19:03 Julie: Reacted to "But can't women read minds, and men can't?" with 🙏 01:19:42 Nypaver Clan: We just have eyes in the back of our heads.  👀 01:20:03 Bob Čihák, AZ: Reacted to "We just have eyes in the back of our heads.  👀" with 👍 01:20:11 James Hickman: I definitely needed the other translation to grasp that freedom was meant in this context to see that he’s talking about conversing 01:20:30 James Hickman: Reacted to "We just have eyes in the back of our heads.  👀" with 😂 01:21:05 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You 01:21:54 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:22:04 Joan Chakonas: Fastest hour of the day  

Nazareth and the Hidden Life Retreat Reflection II Remaining in Nazareth Epigraph “And He was subject unto them.” — St. Luke 2:51 “Acquire the spirit of peace, and thousands around you will be saved.” — Saint Seraphim of Sarov ⸻ One of the most difficult words in the spiritual life is: remain. Modern people know how to begin things. We know how to pursue intensity. We know how to search, reinvent, escape, construct, perform, and anticipate. But very few of us know how to remain. This is partly because remaining exposes us. When we remain somewhere long enough—within marriage, monastic life, caregiving, prayer, ordinary labor, solitude, aging, or even our own interior life— the illusions begin to weaken. The fantasies that once sustained us no longer protect us in the same way. We begin to encounter not the imagined self, but the actual self. This is why so much of modern life is organized around movement. Not only physical movement, but psychological movement: constant distraction, 1 constant novelty, constant stimulation, constant self-reinvention. The ego survives partly through motion. But Nazareth is profoundly still. The hidden years of Christ reveal not simply obscurity, but stability. Christ remains in ordinary life for decades. He does not hurry toward visibility. He does not seek intensity. He does not construct significance through spectacle. He consents fully to the slow unfolding of hidden existence within the will of the Father. This is extraordinarily difficult for modern humanity to understand. Many people secretly endure ordinary life as though it were something standing between themselves and their “real” life. The present moment becomes merely transitional. We live psychologically elsewhere: in imagined futures, in fantasies of escape, in memories, in regret, in comparison, in endless internal narratives about what should have been. And thus we fail almost entirely to inhabit the life actually given to us. This interior refusal creates profound suffering. A person may outwardly remain faithful while inwardly resisting reality continually. One performs obligations externally while inwardly living in fantasy, resentment, disappointment, or hidden self-construction. The heart becomes divided between the actual and the imagined. The fathers understood this division deeply. They knew that the passions often sustain themselves through fantasy. A man imagines another life, another recognition, another identity, another emotional state, another spiritual condition. The mind drifts continually away from the concrete reality in which grace is actually being offered. This is one reason silence becomes painful. 2 When external stimulation diminishes, we begin to notice how rarely we are truly present. We discover how much of our inner life is spent elsewhere: rehearsing conversations, imagining futures, reliving injuries, constructing identities, seeking vindication, dreaming of escape. The modern technological world intensifies this instability constantly. The imagination becomes overstimulated through continual exposure to images of other lives, other possibilities, other identities, other pleasures. Comparison becomes ambient. Dissatisfaction deepens almost automatically. Nazareth stands against all of this. The hidden Christ remains fully within ordinary reality. This does not mean His life lacked inward depth. Quite the opposite. The silence of Nazareth is not emptiness but communion. Christ remains rooted entirely within the life of the Father. He does not need spectacle because His identity does not depend upon visibility. He does not need continual stimulation because He lives in unbroken communion. This reveals something crucial about the spiritual life: the capacity to remain peacefully within ordinary existence depends largely upon whether one’s identity rests in God or in self-construction. The ego constantly seeks reinforcement: through recognition, through achievement, through intensity, through emotional experiences, through being seen, through control. But the soul gradually healed by grace becomes quieter. Simpler. Less divided. Less hungry for continual confirmation. This healing usually occurs slowly and often painfully. 3 Many people initially approach prayer hoping for spiritual experiences. But over time prayer often becomes something much humbler and more difficult: remaining before God honestly. Not dramatically. Not emotionally. Not heroically. Simply remaining. Remaining distracted yet returning. Remaining dry yet faithful. Remaining wounded yet open. Remaining ordinary. Remaining poor in spirit. Remaining within the limitations of one’s actual life. This hidden fidelity gradually purifies the heart because it weakens the ego’s dependence upon fantasy and self-construction. The fathers frequently speak about patience not merely as endurance of external difficulties but as the willingness to bear oneself truthfully before God. This is profoundly important. Much human restlessness arises from the inability to tolerate our own incompleteness. We seek escape because remaining confronts us with weakness, loneliness, unresolved grief, and hidden desires we would rather avoid. And yet healing often begins precisely there. A person who continually flees inwardly cannot become integrated. The fragmented self remains fragmented because it never consents fully to reality. The soul remains divided between longing for God and preserving fantasies of selfhood. Nazareth slowly dismantles this division. The hidden life of Christ reveals that holiness unfolds not through dramatic self- creation but through consent: consent to time, consent to limitation, consent to hiddenness, consent to ordinary existence, 4 consent to the will of the Father. This is why the hidden years possess such immense spiritual significance. Christ saves not only through the Cross publicly but through hidden obedience privately. The years no one notices are not spiritually empty. They become filled with communion precisely through fidelity. Modern culture rarely believes this. We imagine transformation occurring through breakthrough moments, major decisions, visible accomplishments, or emotional intensity. But most sanctification occurs almost imperceptibly through repeated acts of quiet fidelity: daily prayer, forgiveness, caregiving, showing up, remaining truthful, enduring weakness without despair, returning again after failure. The ego often despises this hidden gradualness. We want clarity quickly. We want holiness to feel dramatic. We want meaning to become obvious. But God frequently works below visibility. This is why so many people become discouraged in the spiritual life. They measure themselves according to emotional states or visible progress rather than faithfulness. When consolation fades, they assume God has withdrawn. When ordinary life continues unchanged, they imagine nothing spiritual is occurring. Nazareth contradicts this entirely. The Son of God spent decades within hidden ordinary existence, and not one moment of it was wasted. This is important especially for those carrying hidden disappointment. 5 Many souls quietly mourn the lives they imagined they would have: the vocation that never unfolded, the marriage that became difficult, the ministry that diminished, the monastery left behind, the recognition never received, the family wounds never fully healed, the years now vanished. And often beneath this grief lies another fear: that ordinary hidden life has somehow less value before God. Nazareth reveals the opposite. Indeed, Christ entered hiddenness willingly. And perhaps one of the great spiritual tasks is learning to stop resisting the life actually given to us. Not passively. Not fatalistically. But prayerfully. To stop standing continually outside our lives judging them against fantasies. To stop imagining salvation elsewhere. To stop seeking ourselves through comparison and performance. And instead to begin discovering Christ precisely here: within ordinary labor, within hidden prayer, within caregiving, within weakness, within repetition, within the quiet daily offering of oneself to God. This is not resignation. It is communion. And perhaps the beginning of peace lies not in escaping the ordinary, but in consenting at last to encounter God within it. 6

Nazareth and the Hidden Life Retreat Reflection I Nazareth and the Sanctification of the Ordinary Epigraph “And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” — St. Luke 2:51 “The Lord loves the humble soul that has surrendered herself to the will of God.” — Saint Silouan the Athonite ⸻ There is something deeply unsettling about Nazareth. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is not. The Gospels pass over nearly thirty years of Christ’s earthly life in almost complete silence. We are told of His birth, the flight into Egypt, the finding in the Temple, and then suddenly He is standing in the Jordan before John. Between those moments lies an immense hiddenness. Decades vanish into silence. And yet the Church has always understood that nothing in the life of Christ is accidental. The hidden years are revelation. This is difficult for us because we are formed by a world that equates meaning with visibility. We instinctively imagine that what matters must be seen, accomplished, recognized, effective, influential, or extraordinary. Even our spiritual life often becomes infected with this mentality. We want transformation to be dramatic. We want clarity quickly. We want our lives to feel significant. But Christ spends the overwhelming majority of His earthly existence in obscurity. Not preaching. Not healing publicly. 1 Not raising the dead. Not confronting empires. Working. Praying. Eating meals. Walking dusty roads. Living within the repetition and hiddenness of ordinary life. The Son of God sanctified not only suffering and death. He sanctified ordinary existence itself. This is one of the great forgotten truths of Christianity. Many people secretly endure their lives as though the “real” spiritual life were elsewhere. They imagine holiness occurring in monasteries, missions, dramatic sacrifices, or extraordinary mystical experiences, while their own existence feels painfully repetitive: the dishes, the caregiving, the exhaustion, the office, the commute, the sleepless nights, the aging body, the hidden grief, the years that seem to pass without visible transformation. But Nazareth stands before the world as a contradiction to all such thinking. God chose hiddenness. Not as punishment. Not as delay. But as revelation. The hidden years reveal something about the very manner in which God acts. Divine life does not move according to the logic of spectacle. God works silently, patiently, gradually, often beneath visibility itself. Seeds germinate underground. The child grows in the womb unseen. Bread rises quietly. Prayer deepens imperceptibly. The kingdom of God arrives almost secretly. 2 And so much of the spiritual life unfolds precisely where the ego feels most deprived: in repetition, in obscurity, in waiting, in relinquishment, in the slow erosion of self-importance. This is why Nazareth becomes painful for us. Not because it lacks God. But because it threatens the fantasies through which we preserve ourselves psychologically. Most human beings carry within themselves an imagined life. We construct inward narratives about who we will become, what our lives will look like, how others will perceive us, what spiritual maturity will feel like, how our vocation will unfold. Often we do this unconsciously. The ego survives partly through anticipation and self-construction. But ordinary life slowly dismantles these fantasies. The years pass. Weaknesses remain. Relationships become difficult. Bodies age. Opportunities disappear. Recognition fades. The extraordinary fails to arrive. And many people quietly become resentful at precisely this point. Not necessarily resentful toward God explicitly. More often there emerges a subtle disappointment with reality itself. The ordinary begins to feel like failure. Hiddenness feels like abandonment. Repetition feels meaningless. The soul becomes restless, searching continually for intensity, novelty, affirmation, or escape. But the hidden years of Christ reveal something radically different: salvation unfolds within ordinary time. This is profoundly important because modern culture has become nearly incapable of remaining within ordinary life. We seek constant stimulation 3 because silence exposes our inner poverty. We seek visibility because hiddenness feels like nonexistence. We seek intensity because ordinary faithfulness feels insufficient to the ego. And yet the saints repeatedly tell us that God is found precisely in this hidden endurance. Saint Isaac the Syrian says that the man who has learned to endure himself has already approached the borders of humility. That phrase is extraordinarily deep because one of the great difficulties of ordinary life is that we cannot escape ourselves within it. The repetitions of daily existence expose our impatience, vanity, fantasies, irritability, loneliness, and hidden hunger for recognition. The monastery reveals this. Marriage reveals this. Caregiving reveals this. Aging reveals this. Silence reveals this. And modern people often flee immediately from such revelation. This is one reason our culture is saturated with distraction. Endless stimulation protects us temporarily from encountering the deeper movements of the heart. Noise allows us to avoid self-knowledge. Busyness protects us from stillness. Constant comparison protects us from accepting our actual lives. Nazareth dismantles all of this. The Son of God accepts limitation. He accepts hiddenness. He accepts gradualness. He accepts ordinary labor. He accepts being unknown. And perhaps most astonishingly, He remains. This may be one of the hardest spiritual acts for modern people. To remain. To remain in prayer when prayer feels dry. To remain in marriage when emotional intensity fades. To remain in caregiving when exhaustion deepens. 4 To remain faithful within obscurity. To remain present within ordinary life without fleeing continually toward fantasy or self-construction. The hidden years reveal that salvation often unfolds precisely through such remaining. Not glamorous remaining. Not emotionally triumphant remaining. Simply the quiet fidelity of continuing to offer oneself to God within the actual conditions of one’s life. This does not mean passivity or fatalism. Nazareth is not an excuse for fear or avoidance. Christ eventually leaves Nazareth and enters public ministry. But He does so only after decades hidden within ordinary existence. The hidden life was not wasted time before the “real mission.” It was itself part of the revelation. And perhaps this is what many souls most need to hear today: your hidden life is not invisible to God. The years that seem uneventful. The labor no one notices. The prayers said distractedly but faithfully. The meals prepared. The tears shed privately. The humiliations endured quietly. The long stretches where nothing seems to happen spiritually. None of this is outside salvation. Christ has entered all of it. Indeed, He chose to spend most of His earthly life there. The fathers understood this more deeply than we often realize. The desert was never merely geographical. It was existential. The monk enters hiddenness not to become extraordinary, but to become truthful. Gradually the false self built upon recognition, performance, fantasy, and comparison begins to weaken. A different kind of life slowly emerges: simpler, poorer, more real, 5 less dependent upon being seen. This is why hiddenness feels simultaneously painful and liberating. Painful because the ego experiences obscurity as diminishment. Liberating because the soul gradually discovers it no longer needs to construct itself continually before others. Nazareth teaches us this freedom. The hidden Christ reveals the holiness of ordinary existence lived in communion with the Father. And perhaps holiness itself is far quieter than we imagine. Perhaps sanctity often looks less like dramatic accomplishment and more like: patience, presence, forgiveness, hidden prayer, remaining, and consenting slowly to the life actually given to us. Nazareth teaches us that salvation enters the world silently. And it teaches us that the ordinary moments we are most tempted to overlook may become precisely the places where Christ is forming His life within us. 6

There are passages in St. Isaac that seem less like theology and more like glimpses through an opened door into the Kingdom. These words are among them. He speaks of a table around which those who fast, keep vigil, and labor in the Lord gather. Yet he is not describing merely an ascetical fellowship or a pious community of like-minded people. Something infinitely greater is taking place. The Beloved Himself reclines in their midst. The angels overshadow them. The bitterness of their struggles is transformed into ineffable sweetness. Earth and Heaven become one. How impoverished our understanding of communion often is. We think of fellowship as friendship, conversation, common interests, or shared projects. St. Isaac speaks of something far more profound. Communion arises when hearts are turned together toward God. It is born of a shared hunger. It comes into being when men and women desire the Lord above all things and seek Him with simplicity of heart. Such souls begin, as it were, to breathe the same air. The desert fathers understood this deeply. The bond between them was not built primarily upon personality or affinity. They recognized in one another a common thirst for God. Their love arose from seeing another soul struggling toward the same Kingdom, carrying the same burden, shedding the same tears, and longing for the same Face. This is why the company of the saints becomes so sweet. One can sit in silence with such souls and experience a communion deeper than many conversations. One can eat their frugal bread and feel nourished. One can hear a few simple words from their lips and depart inwardly changed. Their very presence becomes sacramental because their hearts have become places of divine habitation. Indeed, St. Isaac dares to say that their table is sweeter than musk and precious perfumes. Why? Because Christ Himself is there. Perhaps many of us have tasted something of this together as fellow pilgrims sitting at the feet of the fathers. Though separated by thousands of miles and unknown to one another in ordinary ways, there has emerged a real communion among us. We have breathed the same air. We have sat before the same elders. We have listened to the same words of Abba Isaac, Abba Arsenius, and the great company of witnesses. We have found ourselves drawn toward the same beauty and compelled toward the same repentance. This communion cannot be explained by sociology or common interests. It is born from a shared turning toward God. And this is why our reading of the fathers must never become merely informational. One can know every saying of the desert and remain untouched. One can quote Isaac and remain hard of heart. One can speak eloquently about prayer while never having prayed. The fathers are not information to be mastered. They are witnesses before whom we sit as children. We come to them as disciples. We come to them docile and teachable. We suspend judgment and lay aside the need to be experts. We allow ourselves to be questioned, exposed, and gradually transformed by what we hear. We sit quietly before these saints because they themselves are sitting quietly before Christ. This is where communion is born. As the heart is purified, our vision changes. We begin to perceive the image and likeness of Christ in one another with greater clarity. The other person ceases to be a rival, an annoyance, or merely a personality to be managed. He becomes mystery. She becomes icon. Every human being becomes one for whom Christ died and one in whom the hidden beauty of God waits to be revealed. This is the reality we must foster in our homes, our monasteries, our parishes, and our friendships. Not mere association. Not the exchange of religious information. Not even activity done in God’s name. Rather, we must cultivate together a common hunger for God. For where men and women gather with hearts turned toward Him, desiring Him above all things, the Beloved still reclines in their midst. The angels still draw near. The waters of life still well up from within. And those who have learned to breathe the same air already begin, even now, to partake of the life of the Kingdom. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:05 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:02:27 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 207 paragraph 14 00:19:39 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 207, #14, third paragraph on page 00:32:29 John ‘Jack’: I have/had a dear freind who has a great love of cinema, action movies in particular, I had to tell him at one point that I found all the violence disheartening, he understood, we no longer share much time in common, as he is my former pastor 00:33:27 John ‘Jack’: It was the superhero movies 😆 00:35:35 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 207, #15, last paragraph on page 00:42:56 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 208, #16, first aragraph 00:44:30 John ‘Jack’: Ironically, my same group of freinds enjoy going to lunch together I often find I’m better off (even though I enjoy the company) that I will often say some things that if I hadn’t had the time with them I wouldn’t likely have done 00:45:33 John ‘Jack’: Replying to "Ironically, my same group of freinds enjoy going to lunch together I often find I’m better off (even though I enjoy the company) that I will often say some things that if I hadn’t had the time with them I wouldn’t likely have done" 00:52:27 James Hickman: Father, in the English of this paragraph, the Beloved bestows “sanctification”. Could you please elaborate. Can we say deification, divinization, theosis here or is that getting too specific? What is Isaac really saying that the Lord is doing “in their midst” here? 00:58:42 Kate: Father, these groups through Philokalia Ministries has formed something of what St. Isaac is talking about.  We come from all different parts around the globe! 01:01:01 David Swiderski: Very true I have read them for more than a decade. I remember a preist/director from years ago when I was teaching. He always say God speaks through all of us not one of us. I found I learned more in teaching even small children English, natural science, history than any training. 01:01:46 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "Very true I have read them for more than a decade. I remember a preist/director from years ago when I was teaching. He always say God speaks through all of us not one of us. I found I learned more in teaching even small children English, natural science, history than any training." with 👍 01:02:26 David Swiderski: Maybe because where their are two in my name.... 01:08:35 Maureen Cunningham: Herod he exploded 01:13:37 David Swiderski: I am fortunate in my parish they do Novos Ordo and the silience and long pauses are the biggest help. So many young people and the adoration chapel needs to be expanded 01:14:38 David Swiderski: We have the latin rite but the silences, pauses and exceptional choir and participation is incredible 01:15:46 Nypaver Clan: Replying to "I am fortunate in my..." Where is this? 01:16:10 David Swiderski: Elm Grove, WI, St. Mary's visitation 01:17:43 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:19:15 Maureen Cunningham: Amen 01:19:44 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father.

The Fathers speak about judgment with a severity that can seem almost excessive to us. They speak of grace withdrawing, of years of tears and repentance, of visions of Christ refusing worship to one who condemned his brother. We recoil at this language because we do not see condemnation as they saw it. We think of it as a minor fault of speech, a passing irritation, a reasonable assessment of another’s behavior. The Fathers saw it as an assault upon love itself. A brother is eating early on a Friday. One sentence escapes the lips: “You are eating at such an hour, and on a Friday?” Nothing more. No insult. No anger. Merely an observation with an edge of disapproval. And the grace of God departs. Why? Because in that instant the monk ceased to stand beside his brother and placed himself above him. The movement happened with the speed of lightning. One moment he was in humility; the next he had assumed the place of judge. This is the terrifying thing. Pride does not always arrive with fanfare. It can appear in a sigh. An eye-roll. A sarcastic remark. A sentence that begins, “I just don’t understand how someone could…” A comment on social media. A conversation after church. A single word: “Ugh.” The Elder says, “Ugh,” upon hearing of another’s bad reputation. A single exclamation. Then Golgotha appears before him. Christ does not rebuke him for fornication, theft, or apostasy. He says something infinitely more frightening: “Before I could pass judgment, he himself has condemned his brother.” In other words: You rushed ahead of Me. You seized what belongs to Me alone. How quickly we do this. We hear of someone’s failure, and before our hearts have even softened, we have formed an opinion. We hear of a priest’s collapse, a marriage’s breakdown, a young person’s confusion, a friend’s inconsistency, and instantly the mind produces a verdict. We scarcely pause to remember our own darkness. The holy man says, with tears, “He sinned today, but I will surely sin tomorrow.” This is not pessimism. It is truth. The one who knows himself knows that every sin lies hidden within his own heart like sparks in dry grass. Circumstances differ. Opportunities differ. Temptations differ. But the same human nature exists in all. The same weakness. The same instability. If God withdrew His hand for an instant, who among us could stand? The Fathers do not tell us to deny evil. They do not call sin virtue. They simply insist that whenever we see another fall, our first thought should be: There, but for the mercy of God, am I. And then something remarkable happens. The sinner ceases to be an object of analysis and becomes a brother who is wounded. The question is no longer, “How could he do that?” It becomes, “Lord, have mercy upon him—and upon me.” This is why the Elder says that if you see someone sinning with your own eyes, you should first cry out, “Anathema to you, Satan!” The enemy is not your brother. The enemy is the one who delights in dividing us from one another, who tempts one man into sin and another into condemnation. He wins both ways. One falls into the pit. The other stands above the pit congratulating himself. Both are wounded. The Fathers say that nothing harms Christians and monastics more than mutual condemnation. Nothing. Not persecution. Not poverty. Not weakness. But condemnation. Because condemnation makes love impossible. One cannot bear another’s burdens while sitting upon the tribunal. One cannot weep for a brother while despising him. One cannot pray from the depths of the heart for someone whom one secretly regards as inferior. The judging heart is incapable of communion. And perhaps this is why the Fathers tremble so greatly before this passion. To condemn another is not merely to commit a fault of speech. It is to act contrary to the entire ethos of the Gospel. We ourselves live only by mercy. Every breath, every confession, every Eucharist, every hope of salvation rests entirely upon mercy. How strange, then, that beggars of mercy become so quickly its gatekeepers. How terrifying that those who stand daily in need of forgiveness can pronounce sentences against others with such speed. The Fathers ask something harder. When another sins, descend. Accuse yourself. Weep. Pray. Remember your own fragility. And if a harsh judgment escapes your lips—as it so often does—repent immediately. Do not excuse it as honesty, discernment, or concern for standards. Call it what it is: a moment in which pride outran love and sought to sit where only Christ may sit. Then return to your place. Not upon the judgment seat. But at the foot of Golgotha. Beside the thieves. Beside all sinners. Beside your brother. Beside yourself. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:15:39 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 29 paragraph 28 00:35:42 forrest: Do I understand the story correctly, there are 4 monks involved? The two sharing a cell, and two elders. 00:36:43 Fr Martin, Arizona: It seem to me that these stories of community members or (even spouses) that become discontented is part of the temptation of acedia, in that we are in the vocation we love and with the person we love but this distaste attacks one to the point that he or she just goes through the motions of vocation or community rather than with devotion or cheerfulness to the vocation or other. What do you think? 00:37:20 Kevin Burke: Reacted to "It seem to me that these stories of community members or (even spouses) that become discontented is part of the temptation of acedia, in that we are in the vocation we love and with the person we love but this distaste attacks one to the point that he or she just goes through the motions of vocation or community rather than with devotion or cheerfulness to the vocation or other. What do you think?" with 👌 00:42:15 Kate: Recalling our last reading of St. Isaac, he positively advises one to flee from another who has exhibited disordered desires.  How does that fit with the elder in this story who will not give such explicit advice? 00:42:39 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Recalling our last r..." with 👍 00:47:48 Maureen Cunningham: Jesus said he did not  entrust himself to any man because he knew what was in heart man John 2:24 01:00:08 John ‘Jack’: Most recently that is why I’ve decided to ask the Holy Spirit (in me) to come to my aid against the most plaguing of my sins. 01:11:02 Holly Hecker: (from Mark)  This vision of Golgotha brings me to the Good Thief and what he said to the other.  Was that not judging? 01:11:57 Joan Chakonas: It seems like our reactions to others confers upon the other salvation or condemnation- which is why it is important- God puts people in our orbits to save eachother. 01:15:31 Jacqulyn Dudasko: Romans 2:1 - Therefore, you are without excuse, everyone of you who passes judgement. FOr by the standard by which you judge another, you condemn yourself... 01:17:40 Anna: My daughter's question: Does confession forgive sins for judging? The reason I ask is because why did he have to go into the desert to do penance before he gave back the stole, his protection? Why wouldn't the stole, his protection wouldn't come back after confession? 01:18:14 Fr Martin, Arizona: I hope I'm not falling into judging others by saying this. I find, though, that in our society, the media and movies and small talk conversations, gets me used to hearing judgment of others, and makes it even harder to be vigilant about keeping my tongue or thoughts captive, because I'm in the habit of hearing judgments and criticisms of others. I suppose, even though it's hard, I'm still accountable to not do God's job for him. In the Gospel of John, as I recall, Jesus said that it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict of us sin. I'm "without excuse." 01:18:57 Julie: I find it overwhelming that the penance for there sins on themselves is so extreme for such a small fall, for their love of loosing Our lord. It shows me how much more I need to pray to know my sins and to repent of them. 01:19:45 Anna: Is judging someone who is judging someone judging? 😂 Because the desert father would tell others not to judge or they would be quiet themselves as not to judge, but wouldn't that be judging the one speaking? 01:21:07 Catherine Opie: Repetition is type of hypnosis 01:25:29 Catherine Opie: Sorry should clarify so its important what one exposes oneself to habitually 01:26:49 forrest: It is a great grace to be able to pray "...that (his-her-their) every transgression, voluntary and involuntary, be forgiven, let us pray..." 01:29:39 Maureen Cunningham: Do our words hold a person in captivity, by judgement 01:31:22 Janine: Thanks Father 01:32:03 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:32:04 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you . 01:32:07 Catherine Opie: Thank you Fr. God bless.  

At first reading, Isaac’s words can sound severe, even shocking. He speaks of idle speech as fornication, unhealthy attachments as adultery, and certain forms of companionship as idolatry. Yet behind these warnings lies something far deeper than moral anxiety. Isaac is not obsessed with sin. He is consumed with the preservation of desire for God. The entire homily is built upon a single conviction: the human heart was created for divine communion, and anything that captures its attention, dissipates its energy, or redirects its longing away from God becomes a threat to its deepest purpose. For Isaac, impurity begins long before outward acts. It begins when the heart loses its simplicity. When affection becomes possessive, when companionship becomes emotionally intoxicating, when curiosity about others replaces watchfulness over oneself, the soul gradually drifts from its center. The danger is not merely moral failure. The danger is fragmentation. This is why Isaac speaks so strongly about particular attachments and associations. He understands that the heart cannot be divided indefinitely. Every affection shapes desire. Every conversation leaves a trace. Every companionship either strengthens recollection of God or weakens it. His concern is especially acute regarding spiritual relationships because these can easily disguise passion beneath the appearance of virtue. A person may speak about holiness while secretly seeking emotional gratification, admiration, dependence, or control. One may appear spiritual while feeding hidden desires. This is why Isaac repeatedly returns to self-deception. The greatest danger is not obvious sin but the passions clothed in religious garments. Against this, Isaac presents another image: the elder who has guarded his heart through silence, purity of thought, humility, and disciplined speech. Such a person no longer seeks particular people to satisfy hidden needs. He loves everyone equally because his heart has become free. Compassion has replaced possession. Love has become universal because it no longer springs from lack. This is the perfection Isaac describes. The issue, then, is not whether one has relationships. It is whether one’s relationships nourish the fire of God or extinguish it. For Isaac, solitude is not an end in itself. Silence is not a technique. Withdrawal is not misanthropy. All of these exist to protect a flame. The Holy Spirit has kindled a fire within the heart, and that fire is delicate. Excessive familiarity, endless conversation, emotional entanglements, and worldly distractions scatter the mind and cool the soul. Yet Isaac is careful to make one exception. There are companions who do not extinguish the fire but increase it. There are friendships rooted in God. There are conversations that awaken the soul, expose the passions, deepen humility, and enlarge desire for divine things. Such communion is not a distraction from the spiritual life but one of its greatest supports. The test is simple: after leaving someone’s company, does the heart burn more brightly for God or less? Everything in this passage revolves around that question. Isaac’s warnings are not expressions of fear. They are acts of protection. He sees the heart as a sanctuary and desire for God as its most precious treasure. Therefore he urges vigilance, not because human relationships are evil, but because divine love is so extraordinarily precious. The entire passage can be reduced to a single plea: Guard the fire. Choose companions who increase it. Flee whatever diminishes it. And allow your love to become so purified that it belongs to everyone because it belongs first to God. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:09:26 James Hickman: Father, I was away for about a year…moved across the county and my faith formation role was on Wednesday evenings 00:09:50 James Hickman: I have loved The Watchful Mind…love your recommendation…summer break 00:11:05 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:12:21 Anna: 91 in GA right now 00:13:28 Anna: My grandpa had his first class relic 00:16:38 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:16:54 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 206, #11, last paragraph, Fr. A said we should get back to the 2nd sentence. 00:31:04 James Hickman: “…his heart is grievously injured.” Is Isaac speaking of the older monk, ie the one at fault? If so, I like Isaac’s compassion to warn against the danger the offended faces. We don’t want anyone’s heart injured, whether a potential offender or a potential victim. 00:37:51 Bob Čihák, AZ: The double negative in the last sentence of the paragraph tends to confuse my weakening mind. 00:42:37 David Swiderski, WI: It is interesting the human brain only matures after 25 years old. I think most parents can capture this as the entire idea of consequences does not develop till after that. That is why around the world to rent a car you need to be 25. I see people below this age as children still developing but I see others that year to live again in a world without consequences. 00:43:05 Anna: Too often we run to therapy versus running to Christ in prayer and confession 00:44:03 una: Can you speak to how to have a solid spiritual friendship between consecrated people or with priests/monks 00:46:14 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "It is interesting th..." with 👍 00:46:21 Anna: That's why my family went domestic monastic after my husband fell asleep in Christ. It was a way of healing 00:47:26 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "That's why my family..." with 🙁 00:48:04 James Hickman: Reacted to "That's why my family went domestic monastic after my husband fell asleep in Christ. It was a way of healing " with ❤️‍🩹 00:48:19 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "That's why my family..." with ❤️‍🩹 00:48:49 David Swiderski, WI: On the scandals the biggest problem is public teachers almost weekly here in the Midwest we hear of this and strangely most of the ones in my area have been women even married. In fact during my sons time in high school there were 3 abuse cases in the school system. A dear Jewish family we knew actually moved their sons to Catholic schools because at least there are safety measures in place. When I did catechism I had to take 6 months of courses and background checks which I think was great. 00:49:45 Anna: Protestors are hidden and manipulative because Satan helps keep things in the dark. 00:50:06 Lee Graham: Reacted to "It is interesting the human brain only matures after 25 years old. I think most parents can capture this as the entire idea of consequences does not develop till after that. That is why around the world to rent a car you need to be 25. I see people below this age as children still developing but I see others that year to live again in a world without consequences." with 👍 00:59:59 Rebecca Thérèse: The anti-psychiatry psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, wrote an article "Sins of the Fathers", about how the psychologising of criminal behaviour had led to the redeployment of abusive clergy leaving them free to re-abuse. This would not have happened without the psychologising of the Church and its attitude to doctrine and ethics :https://reason.com/2002/08/01/sins-of-the-fathers-2/ 01:07:46 Anna: Sorry I meant predictors in church are manipulative and hidden 01:08:27 David Swiderski, WI: The church is held to a divine standard while Chesterton was attracted  to the one who stole his umbrella. If even the worse can be there that is the place for me a sinner. 01:09:30 Eleana Urrego: I usually said to my patients that the role of a therapist is a tool, like a compás, to help you find your “Path,” Or the “Truth,” or the “Life,” if they are atheists, because the reality is that Christ is the Divine Healer—after all, the evil plant his seed in pain where pride and fear grow. 01:09:30 Ben: You talked about all of us enduring these conditions like loneliness, etc. And I want to add, even I, in the midst of a large, loving, family, with a loving and attentive husband.  experience loneliness, my message is that, that is because we were all created with a God sized hole in our hearts and only God will fill us. 01:10:04 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "You talked about all..." with ❤️ 01:10:13 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "You talked about all of us enduring these conditions like loneliness, etc. And I want to add, even I, in the midst of a large, loving, family, with a loving and attentive husband.  experience loneliness, my message is that, that is because we were all created with a God sized hole in our hearts and only God will fill us." with ❤️ 01:10:27 David Swiderski, WI: Reacted to "You talked about all..." with ❤️ 01:11:17 Nypaver Clan: Replying to "You talked about all..." Hooray for the new baby! Congrats! 01:13:22 David Swiderski, WI: Replying to "You talked about all..." Congratulations what a wonderful blessing. 01:15:11 Ben: Replying to "You talked about all..." Thank you! She certainly is. 01:16:47 David Swiderski, WI: Replying to "You talked about all..." May God bless you and your family. I will light a candle and prayer to the Theotokos for you both  on Sunday 01:17:11 Anna: Because I couldn't find a Spiritual Director I became a Spiritual Director after much discernment and training. A lay woman I Spiritually Directed just entered the convent. 01:17:17 John ‘Jack’: If we can’t find a Saint we must become one.  There is no other alternative. 01:17:19 Ben: The little dialogues are great, in the absence of living elders. It helps fill the gap. Thank you! 01:18:03 James Hickman: Reacted to "The little dialogues are great, in the absence of living elders. It helps fill the gap. Thank you!" with ❤️ 01:18:31 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "If we can’t find a S..." with 😃 01:18:38 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "If we can’t find a S..." with 😇 01:18:53 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "The little dialogues..." with ❤️ 01:18:54 James Hickman: Replying to "The little dialogues are great, in the absence of living elders. It helps fill the gap. Thank you!" And adoration chapel, lives of the saints, the Rosary—do these with an opening in our heart for the Spirit to breathe healing into us 01:19:23 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "And adoration chapel..." with 🙏 01:20:10 una: Reacted to "Because I couldn't find a Spiritual Director I became a Spiritual Director after much discernment and training. A lay woman I Spiritually Directed just entered the convent. " with 😀 01:21:02 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "The little dialogues are great, in the absence of living elders. It helps fill the gap. Thank you!" with ❤️ 01:23:05 David Swiderski, WI: We are all called to Theosis we only need to pick up the mantle.John 10:34 01:23:51 Anna: I prefer Spiritual Mother not Spiritual Director but most know Spiritual Director 01:23:52 Janine: Congratulations to Anna and Ben! Beautiful! A new member of the group!🩷👶 01:23:59 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "Congratulations to Anna and Ben! Beautiful! A new member of the group!🩷👶" with ❤️ 01:24:07 Ben: Replying to "Congratulations to A..." Thank you! 01:24:11 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Congratulations to A..." with ❤️ 01:24:20 Julie: Reacted to "Congratulations to Anna and Ben! Beautiful! A new member of the group!🩷👶" with ❤️ 01:25:30 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:25:31 Bob Čihák, AZ: God bless you, Father. 01:26:18 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you your mother and this group +1 with Bem amd Amma's new member of the group. All glory to God

The Fathers tell us again and again not to judge. We nod our heads. We agree. We repeat the commandment. And then we continue judging. The reason is simple. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:19:25 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Volume III page 27 paragraph 23 00:29:20 Julie: Sometimes I feel we have to do something in actions not turn first to prayer 00:29:29 Holly Hecker: Judgement is one of the 12 forms of Holy Silence 00:33:58 Holly Hecker: in the book written by fr Basil Nortz, it's the hardest one to detach our dearest possessions - our prescious opinions 00:36:19 Catherine Opie: Apologies I came into the meeting slightly late, can I please request the reference to where we are in the text? 00:36:55 Kate: Page 28, #25 00:37:25 Catherine Opie: Reacted to "Page 28, #25" with 🙏 00:37:52 Bob Čihák AZ: P. 28, #26 00:41:07 Danny Moulton: I struggle with this one because it is not a matter of judging after the fact.  How the failure to intervene not a case of failing to show love? Would Christ really have remained silent? 00:42:02 John Burmeister: yes, we will be judged for what did not do, also 00:42:16 Julie: This is close to what my question was on, perfect example for me 00:43:40 Maureen Cunningham: No one listens unless they have a heart change 00:44:59 Anna: Once Catherine of Sienna wanted to suffer for her sins and the sins she caused others to commit. Jesus responded to her the way to handle it is repentance in tears. 00:51:04 Bob Čihák AZ: P. 29, #27 00:54:46 Nypaver Clan: A rusk is twice-baked bread or a hard biscuit 00:56:32 Anna: My son soon will send the art to you but was fixing the beard. 00:56:36 Catherine Opie: Father can you please explain the difference between judgement and gentle correction? 00:56:55 Julie: It is such a hidden judgement where I thought it was more caring 01:00:27 Catherine Opie: however it is a sin to stay silent is it not, in terms of going along with someone elses sin? 01:01:13 Catherine Opie: I am referring to the examination of conscience that is in my missal 01:04:12 Maureen Cunningham: Maybe the Abba understood judgement. And he knew how his life would  suffer and his relationship with God would Suffer. 01:14:25 Anna: In Ezekiel 3:18, God warns the prophet that if He declares a wicked person will die and the prophet does not warn that person to turn from their wickedness, the wicked person will die in their sin, but God will hold the prophet accountable for their blood. This concept is reinforced in Ezekiel 33:7-9, where the prophet is appointed as a "watchman"..... Does not speaking up, does it go on your soul? 01:20:04 Danny Moulton: The practice of burning witches provides its own dopamine hit. (sadly) 01:23:57 Catherine Opie: Replying to "The practice of burn..." Interestingly the burning of witches was a pagan practice, the church put an end to it. 01:24:56 Joan Chakonas: Where did the hour go.  I thought it was 8 01:25:10 Janine: Great class! Lots to consider…thanks Father 01:25:12 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:25:16 Danny Moulton: Tough subject -- good comments. Thanks and blessings to all. 01:25:26 Rachel: Thank you 01:25:40 una: Pray for me please. Special intention 01:25:46 Catherine Opie: Thank you for helping me with the finer subtleties of judgement of others...stil in kindergarten 01:26:01 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "Thank you for helping me with the finer subtleties of judgement of others...stil in kindergarten" with 👌

When we read a passage like this from St. Isaac, it is tempting to focus on the warnings. We notice his words about passions, distraction, worldliness, anger, vainglory, and talkativeness. We see the severity of his language and immediately begin examining ourselves. Yet I do not think that is where Isaac wants us to begin. He wants us first to behold the beauty. Again and again throughout his writings, Isaac speaks as one who has glimpsed something almost too wonderful for words. He has seen what a human being becomes when Christ reigns in the heart. He has seen the Kingdom hidden within. He has seen the glory for which every man and woman was created. Listen to his words. The country of the pure soul is within. The sun shining there is the Holy Trinity. The air breathed there is the Holy Spirit. Christ Himself is the joy, life, and happiness of that realm. Isaac is describing nothing less than the transfiguration of the human person. So often we think of the spiritual life as self-improvement. We focus on our weaknesses, our failures, our habits, our mistakes. We become preoccupied with ourselves. Even our repentance can become a subtle form of self-absorption. But Isaac speaks of something infinitely greater. He speaks of a life so united to Christ that the human heart becomes a dwelling place of divine glory. He speaks of a man whose deepest identity is no longer found in his wounds, his history, his successes, his failures, or even his struggles. His identity is found in Christ who dwells within him. This is why Isaac can speak of the soul beholding its own beauty. At first this sounds strange to modern ears. We are accustomed either to pride or self-hatred. We know how to admire ourselves and we know how to despise ourselves. We know very little of seeing ourselves truthfully. The saints do not admire themselves. They behold Christ shining within them. They see the image of God being restored. They see the Holy Spirit at work. They see what humanity looks like when it becomes transparent to divine life. And this vision fills them with wonder. To glimpse this beauty is enough to make one weep. Not sentimental tears. The kind of tears that come when one suddenly realizes what God intended from the beginning. The tragedy is that most of us live far beneath this reality. We spend our lives fascinated by lesser things. We cling to distractions. We become consumed with opinions, arguments, comforts, entertainments, possessions, ambitions, resentments, and anxieties. All the while a kingdom lies hidden within us. This is why Isaac’s words become so mournful near the end of the passage. “I know not what to say of him,” he writes concerning the man bound to worldly consolations, “except to weep with inconsolable cries of lamentation.” Why such grief? Because Isaac is not merely lamenting moral failure. He is lamenting blindness. He sees human beings starving while seated before a banquet. He sees heirs of the Kingdom living like beggars. He sees those created for divine glory settling for distractions. He sees men and women called to become children of God nursing themselves instead upon the passing consolations of the world. The image that perhaps strikes me most deeply is the one with which he concludes. The man born of God is nursed by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit Himself becomes his nourishment. The Spirit Himself becomes his life. The Spirit Himself becomes his joy. What extraordinary words. Isaac is saying that the Christian life is not ultimately sustained by ideas, techniques, achievements, accomplishments, or even religious activity. It is sustained by communion. The soul learns to live from God. It receives its life from Him as naturally as an infant receives life from its mother. This is the true vocation of every Christian. Not merely to behave better. Not merely to become more religious. Not merely to avoid sin. But to become a living Jerusalem. A dwelling place of the Trinity. A soul illumined by the light of Christ. A child nourished by the Holy Spirit. And once we see this, two kinds of tears appear. The first are tears of wonder. The second are tears of repentance. Wonder because of the beauty for which we were created. Repentance because we have spent so much of our lives looking everywhere except where the Kingdom has been hidden all along. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Isaac spent his entire life trying to convince us that these words are true. The saints believe them. May God grant that we do as well. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:29:55 Ryan Ngeve: Father I have heard different interpretations of Christ’s words in Luke 17. The kingdom of God is “within” you vs “among” you. How does one fit the latter into Isaac’s words here 00:34:57 Jessica McHale: That is why some of the most "fallen" men who do experience a conversion and turn totally to Christ make the very best priests. For God and outward toward others. 00:37:47 Jessica McHale: It's not even embraces others in struggles, it's right praise to GOd that inspires the people 00:37:57 David Swiderski, WI: Interesting in the Greek the word is used in Matthew as the inside of the cup-.ἐντὸς (entos) — 2 Occurrences Matthew 23:26 Adv GRK: πρῶτον τὸ ἐντὸς τοῦ ποτηρίου NAS: clean the inside of the cup KJV: first that [which is] within the cup Luke 17:21 Adv GRK: τοῦ θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστίν NAS: the kingdom of God is in your midst. KJV: of God is within you. 00:43:43 Erick Chastain: How do you ignore and undervalue all beautiful things outside us as st Isaac says? 00:43:53 Erick Chastain: (Practically) 00:45:28 Jessica McHale: I think it's simple: God is first, everything else is beautiful, great, wonderful and to be enjoyed but it's not God. 00:46:19 Julie: Or seeing God in everything who is all Love 00:48:12 Bob Cihak AZ: I've learned most about Christ from other people who humble me in their more Christly life in some aspect. So, I haven't yet experienced God alone or only. 00:48:22 Jessica McHale: What it IS like. You still are. A priest. (you said "was") 01:12:29 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: Would Isaac counsel a monk-priest not to accept appointment as a Bishop since he must be in frequent involvement with all kinds of people? 01:15:04 Joan Chakonas: The best evangelists are these monks because they took the huge step( to civilians like me- so unimaginable) of separation from the world- to live in a monastery- and share this priceless wisdom- I am in awe. 01:15:40 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "The best evangelists..." with ❤️ 01:19:28 Ryan Ngeve: Father Isaac says the “youth should…..pay heed to himself”. To what degree is he to do this as opposed to obedience to a spiritual father 01:20:02 Art: Reacted to "The best evangelists..." with 👍 01:23:41 Bob Cihak AZ: Bless you, Father. 01:23:42 Art: Thank you father! 01:24:05 Catherine Opie: Apologies cant attend as I sing the mass

The Desert Fathers knew something that many of us have forgotten. The greatest danger to the spiritual life is not always the obvious sins we can name. Often it is the secret satisfaction we feel when we discover the weakness of another. There is something in the fallen heart that delights in comparison. The moment another stumbles, we instinctively move ourselves a little higher. We become observers, commentators, judges, analysts. We speak about “discernment” while quietly nourishing condemnation. We discuss another’s failures while remaining remarkably blind to our own. Abba Poimen cuts through all of this with terrifying simplicity: “Who am I? And judge no one.” That is the beginning of monasticism. It is also the beginning of Christianity. Notice how often the Fathers return to the same theme. A brother falls. Another brother is tempted. Someone has a concubine. Someone frequents the baths. Someone neglects his duties. Yet the holy elders are almost never interested in discussing the sin itself. They are interested in the response of those who witness it. The real question is not, “What did he do?” The real question is, “What happened in your heart when you saw it?” The Presbyter of Pelousion stripped eleven brothers of the schema because of their failures. Later his conscience tormented him. Why? Because he discovered something humiliating: the same old man lived in him. The same fallen nature. The same capacity for sin. The Fathers never deny the existence of sin. They deny our right to stand above sinners. That is an entirely different thing. Again and again the Fathers teach that when we expose another’s wound, we expose our own. When we delight in uncovering another’s failure, God permits us to see the sickness hidden within ourselves. Timothy advised that a tempted brother be expelled, and shortly afterward the very temptation he condemned descended upon him. Why? Because God wanted to punish him? No. Because God wanted to heal him. Nothing teaches compassion like discovering that the line between saint and sinner runs directly through one’s own heart. The most moving story in this collection may be the one about the brother abandoned in the ravine. The anchorite’s solution was simple: “Expel him.” Abba Poimen’s solution was different. He sought him. He called him. He embraced him. He fed him. He restored hope to him. The brother had already condemned himself. He did not need another judge. He needed a father. The Church has never lacked judges. What she continually lacks are fathers. A father sees the wound beneath the sin. A father sees the despair beneath the failure. A father sees the battle that nobody else sees. And because he sees it, he goes after the lost sheep. The Fathers teach us something even more demanding than refusing to judge. They teach us to actively support the struggling brother. One brother tells Abba Poimen that he enjoys the company of virtuous men but avoids those with bad reputations. The Elder’s answer is astonishing: “If you do a little good to the good one, you ought to do twice as much good to the one about whose sin you have heard.” Twice as much. Not less. Not avoidance. Not suspicion. Not gossip disguised as concern. Twice as much. Because he is sick. When someone is physically ill, we do not withdraw our care until they recover. We increase it. We visit them. We pray for them. We encourage them. We sit beside them. Why then do we often do the opposite when a brother becomes spiritually ill? The Fathers understood that perseverance is often sustained by hidden acts of mercy. A word of encouragement. A meal. A visit. A refusal to repeat a rumor. A willingness to believe that grace is still at work. A determination to remember the brother’s dignity even while he struggles. Many vocations have been saved by such acts. Many have also been lost through their absence. St. Ephraim says elsewhere that we must never become the occasion for another’s withdrawal from the brotherhood. Those words should terrify every monastery, every parish, every Christian community. Whenever someone leaves wounded, discouraged, or broken, the question should not merely be what happened to them. The question should also be what happened to us. Did we strengthen them? Did we encourage them? Did we bear their burden? Did we pray for them? Did we conceal their weakness and protect their dignity? Did we seek them when they wandered? Or did we stand at a safe distance discussing their failures? The saints are not those who never see sin. They are those who see it and respond with tears rather than judgment. They see a fallen brother and remember their own weakness. They see a wound and cover it. They see a sinner and move closer rather than farther away. In the end, this is exactly how Christ has treated us. Every one of us has been the brother in the ravine. Every one of us has been the sinner whose shame was visible to Heaven. And Christ did not expose us. He sought us. He embraced us. He fed us. He covered us. The closer a man comes to God, the less interested he becomes in revealing the wounds of others and the more eager he becomes to bind them up. That is the way of the Desert Fathers. It is also the way of Christ. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:14:24 Anna: My daughter is asking for an understanding on judging based on Desert Fathers 00:36:42 Maureen Cunningham: What if the person is abusive to you ? 00:37:01 Maureen Cunningham: Like an alcholic 00:39:41 Julie: Like instead of assuming the sleeping monk is lazy or spiritually weak, but really is he exhausted from spiritual struggles, fasts, etc… 00:42:40 forrest: Sorry for a late comment for #15: the Greek word for "cover up" is the same used in the Septuagint Exodus 12:13 for the Angel of God "passing by" the houses marked with blood. 01:04:05 Julie: The wanting to be loved and needed by others. Our passions are hard to cut 01:10:57 una: Wait, what about the baby? 01:17:03 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:17:19 Janine: Thank you

There are moments in the writings of St. Isaac the Syrian where one realizes that what he is speaking about is not “religion” as we commonly understand it at all. He is not concerned with external religiosity, spiritual image, theological sophistication, emotional experiences, or moral performance. He speaks instead about the transformation of the human being into a living place of divine communion. The entire struggle of the ascetic life is directed toward one thing: purity of heart. Not moralism. Not perfectionism. Purity. And purity for Isaac is not primarily about behavior. It is about vision. “The pure in heart shall see God.” The Fathers understood this literally. The heart darkened by distraction, anger, judgment, vanity, endless speech, lust, resentment, self-construction, and immersion in the noise of the world loses the capacity to perceive reality as it truly is. Man ceases to remember God because he has become filled with himself. The tragedy is not simply that we sin. The tragedy is that the heart becomes opaque. Heavy. Fragmented. Unable to behold the Kingdom already present within it. Isaac speaks with terrifying clarity here: “He who restrains his mouth from speech guards his heart from the passions.” Modern man speaks endlessly because he cannot bear silence. We drown ourselves in commentary, analysis, outrage, explanations, arguments, entertainment, notifications, and noise because silence threatens the ego. Silence exposes the inward chaos we spend our lives trying to conceal. But Isaac tells us something almost unbearable: the mysteries of God become visible only in stillness. A wrathful heart cannot behold the mysteries of the Kingdom because wrath keeps the self at the center of reality. A judgmental man may speak about theology endlessly and yet remain entirely estranged from the life of God. A proud man may appear religious and still dwell inwardly in darkness. Why? Because the Kingdom is not perceived through brilliance but through purity. This is why Isaac places such immense emphasis upon guarding the tongue, fleeing gossip, withdrawing from quarrels, avoiding angry speech, and refusing distraction. He is not prescribing pious behavior merely for the sake of morality. He understands something we do not: every movement of the soul either clarifies the heart or darkens it. And so Isaac speaks of continuous remembrance of God. Not occasional remembrance. Not Sunday remembrance. Not remembrance during emotional prayer alone. Continuous remembrance. The modern mind hears this and immediately turns it into technique. But Isaac is not describing a method so much as an identity. Man was created to live in continual orientation toward God. Prayer is not an activity added onto life. Prayer is life restored to its natural condition. This is why Isaac says: “That which befalls a fish out of water, befalls the mind that has come out of the remembrance of God.” What a terrifying image. We imagine ourselves spiritually neutral when we live immersed in distraction, noise, anxiety, worldly conversation, vanity, and continual mental agitation. Isaac says otherwise. The soul outside remembrance gasps for life without understanding why it is suffocating. And this is precisely the condition of modern man. We are overstimulated yet inwardly deadened. Connected constantly yet unable to descend into the heart. Religious perhaps, but incapable of stillness. Surrounded by information while starving for theoria. Isaac uses that extraordinary image of the dolphin moving through the calm sea. When the sea of the heart becomes still from wrath and agitation, divine mysteries begin moving within the soul. The Kingdom is not absent. The heart is simply too turbulent to perceive it. This is why the Fathers fled distraction so fiercely. Not because they hated the world. But because they desired reality. And reality, Isaac tells us, is infinitely more luminous than the fantasies by which we continually feed ourselves. The terrifying thing is that modern people often imagine remembrance of God to be restrictive. In truth, distraction is the prison. Remembrance is freedom. The man who remembers God continually gradually becomes transparent to divine life. His thoughts change. His speech changes. His desires change. His vision changes. Mercy begins appearing naturally. Humility deepens. Judgment weakens. The passions lose their violence because the soul has found greater beauty. Isaac’s vision is nothing less than transfiguration. The purified heart becomes Heaven itself. Not symbolically. Actually. “Lo, Heaven is within you.” The human person becomes a living icon of the Kingdom. The mysteries cease being abstractions and become life. The soul begins beholding Christ “at every moment.” Not through imagination, but through participation. Through communion. Through the gradual purification of the inner man. This is why the saints seem luminous to us. Not because they became extraordinary personalities, but because they ceased obstructing the Radiance of God within them. And Isaac insists that this path is deeply practical. Guard the tongue. Flee distraction. Withdraw from useless speech. Avoid judgment. Remain in remembrance. Practice silence. Study God continually. Refuse the fragmentation of the passions. Seek meekness. Seek humility. Seek hiddenness. Not as legalism. But because every movement either opens the heart toward the Kingdom or closes it inwardly upon itself. The modern world trains us in continual forgetfulness. The ascetic life trains us in remembrance. And remembrance gradually becomes vision. Then prayer ceases being something we “do” and becomes the atmosphere in which the soul breathes. At the center of Isaac’s vision lies something fierce and beautiful: man was created not merely to think about God, but to behold Him within the heart and become radiant with His life in the world. This is the true meaning of purity. Not moral self-consciousness. But transparency to divine life. Not religious performance. But the gradual emergence of Heaven within the human heart. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:18:52 Una: Father, do you know much about Saint Nikiphorus the Leper? 00:19:03 Una: Perhaps a saint for the disabled 00:19:10 Una: My mike isn't working 00:20:33 Bob Čihák, AZ: Remember, in these texts, “men” means all humans, “men and women.” 00:23:23 Una: Reacted to "Remember, in these..." with 👍 00:23:55 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 203 Homily 15 00:29:08 David Swiderski, WI: I guess going into politics is out. 00:30:08 Una: It's noise pollution 00:30:48 Adam Paige: How should we respond appropriately to brothers who want us to indulge in distractions with them ? I often get invited to watch movies and sports, etc. 00:31:58 Una: What about watching the Harry Potter movies dozen of times? 00:32:14 Bob Čihák, AZ: I don't think they thought about politics except for the very uncommon times when politics impacted them. 00:33:05 Art: Replying to "How should we respon..." Consider it as an act of penance. 🙂 00:35:34 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 203 second paragraph 00:48:10 Ben: Anna;  If a person knows he will fall in terms of gossip or even detraction, every time this person is around friends, should he avoid his friends? 00:56:10 Una: Are these sexually explicit pictures? 00:56:23 Bob Čihák, AZ: Ben + Anna = BenAnna? 00:56:26 Una: OK 00:56:32 Una: Oh dear 00:57:01 Ben: Anna; What if the weakness/ problem is not someone else?  (I have heard that if the problem is someone else, complimenting someone else is a gentle way to redirect the conversation.) 00:57:43 Ben: Anna: (Sorry my sister dropped in with things for my new baby) 00:58:28 Julie: Sometimes I feel like a two edge sword ,I finished a 3 day silent retreat full of prayer, meditation,spiritual reading then back to reality with all it’s requirements from you and constantly speaking,… When you look back and see what life is like with in that stillness so close to our Lord  Like a bird flying and a piece of string around its leg pulling you back …limiting you how far you can go. 01:00:32 Ben: Reacted to "Ben + Anna = BenAnna..." with 👍 01:07:44 Larry Ruggiero: Can you elaborate on  “WALK THE PATH OF HEART STILLNESS” I think I read this in the Philokalia Vol 5 01:15:59 Catherine Opie: Such a brilliant movie thanks for reminding me of it Fr. 01:16:47 Joan Chakonas: Father can you define “identity”? 01:19:16 Joan Chakonas: I worry I either don’t have an identity or think about it enough 01:19:36 Maureen Cunningham: Adam walk with God in cool of the day 01:20:33 Catherine Opie: My identity tends to be related to what I identify with/as...I am a mother until my children leave home, I am a (whatever my job is) until it is not. But I am always a child of /god this is the only constant thing in my life 01:20:41 Joan Chakonas: Very interesting 01:21:35 Anna: My son drew it 01:21:50 Anna: He's laughing 01:22:12 Julie: Job, was stripped of all… but still knew he was precious to Our Lord. 01:22:25 Catherine Opie: Reacted to "Job, was stripped of..." with ❤️ 01:22:28 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "pic-87fd3c16-e457-442d-b907-326abc561d45.jpg" with ❤️ 01:22:48 Janine: Reacted to "pic-87fd3c16-e457-442d-b907-326abc561d45.jpg" with ❤️ 01:23:10 Anna: What's your email and we'll send it over... 01:23:23 Anna: Reacted to pic-87fd3c16-e457-442d-b907-326abc561d45.jpg with "❤️" 01:25:30 Nypaver Clan: Job didn’t lose his wife though.  He lost all 10 children and all his flocks, but not his wife.  She ended up having 10 more children. 01:26:10 Nypaver Clan: That’s what I was thinking... 01:27:36 Janine: Thank you Father! 01:28:21 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:28:21 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you and bless you,  Father. 01:28:22 Ben: Baby scheduled to be induced on Sunday/  Prayers please 01:28:22 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:28:25 Catherine Opie: God bless. 01:28:37 Jacqulyn Dudasko: Reacted to "Baby scheduled to be..." with 👍

There is a fierce honesty in the Desert Fathers that can unsettle us if we read them too quickly. They never soften the reality of sin. They do not sentimentalize weakness. They do not pretend evil is harmless, nor do they collapse into the modern confusion that mercy means blindness or moral indifference. They knew too much of the violence of the passions, too much of self-deception, too much of how quickly the heart can justify itself while remaining far from God. And yet, what is striking in these sayings from the Evergetinos is this: the deeper they saw sin, the less willing they were to condemn sinners. This is not softness. It is revelation. The Fathers understood something we often miss: to truly see sin is to begin by seeing it in oneself. We are accustomed to thinking judgment arises from moral seriousness. The Fathers often show the opposite. Judgment frequently arises not from holiness, but from forgetfulness. We forget what we are. We forget how much of our life is sustained not by virtue, but by mercy. We forget that beneath our outward discipline, our religious language, our ordered routines, and even our ascetic efforts, there remains within us a heart capable of pride, lust, cruelty, envy, bitterness, and quiet violence. This is why Abba Agathon, when tempted to condemn another, said to himself: “Beware, lest you do the same thing.” That is not psychological pessimism. That is truth. The saint does not trust himself. Not because he despises himself, but because he has looked deeply enough into his own heart to know how fragile he is apart from grace. The negligent brother dying joyfully may be one of the most unsettling stories in this section. He had not distinguished himself by great ascetic effort. He had not become known for extraordinary fasting or visible zeal. Yet he died in peace because he could say something profound: I have not judged. I have not held a grudge. If I quarreled, I reconciled. And the Elder says something almost shocking: “You have been saved without effort, by not condemning others.” Not because asceticism is unimportant. But because the purpose of asceticism is love. What good is fasting if the heart remains hard? What good is prayer if we stand before God while inwardly prosecuting our neighbor? What good is discipline if mercy has not entered us? The Fathers knew that a man may be severe with himself and still cruel to others. Such severity is not holiness. It is often pride wearing religious clothing. Again and again, these stories reveal the same pattern. Abba Ammonas, seeing the woman accused of immorality, does not rush to impose punishment. He sees first her frailty, her danger, her humanity. He provides what may be needed for burial before speaking of penance. When another sinful brother hides a woman in a cask, Ammonas knowingly sits upon it, covering his shame rather than exposing him publicly. Then he simply grasps his hand and says: “Be attentive to yourself, Brother.” This is astonishing. The Fathers did not always correct by exposure. Sometimes they corrected by mercy. Sometimes the deepest rebuke was protection. Why? Because they understood something terrifying and beautiful: divine love does not deny truth, but neither does it delight in humiliation. How often we do the opposite. We call it “clarity,” but sometimes it is disguised satisfaction. We expose, denounce, criticize, analyze, and condemn because another’s fall secretly strengthens our own illusion of righteousness. The Fathers tear this illusion apart. Abba Moses enters the council carrying a basket filled with sand, the grains pouring out behind him. His words remain among the most piercing in all ascetical literature: “My sins are flowing out behind me, and I do not see them; and yet, I have come today to judge someone else’s sins.” This is the beginning of humility. To realize that we are often blind not to the sins of others, but to our own. And then there is Abba Isaac the Theban. He condemns a brother. Later, an Angel blocks the entrance to his cell and asks: “Where do you want me to cast the erring brother whom you condemned?” This is not merely a dramatic moral lesson. It is theological revelation. To judge another is, in a hidden way, to step into a place that belongs to God. The Fathers knew that judgment is not simply speech. It is a movement of the heart that places the self above another. Mercy, then, is not emotional softness. It is participation in divine life. This is perhaps why Abba Macarius is described almost unbearably: he covered the faults which he saw as though he did not see them, and those which he heard as though he did not hear them. Not because he denied evil. But because he had become like God. God sees all and yet bears with all. God knows what we are and still does not withdraw His mercy. God alone sees with absolute clarity and still gives time for repentance. The Fathers wanted this same heart. And so should we. These stories do not simply teach us to “be nice” or “avoid criticizing people.” They embody revealed truth. They reveal what divine love looks like once it begins to enter fallen human beings. They show what man becomes when he ceases to live by accusation and begins to live by mercy. This is the deepest challenge. Not whether we can identify sin. Most of us can do that quickly. The question is whether, while seeing clearly, we have become merciful. Whether our truth has been transfigured by love. Whether our asceticism has softened the heart rather than hardened it. Whether we can stand before another’s failure and remember our own need for forgiveness. The Desert Fathers were fierce because they were honest. They were merciful because they had met God. And the closer they came to Him, the less eager they were to condemn. Perhaps that is one of the surest signs that divine love has begun to remake the heart. Not blindness. Not permissiveness. But clarity without cruelty. Truth without accusation. Mercy without illusion. And a heart that increasingly belongs to God. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:14:52 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 20 Volume 3 Section H 00:15:25 Charmaine's iPad: Hello dear family. Good to see all of you 00:15:34 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Reacted to "Hello dear family. G..." with ❤️ 00:16:18 Charmaine's iPad: Reacted to "Hello dear family. Good to see all of you" with ❤️ 00:17:00 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Coming Soon! [Full message cannot be displayed on this version] 00:19:08 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 20  H 00:20:55 Julie: I’m so glad Father 00:32:40 Julie: Reminds me of the alcoholic monk that died 00:35:12 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 21, #2 00:36:07 Julie: Today in Australia 00:36:25 Catherine Opie: In NZ too 00:36:30 Rebecca Thérèse: Today in Britain as well! 00:45:35 forrest: I'll look, but they often use euphemisms 00:51:19 Danny Moulton: In the Kindle version, he says, "May God forgive us all," thereby including himself.  This seems an even more powerful expression of humility, 00:51:21 forrest: The Greek has διαφϑαρῆ, indicating a passive verb form, implying she was victimized. 00:56:14 Julie: Reminds me of Fulton Sheen, he said on a visit to a jail to prisoners.” The difference between you and me are you were caught and I wasn’t 01:03:34 una: I am highly disturbed by a culture that would exact punishment from a victimized woman 01:14:25 Fr Martin, Arizona: what do you think of this? It seems we don't calcify anyone's behavior as if it condemns them, because don't each of us hope God will heal us? St. Isaac the Syrian said, "God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil right." 01:18:38 Danny Moulton: Thank you! 01:18:41 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:18:44 Janine: Great class! Thanks Father 01:18:50 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:18:50 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you

There are passages in the Fathers that do not merely instruct us. They unsettle us because they seem to speak from a place beyond ordinary language. This portion of St. Isaac the Syrian is one of them. He begins almost defensively, and yet with extraordinary tenderness: “I shall tell you something, and do not laugh, for I speak the truth.” That opening matters. Isaac knows what he is about to describe can sound excessive, mystical, even absurd to the outward or untested mind. He knows some will mock it. Others will reduce it to sentiment or pious exaggeration. He knows he is stepping into something difficult to articulate because the reality itself exceeds words. And yet he writes. That itself is striking. This costs him something. There is a deeply personal quality here. Isaac is not writing as one giving detached spiritual theory. He writes almost like a father speaking carefully about a mystery he knows language will diminish even as he tries to preserve it. Near the end of the homily he says plainly that he has “taken no little trouble to set these things down.” One feels the labor in that line. Not merely literary labor, but spiritual labor. He is trying to hand on something fragile and luminous to “every man who comes upon this book.” His desire to help souls outweighs the risk of being misunderstood. And what does he speak of? Tears. But not tears as emotional excess. Not tears as instability. Not tears as religious theater. He is speaking of something far deeper: the awakening of the inward man. Isaac says that until this inward fruit begins, much of our life remains outward. We may pray, labor, fast, study, serve, and yet still remain largely organized around the visible self. The hidden man may still be in service to the world. Then comes his astonishing image. When tears begin, the soul has “left the prison of this world.” Not the world itself. But its prison. That inward captivity of self, illusion, hardness, fragmentation, and outwardness. And then Isaac gives one of the most beautiful images in all ascetical literature: he speaks of the soul almost as an infant being born into another reality. As an infant in the womb first begins to draw subtle breath before entering this visible life, so the inward man, born of grace through the womb of Mother Church and quickened by the Spirit, begins to perceive another atmosphere. Another age. Another reality. Another air. He says the soul begins to breathe “that other air, new and wonderful.” This is breathtaking. For Isaac, tears are not simply sorrow. They are often the birth pangs of the spiritual child within us. Grace, whom he calls the common mother of all, labors to bring forth the divine image in the soul. And because the mind is unaccustomed to this new reality, the body itself may cry out. Tears become a kind of holy wailing, but “mingled with the sweetness of honey.” What language. He is trying to describe something almost impossible: sorrow joined to sweetness, pain joined to grace, birth joined to loss, tears joined to wonder. The modern mind often has little room for this. We understand tears psychologically. We understand grief. Exhaustion. Relief. But Isaac is speaking of something deeper than emotion. He is speaking of the Kingdom beginning to stir within. Of the Spirit crying out from depths beyond words. Of the soul awakening to a reality more real than the visible world. And yet Isaac remains sober. He is careful. He distinguishes passing consolation from deeper compunction. He warns, in effect, against reducing such things to passing feeling or spiritual excitement. He speaks of stillness, of peace of thought, of gradual transition, of hidden maturation. Even here he is restrained. That restraint matters. Because what makes this passage so beautiful is not ecstatic excess. It is tenderness joined to sobriety. Mystery joined to humility. Vision joined to caution. And perhaps most moving of all, Isaac writes not to exalt himself, but to serve. These things, he says, he has written for himself and for every man who comes upon this book. That line carries enormous tenderness. He writes as one who knows words cannot capture the fullness of what grace does, yet he offers them anyway so another soul may not lose courage. Perhaps that is why this passage still pierces us. It reminds us that the spiritual life is not merely moral effort, external correctness, or religious performance. It is birth. The slow birth of the inward man. The hidden awakening of the Kingdom. The Spirit crying from within us. And perhaps, however faintly, learning to breathe another air. The air of grace. The air of the age to come. The air of Christ. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:03:13 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 201 Homily 14 There are times in the spiritual life when a phrase begins as an image and slowly becomes a revelation. For some time now, the phrase Breathing the Same Air has remained with me. At first, it seemed to speak of something many of us deeply long for: to stand among those who thirst for Christ as the Desert Fathers did; to dwell within the same ascetic spirit, the same sobriety, the same inward hunger for purity of heart, prayer, and communion with God. But after returning to St. Isaac the Syrian, this phrase began to open more deeply. Perhaps breathing the same air is not first about standing among others who seek God. Perhaps it is about entering inwardly into the same atmosphere where the saints themselves learned to repent, to pray, to soften, and to become alive before God. 00:10:25 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: June 4 Week Retreat https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:13:45 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 201 Homily 14 00:38:54 una: How is he using "laugh"? In the sense of disbelief? 00:45:04 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 201 second paragraph 00:53:30 Holly Hecker: (From Mark)   sometimes I see these attachments (or walls separating from God) is born from old wounds, old traumas, and these attachments are fears, acts of protection.  and tears arrive when trusting God and taking the walls of traumas down.  Maybe that is a different 'tears' but its a tear of new life. 00:54:02 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "(From Mark)   someti..." with 👍 00:54:55 una: Interesting that in the natural order of thing, the child triggers the beginning of labor through a hormonal message. 01:02:58 Anna: I love the tears! I never did either Father! IT was the east that taught me 01:08:46 Julie: I seem to find the world and surroundings pull you back into in it , that one foot in and easily slip out 01:09:42 una: One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel 01:10:03 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "One foot in the grav..." with 😅 01:16:51 Aaron: very eye opening 01:18:29 Anna: Yes! There is nothing comparable to these saints. 01:20:38 Janine: Very class a retreat! 01:20:45 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:47 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:20:49 Aaron: Thank you

There is something almost incomprehensible in this passage from St. Anastasios and St. Maximos because it reveals just how surrounded we are by mercy while continuing to behave as though condemnation were wisdom. The Fathers do not merely tell us not to judge. They overwhelm us with reasons not to judge. They show us a universe saturated with the patience of God, the intercession of angels, the prayers of saints, the tears of repentance, the mystery of hidden transformation, the power of baptism, the healing of affliction, the medicine of chastisement, the compassion of Christ, and the joy of Heaven itself over the salvation of even one sinner. And still we condemn. That is the horror. We condemn while standing inside the greatest revelation of mercy the world has ever known. St. Anastasios says plainly: you do not know what has happened between God and that soul after the moment you witnessed his sin. Not five years later. Not tomorrow. Ten steps later. That is how quickly grace can act. A man may fall publicly and repent secretly. A woman may appear outwardly shattered while inwardly clinging to God with tears unknown to the world. A soul everyone has dismissed may already be visited by the Holy Spirit. And the Fathers insist that we understand this: we know almost nothing. We see fragments and imagine ourselves judges of the whole human being. We see behavior but not wounds. Actions but not warfare. Falls but not repentance. Scandal but not tears. Weakness but not humility. Temptation but not hidden prayer. Worst of all, we do not see what God Himself is doing inside another person. The Fathers say there are souls purified through illness. Souls purified through humiliation. Souls purified through temptation. Souls purified through demonic assault endured with thanksgiving. Souls saved through the prayers of others. Souls restored in their final moments. Souls secretly reconciled to God before death. How then dare we speak so confidently about anyone? The terrifying thing is that we do this while calling ourselves Christians. Christians. Those who claim to worship the God who became man for sinners. The Incarnation alone should silence every condemning tongue forever. The angels themselves longed to behold this mystery: that God would unite Himself to fallen humanity. Not to idealized humanity. Not to polished humanity. Fallen humanity. Christ assumed the very flesh we despise in one another. He entered the human condition completely apart from sin so that no sinner could ever again say: “God does not know what I am.” He knows. He entered it willingly. And Heaven never ceased rejoicing over this mystery. St. Anastasios says the angels love mankind precisely because they beheld God become man. Imagine that. The bodiless powers who never fell into flesh are astonished by what humanity has become through Christ. Meanwhile we, who were baptized into Him, often despise one another mercilessly. The Fathers remind us that every baptized person has been entrusted to an angel. Every baptized person has been sealed by the Spirit. Every baptized person has become the object of heavenly concern. The angels themselves plead for us. Think of that. While we gossip about one another, the angels intercede for one another. While we expose each other’s failures, Heaven labors for each other’s salvation. While we speak words that crush souls, the saints and angels beg God to heal them. And still we continue as though condemnation were normal. St. Maximos says Heaven is astonished at this. Astounded. The earth quakes. But we are “insensible and unabashed.” Insensible because we no longer perceive the mystery of redemption correctly. Unabashed because we condemn others without trembling. The saints trembled before judging another human being because they knew that judgment belongs to Christ alone. To judge another is not merely to commit a moral fault. St. Anastasios says it is to usurp the office of the Lord Himself. This is why the Fathers speak so fiercely. The judging heart has forgotten the Gospel. It has forgotten the thief entering Paradise in a single moment. It has forgotten Rahab the harlot. It has forgotten the Publican justified by a sigh. It has forgotten Manasses forgiven after decades of horror. It has forgotten Peter restored after denial. It has forgotten that Judas stood among the Apostles while the thief hung among murderers, and yet by evening their places were reversed. The saints understood something we resist with all our strength: human beings are not static creatures. A single moment of real repentance can alter eternity. And because of this, the saints became exceedingly merciful. Not naïve about evil. Not indifferent to sin. But deeply aware that every person stands inside a battle for salvation surrounded by mysteries unseen to human eyes. The demons accuse. Christ heals. The demons reduce persons to failures. Christ beholds the image buried beneath the ruin. The demons delight in exposure. Christ covers nakedness. And the terrible thing is how often religious people unknowingly participate in the work of accusation while imagining themselves defenders of righteousness. The Fathers knew better. This is why the holiest among them became gentlest toward sinners and harshest toward themselves. Because the closer one comes to God, the more clearly one sees that he himself survives only by mercy. And once a man truly knows this, condemnation becomes impossible. He no longer stands above humanity. He stands beside it, beating his breast, praying: “To You, O Lord, belongs mercy.” --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:05 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:34:49 Julie: It feels like there is no rest 00:35:43 Julie: With the senses I mean, to cut the thought straight away 00:36:19 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 18 paragraph 1 00:36:31 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "P. 18 paragraph 1" with 👍 00:52:58 Janine: I always wondered if everyone has a Guardian angel or only the baptized… 00:59:22 Julie: Beautiful 01:06:50 Fr Martin, Arizona: When I was in my early twenties, i kept trying to figure out a way to live on an even keel, a constant peace. My spiritual father again and again suggest that life is ebb and flow. Forty years later I've still not been able to smooth out the spiritual path. The readings today make sense to me. 01:07:41 Anna: I have filled voicemail, phone noises off, and yes totally do not disturb and I love it!!! 😁❤️ 01:08:21 Julie: I feel the silence is sometimes louder, so reading or listening to prayers slows them down 01:09:37 Andrew Zakhari: Isaiah 26:4-“trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the rock eternal.” 01:10:04 Danny Moulton: There is a part of me that wants to push back against the idea that we should NEVER judge others. (Jesus gave explicit instructions on how to deal with those who sin against us (Mt. 18), and it does not entail remaining silent.)  But the reality is that the challenge I face is the 99.9% of the time when my tendency to judge is motivated by self- righteousness. It’s so predominant, that the case for judging from a position of love becomes almost moot. 01:14:07 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 20 G 01:15:21 forrest: Replying to "There is a part of m..." Me too. But may that 0.1% opportunity be a yeast to leaven the whole! 01:16:15 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father. 01:16:16 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:16:20 Jessica McHale: many prayers!!! 01:16:23 Danny Moulton: THank you!  

What is striking in these homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian is not severity, though there is severity in them. Nor is it simply the exalted vision of hesychasm as the path of stillness and inner watchfulness. What pierces the heart most deeply is the tenderness hidden beneath the fierceness. Isaac speaks as one who knows the fragility of the human soul. He knows darkness. He knows instability. He knows how often the mind wanders, how quickly fervor cools, how easily discouragement enters the heart. And yet he never ceases to hold before us hope. For Isaac, the spiritual life unfolds gradually. There is the beginner, whose heart is still deeply entangled in the passions. There is the intermediate soul, divided between light and darkness, grace and temptation, longing and exhaustion. Then there is the perfect, whose heart has become transparent to God. But Isaac does not present these stages in order to discourage us. He presents them to free us from illusion. Most Christians imagine holiness as a sudden transformation. Isaac does not. He sees the greater part of human life as lived in the middle country — between bondage and freedom, between Egypt and the Promised Land. The soul experiences moments of illumination, yet also long stretches of obscurity. Thoughts from the “right hand” and the “left” move within us at once. We desire God sincerely, and yet remain painfully fragmented. This honesty is itself merciful. The great temptation in the spiritual life is despair over our instability. We imagine that because we have not become saints quickly, we are failures. But Isaac says something astonishing: even the one who dies still hoping for holiness, still longing for God, still searching from afar for the Kingdom he has never fully seen, may inherit with the righteous. This changes everything. The Christian life is not built upon spiritual achievement but upon fidelity of desire. Isaac does not glorify failure or excuse negligence. He calls for vigilance, prayer, reading of the Scriptures and the Fathers, watchfulness over thoughts, and perseverance in stillness. Hesychasm is not passivity. It is fierce labor. It is the continual turning of the heart toward God. Yet beneath all of this effort stands something greater: the mercy of God who sees the hidden inclination of the soul. A man may never attain great visions. He may never know deep spiritual consolation. He may die with weakness still within him. But if his heart remained turned toward God, if he struggled to guard the flame, if he hoped from afar and refused to surrender himself to cynicism or despair, Isaac dares to say that such a soul belongs among the righteous. This is profoundly important for our age. Many Christians today live with inward exhaustion. The noise of the modern world scatters the mind. Images flood the imagination. Anxiety fragments attention. Prayer often feels dry and impossible. And because people do not experience immediate spiritual transformation, they quietly abandon the inner life altogether. They assume contemplation belongs only to monks, or to the spiritually gifted. But Isaac refuses this conclusion. Hesychasm is not merely a monastic technique. It is the vocation of the baptized heart. Every Christian is called to interior stillness, to remembrance of God, to watchfulness over thoughts, to the guarding of the heart, to prayer within the depths of the soul. The outer form may differ according to one’s state of life, but the call itself is universal. The command of Christ — “abide in Me” — is the foundation of hesychasm. Isaac especially insists that the soul must not surrender during periods of darkness. There are moments when grace seems hidden, when prayer becomes heavy, when the mind feels clouded and the heart cold. The inexperienced soul believes something has gone wrong. Isaac says otherwise. Darkness is part of the journey. And what is his counsel? Read the Scriptures. Read the Fathers. Continue praying even without consolation. Refuse despondency. Wait patiently for help from God. This is deeply beautiful because Isaac understands that grace often returns quietly and unexpectedly. Like sunlight emerging through clouds, prayer slowly scatters the passions and restores clarity to the soul. Not through violence. Not through self-hatred. But through patient endurance beneath the mercy of God. Again and again Isaac returns to humility. Mysteries are revealed to the humble because humility alone can endure reality. The proud demand experiences, certainty, attainment, visible success. The humble man simply remains before God. He knows his poverty. He knows he cannot save himself. And because he no longer trusts in himself, he begins at last to trust in divine mercy. In this sense, these homilies are not ultimately about technique, but about hope. The one who remains turned toward God, even in weakness, even amid confusion, even without having “seen the land from close at hand,” has already begun to live the hidden life of the Kingdom. And perhaps this is the deepest word Isaac offers us: God does not despise the soul that longs for Him from afar. Even longing itself can become prayer. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:07 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/nazareth-and-the-hidden-life 00:01:15 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 198 00:01:33 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 198 Homily 12 00:09:25 susan: did we finish homily 11? 00:16:48 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 198 Homily 12 00:31:13 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 199 paragraph 3 00:36:24 Wayne: again need to leave early today.. 00:42:44 Larry Ruggiero: Stay on the course of love for God. Continue 00:43:20 Larry Ruggiero: Continue to surrending all I am to God 00:50:30 Jessica McHale: When it comes to Scripture, I often feel pulled in two directions: I want to engage in Lectio Divina for spiritual formation, but I also have a strong desire for deep intellectual study, not "hearing" His Word" necesarily, at that time. 00:58:24 David Swiderski, WI: There is a wonderful series Ancient Christian Commentary of the Scripture which has really slowed down my reading and lots of commentaries from the early fathers which is helpful. Some passages seem to be a prism of meaning after reading the insights from the fathers. 01:07:34 Joan Chakonas: I highly recommend  St Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the gospel of Luke. 01:12:49 Erick Chastain: I saw a recent talk on Cassian's influence on st Thomas aquinas 01:13:59 Janine: Yes 01:14:03 Erick Chastain: heard of fr faber 01:15:26 Aaron: Thank you Father! :) 01:15:49 Joan Chakonas: How is it 8:30 already?????!!!! 01:16:08 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your Mother and this group. 01:16:09 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:16:10 Jessica McHale: So much gratitude! Praying for you!!!! 01:16:12 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:16:22 iPhone (2): Outstanding 01:16:28 iPhone (2): Thank you.

There is a fierce honesty in the fathers that modern Christians often find difficult to endure. They do not allow us the comfort of remaining spectators to the Fall. We prefer to think of Adam’s transgression as history, tragedy, doctrine, or inherited condition. But the fathers insist upon something far more painful: Adam’s sin is repeated in us daily. Not first through sensuality. Not first through disobedience. But through judgment. Abba Mark says something astonishing: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is our constant distinction between “good” brethren and “bad” brethren. The Fall occurs whenever we separate ourselves inwardly from another human being through contempt, condemnation, suspicion, derision, or hidden hatred. We imagine ourselves discerning spiritually, morally, psychologically, or ecclesially, while in reality we are tasting again the forbidden fruit. This is why the fathers fear judgment more than humiliation. The modern mind often reduces sin to the violation of rules. But the fathers understand sin as the darkening of vision. The moment we begin to look upon another person without mercy, without reverence, without grief for our own condition, our sight becomes corrupted. We no longer behold the image of God. We behold instead the projection of our own passions. And this is why Abba Mark says: “In the eyes of one whose heart is possessed by the passions, no man is sanctified.” The impure heart cannot see purely. A man filled with anger sees enemies everywhere. A vain man sees inferiors. A lustful man sees objects. A fearful man sees threats. A proud man sees fools. The world slowly takes on the shape of our inner disorder. How terrifying this is for our age. We live in a culture built almost entirely upon commentary, denunciation, suspicion, exposure, ridicule, factionalism, and perpetual judgment. Men and women sit before glowing screens daily eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, deciding endlessly who is worthy and who is contemptible. Entire identities are now constructed around outrage. Even religious discourse often becomes little more than sanctified accusation. One no longer needs to enter a battlefield to lose one’s soul. One need only remain online. The fathers would tremble at the atmosphere we inhabit. Not because they were naïve about evil, but because they understood something we do not: judgment wounds first the one who judges. The punishment is already contained within the act itself. The moment brotherly love dies, spiritual perception begins to die with it. Abba Mark says that once the mind tastes this fruit, it falls into the very sins it condemned. This is one of the great spiritual laws confirmed by centuries of ascetical experience. The one who delights in exposing others becomes inwardly exposed himself. The one obsessed with impurity becomes inwardly contaminated by the images he condemns. The one who cannot forgive slowly becomes incapable of receiving mercy. And yet the fathers do not say these things to crush us. They speak this way because they have seen Christ. This is what modern readers often miss. The fierce severity of the desert fathers is born from the overwhelming revelation of divine mercy. They have seen the humility of God in Christ. They have seen the Innocent One forgive His murderers, descend into our corruption, bear our nakedness, and unite Himself even to those who abandoned Him. Therefore every movement of contempt within themselves becomes unbearable to them. Their tears are not moralism. They are astonishment before mercy. The fathers know that no man truly sees his own sins and continues comfortably condemning others. When Isaiah saw the glory of God, he did not cry: “Those people are unclean.” He cried: “I am a man of unclean lips.” This is why humility and compassion always deepen together. The modern world confuses humility with low self-esteem or emotional softness. But the fathers understand humility as truthfulness before God. The humble man no longer needs enemies in order to preserve himself psychologically. He no longer builds identity through comparison. He no longer secures righteousness through accusation. He knows too much about the abyss within his own heart. And strangely, this knowledge makes him gentler. Not permissive. Not morally indifferent. But merciful. The fathers never deny evil. They simply refuse to stand outside the human condition while speaking about it. This is especially important today because modern Christians are tempted toward two opposite distortions. One side abandons discernment entirely in the name of compassion. The other weaponizes discernment in the service of hidden hatred. The fathers accept neither path. They see clearly. Fiercely clearly. Yet they weep over what they see. The true ascetic is not shocked by human weakness because he has descended into his own heart and found there every seed of corruption. He knows that apart from grace he is capable of every sin. Therefore he approaches others not from superiority but from shared poverty. This is why the fathers continually command: “Busy yourself with your own faults.” Not because the sins of others are unreal. But because self-knowledge is salvific while judgment is intoxicating. And this teaching becomes even more radical in the light of Christ’s revelation that the true battlefield lies within the hidden man of the heart. The spiritual law judges not only external acts but secret thoughts, inward movements, concealed fantasies, silent condemnations, and hidden resentments. A man may appear peaceful outwardly while inwardly conducting trials against the entire world. Modern life makes this almost constant. We judge politically. Ecclesially. Morally. Psychologically. Liturgically. Socially. Intellectually. And often we do so while imagining ourselves defenders of truth. But the fathers ask a far more frightening question: “What has happened to your heart while you were defending truth?” Abba Mark says there is only one true goal: to rejoice when wronged because we are thereby given opportunity to forgive. This sounds almost impossible to modern ears because our entire culture is organized around self-protection, self-assertion, self-expression, and vindication. Yet the fathers understand that every injury endured without hatred enlarges the heart’s capacity for God. This does not mean enabling abuse or denying justice. The fathers are not preaching psychological passivity. Rather, they are revealing that the deepest freedom is freedom from hatred. And this freedom is impossible without grace. That is why Abba Mark says that Christ Himself fights within us after Baptism. The battle is interior. The warfare is largely invisible. Pride, vainglory, pleasure, resentment, self-justification, condemnation, fantasy, and rage move continually through the thoughts. No merely human technique can heal this fragmentation. Only Christ hidden within the heart can do battle there. The fathers therefore call us not to moral performance but to radical cooperation with grace: through prayer, through repentance, through patience, through forgiveness, through refusal of judgment, through bearing humiliation, through hidden struggle, through learning slowly to love. And perhaps nowhere is this teaching more needed than now, in an age where almost every system around us profits from outrage, comparison, suspicion, and exposure. The fathers remind us that the soul does not become luminous through winning arguments or exposing others. It becomes luminous through mercy. For in the end, purity of heart is nothing other than learning to see others as Christ sees them: not sentimentally, not blindly, but through the terrible and beautiful light of compassion. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:03:31 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 13 Hypothesis II number 3 00:03:46 Bob Čihák, AZ: Vol. 3, p. 13, #3 00:08:55 Lorraine: Here is a link to the book you mentioned last week, Father 00:09:04 Lorraine: https://archive.org/details/orthodoxpsychoth0000vlac 00:13:29 Bob Čihák, AZ: Vol. 3, p. 13, #3 00:24:30 Julie: He said to them: Acts 10:28 “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.'" 00:31:50 Joan Chakonas: Interesting in Sundays homily the pastor said that God speaks to us through people around us.  He told us to do as asked by our spouses etc.  My husband is outside the faith and it had really never occurred to  me that God might be speaking to me through my faithless spouse- believe it or not I am that thick.  Anyway tying this back to todays hypotheses- our judgment is blocking our reception of God- when we are not even considering this possibility.  Sorry if I sound dense.  These readings are amazing to me. 00:34:36 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Interesting in Sunda..." with 👍 00:42:41 Bob Čihák, AZ: Vol. 3, p. 15, 4 00:49:38 Joan Chakonas: I can’t imagine any day passing when in the company or presence of others the inclination toward negativity is completely absent. Our fallen nature.  Listening to these writings presents us with a how to manual for entering the door of paradise.   I just love these podcasts.  Thank you thank you thank you. 00:51:28 Joan Chakonas: Yes revelation!!!! 00:59:49 Nypaver Clan: St. John Henry Newman is recognized as “Doctor of the Church” to emphasize “heart speaking to heart.” Like you said, “Doctor of conscience.” 01:04:46 Fr Martin, Arizona: Do you think there's anything to the following thought that i had? In regard to wanting someone to act differently so that my own discomfort would be relieved, the thought came to me, that at the foot of the cross, Mary never  said to Jesus, "Come off the cross, and "make ME" feel better, so that I can feel better and not so pierced by seeing you suffer." 01:05:30 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "Do you think there's anything to the following thought that i had? In regard to wanting someone to act differently so that my own discomfort would be relieved, the thought came to me, that at the foot of the cross, Mary never  said to Jesus, "Come off the cross, and "make ME" feel better, so that I can feel better and not so pierced by seeing you suffer."" with ❤️ 01:07:31 forrest: Sorry, Father. In fact, Jesus did not cause his mother to suffer, ever. 01:11:23 Bob Čihák, AZ: Exhausting, but beautiful. Bless you, Father. 01:11:27 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:11:28 Catherine Opie: Thank you Fr. I am so glad to be back in this study group. Every one I attend is entirely relevant to my life every time 01:11:30 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:11:35 Jessica McHale: Thank you! Prayers! 01:11:37 Joan Chakonas: Thank you!!!! 01:11:40 Janine: Yes 01:12:41 Joan Chakonas: Saturdays are giid 01:12:48 Joan Chakonas: Goid

There is something striking in the way that St. Isaac the Syrian speaks about the monastic life. He does not speak of it romantically. There is no sentimentalism in him. No fascination with externals. No praise of extraordinary feats meant to astonish the imagination. What he describes is hiddenness. Poverty of spirit. Chastity. Vigilance. Tears. Silence. Freedom from worldly rumor. Perseverance in prayer. The steady remembrance of one’s true country. And yet he calls these things beauty. This is important. Because the world has almost entirely lost the capacity to recognize spiritual beauty. We are trained to admire visibility, influence, accomplishment, charisma, productivity, youth, power. Even within religious life, we often admire the gifted personality more than the purified heart. We praise success more readily than humility. We are impressed by what shines outwardly while remaining almost blind to the soul that quietly dies to itself in love for God. But Isaac sees differently. For him, the true beauty of the monk is not found in appearance, status, or achievement. It is found in a human being becoming transparent to grace. A person who no longer lives from the compulsions of the fallen self but from communion with God. This is why his teaching cannot be reduced merely to anchorites living in caves or hermits hidden in the desert. Certainly, Isaac is speaking directly to monks. But what he describes is nothing less than the flowering of baptism itself. The monk becomes for Isaac an icon of what every Christian life is meant to reveal. Because Christianity is not merely moral improvement. It is not religious affiliation. It is not the management of behavior through rules and obligations. The Gospel reveals something infinitely greater and more terrifying than that. Man is created in the image and likeness of God. And through Christ, man is drawn into the very life of God. This is the great vision underlying all authentic asceticism. The struggle is not an end in itself. Fasting is not the goal. Silence is not the goal. Vigilance is not the goal. The goal is communion. Participation. The purification of the heart so that the human being might become capable of receiving divine life. Theosis. To modern ears, Isaac’s words can sound severe. “To weep without pause day and night.” “To have a sad and furrowed countenance.” “To divorce himself from worldly rumors.” But Isaac is not describing psychological misery. He is describing a soul awakening from intoxication. The tears of the saints are not despair. They are the breaking open of the heart before Love itself. A man who begins to see reality truthfully cannot remain superficial. He begins to perceive how fragmented his heart has become through vanity, distraction, gluttony, lust, self-love, and the endless noise of the world. He sees how easily he lives outside himself. How little of his life is actually rooted in God. And so mourning begins. But this mourning is luminous. Because the very pain of repentance becomes the place where grace descends. Isaac’s monk is beautiful because he has stopped fleeing. He stands before God as he is. He no longer seeks refuge in reputation, entertainment, argument, possession, or pleasure. He allows the fire of divine love to reveal everything false within him. And gradually another life begins to emerge. Prayer becomes simpler. The heart becomes quieter. The need to be seen diminishes. Compassion deepens. Chastity ceases to be repression and becomes freedom to love rightly. Silence ceases to be emptiness and becomes communion. A human being slowly becomes whole. This is why Isaac insists upon examining each virtue specifically. Not because Christianity is legalistic bookkeeping, but because the heart is subtle in its self-deception. A man must learn where he is still divided. Where he still clings to the world. Where he still seeks himself rather than God. The ascetical life is ultimately an act of honesty. And this honesty is beautiful because it restores us to reality. The monk, then, is not simply a religious specialist. He becomes a sign of humanity healed. A witness to what man looks like when he begins truly to live from God rather than from the ego-self. His life becomes a proclamation that communion with God is not fantasy but the very purpose of human existence. And in truth, every baptized Christian carries this same calling within them. The mother caring for her child in exhaustion. The old man praying quietly in hiddenness. The laborer struggling to keep his heart free from bitterness. The priest battling vainglory. The solitary widow learning to trust God in silence. The young man resisting the fragmentation of lust and distraction. The Christian who quietly forgives an enemy instead of condemning him. All of them are standing within this same mystery. The outer forms differ. The heart of the calling does not. For the Gospel itself is monastic in its deepest ethos. It calls man beyond possession, beyond self-exaltation, beyond the tyranny of appetite, beyond worldly identity, into participation in divine life. Into Christ. And so Isaac’s words remain enduringly radiant because they reveal what human life becomes when grace is allowed to act deeply within it. Not merely disciplined. Not merely moral. But transfigured. A human being becoming by grace what Christ is by nature. And this alone is the true beauty that does not perish. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:02 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Homily 11 page 196 bottom of the page 00:16:05 Bob Čihák, AZ: Homily 11 page 196 bottom of the page 00:17:18 Gwen’s iPhone: We have had blizzards in May. 00:20:29 Bob Čihák, AZ: Homily 11 page 196 bottom of the page 00:20:45 una: Being in Love: A Practical Guide to Christian Prayer by William Johnston (available at Thriftbooks.com) 00:41:54 Daniel Allen: On the “plucky fighter”… I recently read a story about a young monk that went to his spiritual father and said that he couldn’t take it anymore he had to sin. So the older monk told him ok and he’d go with him. They went to a brothel and when they got there the older monk said to let him enter first. He went in and gave money to the woman and then said “a younger monk is about to come in, I am giving you this money but before anything else tell him that you both must make 50 prostrations before sinning.” Then he walked out. The young monk entered, she told him as she had been instructed to, and before the 50 prostrations were done the young monk fled the brothel and returned to the monastery with the elder and was never plagued by temptations like that again. The moral of the story was that it’s hard to proceed with any sort of sin after making prostrations, and so when tempted in any way make a physical (not just mental) effort to pray and temptations will flee. Very stark example. 00:44:34 Wayne: need to leave now... 00:45:07 Erick Chastain: Nektarios 00:57:32 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 197, paragraph 4, first full paragraph 01:01:54 Erick Chastain: What does he mean by orderly discipline of the senses? 01:02:49 susan: what was the title of the psychologist you just mentioned? 01:03:38 Daniel Allen: It is so odd that modernity which tells man he’s an accidental random outcome of the universe seems to have ensnared the minds of most, when Christianity says “you are made in the image of God.” I don’t know how it is that the obviously elevated view of man isn’t universally embraced. 01:03:46 Aaron: Orthodox Psychotherapy, by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos (Vlachos) 01:08:24 Erick Chastain: To weep without pause day and night as he asks, how can one do this? 01:08:37 David Swiderski, WI: On a silent retreat I found it really interesting a priest focused a talk on using the senses to our benefit. He had us find a stone that fit our hand from the lakeshore and use it when we prayed, To use incense when doing spiritual reading, obvious have icons and crosses around the house and carry a hold card of Mary close to your heart near to your wallet. It is amazing how these senses can bring us back to the contemplation or prayer faster or can be breadcrumb trails to bring us back to focus. A beautiful aspect of the apostolic traditions. We have had a number of evangelical, agnostic and Anglican converts and I find it funny they seem to be so drawn to holding the rosary, incense, icons etc. 01:11:53 Daniel Allen: Have a good night everyone. Thank you Father. I have to head out a few minutes early. 01:12:58 David Swiderski, WI: A funny comment from someone I was Godfather for on the Easter Vigil- When the demons come and someone is possessed no one calls Pastor Bob but looks for a priest. 01:15:19 Erick Chastain: Mean culpa I was catching up 01:15:25 Erick Chastain: Mea* 01:18:07 Jessica McHale: Many blessings, graces, and prayers for you all!!! 01:18:07 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you father, may God bless you , your mother and everyone in this group. 01:18:09 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you ☺️

There is something in us that wants to make the spiritual life clear, manageable, and measurable. We fast. We give alms. We pray. We examine ourselves. And quietly, almost imperceptibly, something begins to form beneath it all: A self that stands. A self that knows. A self that can look at another and say, “At least I am not like that.” The Evergetinos tears this apart without mercy. ⸻ A brother hears something about his neighbor and believes it. Of course he does. Because it confirms something already living in his heart. A readiness to see another as fallen, compromised, lesser. The Elder does not argue facts. He strikes at the root. If God Himself did not judge without seeing, why do you? This is not about caution. It is about a refusal to participate in the hidden violence of the fallen heart. Because judgment is never neutral. It is a movement away. ⸻ The Elder takes a wisp of straw. Then he points to a beam. This is not a moral exaggeration meant to humble us. It is a revelation of reality. The one who sees clearly does not see himself as slightly better than others. He sees himself as the one most in need of mercy. Not as an idea. Not as a pious posture. But as something that crushes comparison entirely. ⸻ We think the problem is that we judge too harshly. The Fathers say something far more disturbing. The problem is that we see ourselves as separate. As individuals standing before God, each with our own moral ledger. This is not Christianity. ⸻ We have become something new. Not improved individuals. Not morally refined versions of ourselves. But members of a Body. A single life. A single love. A single Christ. To judge another is not simply to misjudge. It is to tear the Body. It is to reject a member of Christ. It is to step outside love. ⸻ Abba Pambo says nothing for four days. Because the question itself is wrong. Am I saved by this? Am I saved by that? The mind wants metrics. God waits for the heart. And when he finally speaks, the answer is devastating in its simplicity: Guard your heart from anger toward your brother. Everything else is secondary. Fasting will not save you. Almsgiving will not save you. Even great labors will not save you. If your heart stands against your brother, you remain outside the life you seek. ⸻ We have reduced the faith to morality because it is easier. It allows us to measure. To compare. To justify ourselves. But love cannot be measured. And so we avoid it. ⸻ Abba Isaiah gives the image that exposes us completely. We are all in a waiting room. Each one wounded. Each one diseased in a different way. And what do we do? We turn to the one crying out in pain and ask, “Why are you like this?” It is madness. Because if I truly felt my own wound, I would not have the strength to judge another. Judgment is always a sign of distance from one’s own heart. ⸻ The Fathers go further. They say that when you judge, you take the sin of the other upon yourself. Not symbolically. But actually. Because you have stepped out of mercy and into the place of God. And having abandoned mercy, you are left exposed. ⸻ This is why the holy man weeps when he sees another fall. Not out of sentiment. But out of knowledge. He has fallen today. I will fall tomorrow. This is the only safe ground. Not confidence. Not vigilance in the moral sense. But a kind of trembling solidarity. ⸻ We do not know how to live this. Because we do not yet believe what we are. We are not individuals trying to become good. We are beings brought into Love. Beings in Love. And the only way to exist within that reality is to relate to every other person from within that same love. Not because they deserve it. Not because we have judged them worthy. But because there is no other way to remain in Christ. ⸻ To judge is to step out. To love is to remain. ⸻ And this is where the teaching becomes unbearable. Because it leaves us with no ground. No superiority. No identity. No hidden place to stand. Only this: You are wounded. Your brother is wounded. Christ alone is the physician. Stay in the waiting room. Attend to your own disease. And when you look at another, do so as one who shares the same life, the same fall, the same desperate need for mercy. ⸻ Anything less is not Christianity. It is a religion of the self. And it cannot save. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:06:23 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Volume III page 10 Section 4 00:15:01 John ‘Jack’: Good evening Father 00:18:09 Bob Čihák, AZ: Volume III page 10 Section 4 00:18:14 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Volume III page 10 Section 4 00:31:13 Julie: Sometimes I find myself thinking I’m discerning but  I’m really judging 00:31:35 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Sometimes I find mys..." with 👍 00:33:17 Bob Čihák, AZ: I once had expectations of others, which actually just reflected my own vainglory. 00:33:51 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "I once had expectati..." with 👍 00:37:25 forrest: The Greek has "become a perfect monk" in two places. 00:43:21 forrest: The Greek has "stand in virtue" 00:47:24 Bob Čihák, AZ: Replying to "The Greek has "stand..." Thank you, X2 + 00:48:44 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 12, C 00:52:03 Fr Martin, Arizona: 37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven...,, For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:37, 38 00:59:57 Fr Martin, Arizona: This is a question for you. Does this make sense?. It seems that the devil wants to calcify identities or reduce to categories, to distract us from God's ability or plan to transform and grow us from moment to moment, in theosis, in process. 01:04:14 Julie: Sometimes I think its a gift from God to bring some type of suffering in our lives to bring the focus back to ourselves 01:05:42 John ‘Jack’: I often feel like when I go to confession I should say “ hi Father, it’s me again… guess what? ”  I think evil wants us to feel SO ashamed we room delay in repentance at all costs 01:06:20 Maureen Cunningham: The prodigal son , thought he could go back at a lower level, Father said put a ring on his finger 01:08:42 Jessica McHale: Sounds weird but I love confession. So many graces from the Sacrament.So thankful for it and for priests. 01:09:12 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "Sounds weird but I love confession. So many graces from the Sacrament.So thankful for it and for priests." with ❤️ 01:14:08 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Sounds weird but I l..." with ❤️ 01:20:50 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you 01:21:24 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:22:06 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father!

The Fire That Remains Life in the Spirit After the Collapse of the Religious Self Week IV — The Heart That Bears the World Love, Intercession, and the Hidden Life in the Spirit ⸻ Opening Invocation O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of life, Come and dwell in us, Cleanse us from every impurity, And save our souls, O Good One. ⸻ I. The Return — But Nothing Is the Same At the beginning, the Spirit leads a man inward. Into exposure. Into poverty. Into silence. And it can seem as though the path is one of withdrawal. A leaving behind. A diminishing. But this is not the end. Because the same Spirit who leads a man into the desert of his own heart leads him back again. 1 Not outward in the old way. Not into activity rooted in self. But into a different kind of presence. The man returns to the world. But he does not return as he was. ⸻ II. The End of Living for Oneself Something has been broken. Quietly. Deeply. The constant reference to self. The need to interpret everything in relation to oneself. The subtle movement of: How does this affect me? What does this mean for me? Where do I stand? These begin to loosen. And with this a space opens. A freedom. Where others can begin to exist without being filtered through the self. This is the beginning of love. Not as an emotion. 2 Not as an effort. But as a way of being. “Love seeketh not her own.” (1 Corinthians 13:5) And for the first time this is not an ideal. It is something that begins to happen. ⸻ III. The Heart Enlarged by the Spirit The heart changes. Not outwardly. Not visibly. But in capacity. It begins to hold more. Not by effort. But by grace. You begin to feel: The weight of others. The pain of others. The confusion of others. Not in a way that overwhelms. But in a way that includes. The boundaries of the self soften. And the heart becomes... spacious. 3 “My heart is enlarged.” (Psalm 118/119) This is not sentimentality. It is not emotionalism. It is participation. A sharing in something greater than yourself. ⸻ IV. Intercession That Is Not Chosen Prayer changes again. Not in method. But in direction. Before, you struggled to pray. Then prayer began to live within you. Now something else happens: Others begin to appear in your prayer. Not because you decide to pray for them. But because they are given to you. A face. A name. A burden. And it remains. Quietly. Persistently. 4 You carry them. Sometimes without words. Sometimes without understanding. And this is intercession. Not as an activity. But as a participation in the love of Christ. “I could wish that myself were accursed for my brethren...” (Romans 9:3) A love that does not calculate. A love that bears. ⸻ V. The Hidden Nature of This Life And yet, outwardly, very little may change. You may still live in the same place. Do the same tasks. Speak with the same people. There is no need to appear different. No need to manifest anything. Because this life is hidden. Deep within. And this hiddenness is essential. Because the moment it becomes something seen something recognized something affirmed 5 the old self begins to stir. So the Spirit preserves this life in obscurity. In simplicity. In what appears to be ordinariness. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) And this hiddenness is protection. ⸻ VI. Love Without Self-Consciousness There is a further purification. Even love becomes purified. Because at first we can become aware of loving. We notice it. We reflect on it. We take some subtle satisfaction in it. But here, even this begins to fall away. Love becomes unselfconscious. It acts without referring back to itself. It gives without knowing that it gives. It responds without constructing meaning. 6 And this is freedom. Because the self is no longer at the center even of what is good. ⸻ VII. The Bearing of Suffering As the heart expands so does its capacity to suffer. Not in a destructive way. But in a participatory way. You begin to feel more. To see more. To carry more. And yet there is no resistance. Because this suffering is no longer meaningless. It is no longer isolated. It is held within something greater. Within the life of Christ. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) This is not something you choose. It is something you are drawn into. ⸻ 7 VIII. The Absence of Claims At this point something remarkable appears. Or rather something disappears. The need to claim anything. You no longer need to: Define your state. Explain your path. Assert your identity. Even inwardly. You do not need to know where you are. You do not need to measure. You do not need to conclude. You simply live. Before God. With others. And this simplicity is a great freedom. ⸻ IX. The Life That Becomes Prayer Everything begins to unify. Prayer is no longer separate from life. Life is no longer separate from prayer. 8 Silence speaks. Speech can remain rooted in silence. Action flows from stillness. There is less division. Less fragmentation. More wholeness. And this is not something you maintain. It is something given. Sustained quietly. By the Spirit. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) Not as an idea. But as a mystery slowly becoming real. ⸻ X. Closing Exhortation Do not seek this. Do not attempt to become this. Do not imitate what has been described. Remain faithful to what has been given to you. Remain in poverty. Remain in prayer. Remain in truth. And the Spirit will do His work. 9 Quietly. Hidden. Beyond your understanding. And what will emerge will not be something you have made. But a life. A heart. Capable of bearing others. Because it is held within Christ. ⸻ Closing Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Thou who didst bear the sins of the world in Thy Body, grant us the grace to bear one another in love. Enlarge our hearts. Purify our love. Deliver us from ourselves. And grant that, hidden in Thee, we may become a place where others are held in Thy mercy. For Thou art the Lover of mankind. Amen. 10

There is something in this word from Isaac the Syrian that unsettles us a little. Because it speaks of a beauty that is not crafted, not projected, not explained. A beauty that simply… shines. He does not describe a monk as someone who teaches, persuades, or convinces. He speaks of a life so permeated by grace that even the enemies of truth, simply by looking, are pierced. Not by argument. Not by brilliance. But by something that cannot be imitated. The beauty of a life in Christ. And this is where the word becomes very personal. Because what he is describing is not first a role. It is not even limited to the monastic state in an external sense. It is the inner life that has begun to be born within a person when grace is no longer treated as an idea, but as something living… something fragile… something holy. Something that must be protected. There is a tendency in us to think of holiness as something we build. Virtue as something we accumulate. A kind of visible coherence. But Isaac speaks of something else entirely. He speaks of a life that has become transparent. Where nothing blocks the light. Where the heart has been so simplified, so purified, so stripped of its constant grasping, that what is within begins to radiate without effort. And yet, the way he describes this is striking. Silence. Watchfulness. Non-possession. Guarding the senses. Cutting off contention. Brevity of speech. Forgetfulness of wrongs. At first glance, it can feel severe. Even excessive. But it is not severity. It is protection. Because something has been born. And it is easily lost. Grace does not impose itself. It does not force its way to the surface of our lives. It is given quietly. Almost secretly. It begins like a small flame in the heart. And everything Isaac names is not meant to produce that flame. It is meant to guard it. To keep it from being extinguished by the winds that constantly move through us—distraction, judgment, curiosity, the need to be seen, the need to speak, the need to defend ourselves, the subtle violence of opinion, the constant turning outward. This is why he speaks of watchfulness over the eyes. Because what we allow in, shapes what remains within. This is why he speaks of brevity in speech. Because words, when unguarded, scatter the heart. This is why he speaks of cutting off contention. Because even when we are right, we can lose what is infinitely more precious than being right. There is something in us that resists this. It feels like diminishment. Like becoming smaller. Less engaged. Less visible. Less… alive. But the opposite is true. What he describes is the birth of a life that is no longer dependent on being seen, affirmed, or justified. A life that has begun to live from another source. And this is the mystery. The more this life is hidden, the more it becomes luminous. The more it is protected, the more it becomes a refuge. The more it is guarded in silence, the more it begins to speak—without words—to the world. This is why he can say that the monk becomes a place others run to. Not because he is accessible. But because he is real. Because there is something in him that has not been compromised. Something that has not been traded away. Something that has been kept. And this is where the word becomes a question. Very quietly. Very honestly. What in your life have you not protected? What has been given to you… that you have allowed to be scattered? What has been born in moments of prayer, of stillness, of suffering, of grace… that was real… that was alive… and yet was lost because it was not guarded? Not out of malice. But out of forgetfulness. The Fathers are not calling us to severity. They are calling us to reverence. Toward what God Himself has begun within us. Because the tragedy is not that we are weak. The tragedy is that we do not recognize what has been given. And so we treat lightly what is holy. The monk, in Isaac’s vision, is simply the one who refuses to do that. Who begins—slowly, imperfectly—to live as though what has been planted in the heart is more precious than anything else. More precious than being understood. More precious than being right. More precious than being known. And in doing so, something begins to happen. The life of Christ is no longer something he believes in. It becomes something that can be seen. Not dramatically. Not visibly in the way the world measures things. But quietly. Like light through a window. And others… even without knowing why… begin to feel it. This is the beauty Isaac speaks of. Not an aesthetic. Not a perfection. But a life so carefully guarded, so gently protected, that it remains alive. And because it remains alive… it becomes light. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:11:10 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Homily 11 page 196 00:35:17 Dan: It’s interesting, the thought of silence and interior monasticism. I took my oldest son to the NFL draft, and while walking downtown there were some street preachers with a microphone. Nobody paid any attention, nobody even made fun of them. Literally nobody cared. Real life examples seem to prove that striving to allow one’s life to be transformed by grace is the only witness the world will even take notice of - especially in a world where the currency of words has been hyperinflated and devalued by social media, the 24/7 news cycle, and so on. 00:36:09 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "It’s interesting, th..." with 👍 00:41:31 John ‘Jack’: I don’t entirely know why, but the verse;   “I must become less so that he can become more “ 00:42:18 Julie: Talking about silence Yesterday I watch the most beautiful movie  “ Into the silence” by Phillip Gronings 2005 00:46:19 Anna: What's the movie? 00:46:30 Anna: Thanks 00:49:19 Tracey Fredman: "Into Great Silence" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJMB7rfWkFA 01:03:06 David Swiderski, WI: I really struggle with these kinds of passages sometimes. I remember an Ethiopian and then a Coptic/Egyptian taxi driver who I had hr long+ conversations with. When I told them I was Catholic they mentioned how much better they thought Catholics were when they came with so many social services, food kitchens, volunteering without asking anyone to convert while their churches in their perspective were just social / ethnic clubs who did little or nothing for anyone else. They were critical of their own churches and seemed to feel the fruits what they experienced as immigrants drew them more to the Latin rite. There are two commandments- Love the Lord or our God with all your heart (part 1) and love your neighbor as yourself. The most centered I felt in faith was with a group who volunteered in the inner city and helping kids mainly Hispanics and families with no father. 1hr of sports , 1 hr of helping them with home work and 15 minutes of teaching a virtue. What is the right balance? 01:05:39 David Swiderski, WI: One day I want to run to the forest live by a lake and the other day I think I should be volunterring with a host of groups. 01:11:37 David Swiderski, WI: A parish I go to once in a while has a priest from Hindu family converted by Mother Teresa and now is a very good priest here in Wisconsin. Amazing 01:12:22 Anna: Where in WI? I'm from WI originally 01:13:07 David Swiderski, WI: Replying to "Where in WI? I'm fro..." I live in New Berlin but from Ashland orignaally 01:13:33 Anna: Reacted to I live in New Berlin... with "❤️" 01:19:58 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:19:59 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you father may God bless you, your mother and this groups 01:20:00 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:11 Jessica McHale: Hallelujah! Many prayers! 01:20:14 Aaron: thank you 01:20:23 Noha: Thanks

There are sins that shock us. And there are sins we commit while feeling righteous. The Fathers place condemnation among the most dangerous of all, because it disguises itself as discernment, zeal, clarity, moral seriousness, concern for truth, or defense of virtue. It allows the soul to remain dark while imagining itself full of light. The monk in Tyre publicly takes the prostitute Porphyria by the hand to save her soul. He does not protect his image. He does not manage appearances. He does not consult public opinion. He risks slander to rescue a human being. The city immediately does what cities always do. It interprets evil. It invents details. It delights in scandal. It spreads rumor as if rumor were truth. This is the ancient world. It is also the modern one. People love condemnation because it relieves them of repentance. If another is filthy, then I feel cleaner. If another is hypocritical, then I need not examine my own hypocrisy. If another has fallen, then I may remain standing in my own imagination. The Evergetinos says something brutal and true: corrupt people readily believe corrupt things because they assume others are like themselves. The suspicious man is often revealing himself more than exposing anyone else. The monk bears this slander silently. He saves the woman, has her tonsured as a nun, entrusts her to the monastic life, and accepts years of false judgment. Only at death does God vindicate him through the miracle of the burning coals. Why then? Because God often waits until the end to expose the blindness of men. How many people have we judged who were secretly dear to God? How many motives have we misread? How many stories have we narrated from fragments and vanity? Abba Isaiah brings the matter into ordinary life. You need something from your brother. Instead of asking simply, you brood. You resent that he did not anticipate your need. You accuse him silently. The Elder says plainly: you are the one at fault. This is devastating because so much of our inner life is built on unspoken expectations. We punish others for failing standards we never voiced. Then we call ourselves wounded. St. Maximos the Confessor goes deeper still. Whoever busies himself with the sins of others has not yet begun repentance. Not advanced repentance. Not deep repentance. Begun. This means many religious people who speak constantly of the failures of the Church, society, clergy, family, culture, and enemies may not yet have entered the first room of spiritual life. They know outrage. They know commentary. They know denunciation. But they do not know repentance. The Gerontikon exposes another horror. A brother obsessed with impurity suspects two monks of sin. The Elder says the passion is in him. This is ascetic psychology of the highest order. What we compulsively detect in others often reveals what is active in ourselves. The lustful see lust everywhere. The proud detect pride everywhere. The deceitful suspect hidden motives everywhere. The bitter interpret everything through offense. They are reading their own soul onto the world. Abba Poimen adds one of the fiercest counsels in the tradition. Even if you think you touched the evidence with your own hands, do not be quick to condemn. The brother who thought he discovered fornication found only two bundles of wheat. This is not comic relief. It is revelation. You do not see clearly. You think you do. That is the danger. The section on St. John the Merciful reveals another blindness. We know the public sin. We do not know the secret repentance. The one we condemn today may already be weeping before God tonight. The one whose fall we discuss may already be rising while we remain unchanged. And here is the sharpest word of all from Abba John the Short: there is no greater virtue than not disparaging others. Why would he say this? Because the man who stops condemning is finally free to begin working on himself. The modern world feeds on accusation. Social media monetizes it. News cycles depend on it. Religious factions organize around it. Whole identities are formed through shared contempt. The Fathers would call this mass demonic pedagogy. You become what you repeatedly contemplate. If you feed daily on the faults of others, you slowly become a soul incapable of compunction. So what is the path? Speak less. Assume less. Ask plainly. Interpret slowly. Pray for the one you are tempted to judge. Return attention to your own sins. Let hidden things remain hidden unless duty truly requires action. And if genuine wrongdoing must be addressed, do so with sobriety, evidence, tears, and fear for your own soul. Here is the fierce conclusion: The soul that needs others to be guilty in order to feel innocent has not yet met God. Because the one who has stood honestly before God loses appetite for condemnation. He has too much to repent of. The Fathers do not ask you to become naive. They ask you to become clean. And cleanliness begins when you stop making a home for suspicion. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:57 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 5 Volume III - section 3 00:22:10 vanessa s (vanessa s): My daughter was supposed to go to Israel this summer but Air Canada cancelled all flights due to security issues. 00:22:20 vanessa s (vanessa s): :( 00:27:45 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 5 Volume III - section 3 00:35:22 Julie: Our Imagination can trick us when we start judging …our senses can be hijacked by our Assumptions 00:35:38 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Our Imagination can ..." with 👍 00:43:19 Forrest: This is such a common temptation in marriages, even good healthy marriages! 00:54:33 Julie: Someone might look sinful to hide their virtue from the world and to test whether others have love or judgment in their hearts.♥️ 00:57:52 Lee Graham: We believe what we want to believe 01:11:27 Julie: We might be condemning someone who has already been forgiven by God 01:19:30 Forrest: "Of whom I am the first" 01:20:33 Danny Moulton: Jesus also said. “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.“ (John 7:24).  Is it possible that the Desert Fathers' teaching of complete avoidance of judging others is overshooting the balanced teachings of Christ? 01:22:51 Julie: We have to be careful… When someone believes themselves to be good they begin to see their brother as “evil” 01:23:01 Nypaver Clan: SAMUEL 16:7 01:36:22 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you Father! 01:36:22 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:36:24 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you, bless you & Love you, Father. 01:36:33 Jessica McHale: Many prayers! 01:36:35 Danny Moulton: THank you!

The Fire That Remains Life in the Spirit After the Collapse of the Religious Self Week III — When Prayer Begins to Live Itself The Emergence of the Heart in the Life of the Spirit ⸻ Opening Invocation O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of life, Come and dwell in us, Cleanse us from every impurity, And save our souls, O Good One. ⸻ I. After Endurance — Something Begins That You Did Not Initiate There comes a point after long endurance after remaining without clarity after refusing to rebuild when something begins. Not suddenly. Not dramatically. But unmistakably. And the first thing you realize is this: It is not coming from you. You did not produce it. 1 You did not initiate it. You cannot sustain it. It appears. Quietly. Like water beneath the surface beginning to move. This is the beginning of prayer that is no longer merely your effort. But something alive. ⸻ II. The Shift From Doing to Being Drawn Up until now, prayer has largely been something you have done. Even when it was poor. Even when it was dry. Even when it was stripped of feeling. You remained. You turned. You endured. But now something shifts. You begin to sense that prayer is no longer something you initiate. You are being drawn into it. There is a movement within. Gentle. Persistent. Not forcing. Not demanding. 2 But calling. And if you are attentive you will notice: You are not holding prayer. Prayer is beginning to hold you. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3) Even the simplest turning of the heart is not your own. It is given. ⸻ III. The Warming of the Heart There may come a warmth. But it is not like the warmth you knew before. It is not emotional. It is not something you generate. It is subtle. Steady. Quiet. A sense of life within the heart. A softening. A gathering. Where before the heart was scattered pulled in many directions restless 3 now it begins to collect. To come together. To become one. “Humility collects the soul.” — St. Isaac the Syrian And with this gathering comes a new kind of attention. Not forced. Not strained. But natural. As though the heart has found its place. ⸻ IV. The Prayer That Continues Beneath the Surface You begin to notice something else. Prayer does not end when you stop speaking. It continues. Beneath thought. Beneath activity. Beneath distraction. There is a quiet remembrance. A presence. A turning toward God that does not require constant effort. And this can be confusing at first. 4 Because you are used to measuring prayer by what you do. By words. By attention. By duration. But now prayer is no longer confined to those moments. It begins to permeate. To underlie. To become something like breath. “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Not as a command to strive. But as a description of something that begins to happen. ⸻ V. The Guarding of the Heart But this is fragile. Very fragile. Because the old patterns are not gone. The mind still wanders. The ego still seeks to reassert itself. The world still presses in. And so a new kind of vigilance is needed. Not harsh. Not anxious. 5 But attentive. You begin to guard the heart not out of fear but out of love. You begin to notice: What disturbs this quiet? What scatters the heart again? What pulls attention outward in a way that dissipates this life? And slowly without rigidity you begin to choose differently. Not because you must. But because you do not want to lose this. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) This is the beginning of watchfulness. ⸻ VI. The Subtle Temptation to Possess Grace And here again a danger arises. Very subtle. You begin to recognize what is happening. You begin to value it. You begin to desire its continuation. And without realizing it you begin to try to preserve it. 6 To hold onto it. To repeat it. To secure it. And in doing so you begin to lose it. Because grace cannot be possessed. It can only be received. And received again. And again. The moment you try to make it yours it withdraws. Not as punishment. But because its nature is gift. ⸻ VII. The Deepening of Humility If you remain faithful here something deepens. Not dramatically. But steadily. A humility that is no longer forced. No longer constructed. No longer spoken about. 7 It simply is. You begin to know not as an idea but as a reality: That everything is given. That you cannot produce even the smallest movement toward God. That without Him you return immediately to dispersion. And this does not lead to despair. It leads to gratitude. And a kind of quiet reverence. “Keep thy mind in hell and despair not.” — St. Silouan the Athonite You see your poverty. And yet you are not crushed by it. Because something else is present. ⸻ VIII. The Emergence of the Heart as Person There is a further shift. Difficult to describe. But unmistakable. You begin to exist not as a collection of thoughts or reactions or roles but as a presence. 8 A person. Not defined by activity. Not defined by identity. But simply present before God. And this presence begins to extend. Into your interactions. Into your speech. Into your silence. You become less reactive. Less driven. More able to be with others without needing to assert yourself. This is not something you achieve. It is something that emerges. As the heart becomes unified. ⸻ IX. The Quiet Joy That Has No Object And there may come a joy. But it is unlike the joys you have known. It is not tied to circumstances. Not dependent on outcomes. Not even dependent on consolation. It is quiet. 9 Almost hidden. A sense of rightness. Of being where you are meant to be. Even if outwardly nothing has changed. Even if difficulties remain. Even if suffering continues. This joy does not remove suffering. It coexists with it. And transforms it from within. ⸻ X. Closing Exhortation Do not grasp at this. Do not analyze it. Do not try to secure it. Remain as you have been taught: Poor. Attentive. Open. Receive what is given. Let it come. Let it go. Let it return. Do not make it into something. 10 Do not make it into yourself. Because what is being formed here is not an experience. It is a heart. Alive in the Spirit. ⸻ Closing Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Thou who hast kindled the fire of Thy Spirit in our hearts, grant that we may not extinguish it through our grasping and our fear. Teach us to receive what Thou givest. To remain where Thou placest us. And to become what Thou art forming within us. That our hearts may live in Thee and Thou in us. Amen. 11

Many will read this homily of St. Isaac the Syrian and hear only threat. They will imagine that he is merely moralizing, merely warning, merely trying to frighten men into behaving. They will hear law where he is speaking mystery. They will hear rules where he is unveiling consecration. Isaac is not obsessed with sin as a legal violation. He is shattered by something far deeper: that those who have been joined to Christ live as though they still belong to the world. He is not saying merely, “Do not break commandments.” He is saying: Do not profane what has become holy. Through the Incarnation, the Son of God took flesh. He entered the very substance of our humanity. He did not save us from afar. He entered our blood, our weakness, our mortality, our death. He carried human nature into the tomb and raised it radiant. What was estranged has been united. What was corruptible has been touched by immortality. And through Baptism of the Lord and our own baptism into Him, through the Eucharistic Body and Blood, through the seal and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are not merely instructed people. We are consecrated people. Our eyes are no longer simply eyes. Our hands are no longer simply hands. Our mouths are no longer simply mouths. Our bodies are no longer private possessions. Our life is no longer our own. We have become members of Christ. This is why Isaac speaks with fire. When he recounts Noah’s generation, Sodom, Samson, David, Eli, Baltasar, he is not delighting in punishment narratives. He is showing that sin is never trivial because man is never trivial. To misuse the body is to misuse a mystery. To turn desire against holiness is to drag what was made for communion into fragmentation. To employ consecrated members for impurity, vanity, greed, cruelty, or spiritual indifference is to treat the vessels of the sanctuary as drinking cups at a banquet of death. Baltasar drank from holy vessels and was struck down. Isaac says: look closer. We do this every day when we take what belongs to God and hand it back to the passions. You mouth received the Eucharist. Then you use it for bitterness. Your eyes were anointed for light. Then you train them upon lust and envy. Your mind was illumined for prayer. Then you sell it to distraction. Your heart was made for divine love. Then you offer it to vanity. Your body became a temple. Then you rent rooms to idols. And still we say lightly, “I can repent later.” This is what Isaac tears apart. He is not denying repentance. He is defending it from abuse. He is saying: do not turn mercy into permission. Do not make the patience of God an accomplice to your self-destruction. Do not use the medicine as a reason to keep drinking poison. Modern Christians often reduce everything to psychology or ethics. If we fail, we think only in terms of mistakes, coping, weakness, habits. Isaac sees more deeply. He sees sacrilege and glory side by side. He sees saints living beneath their dignity. He sees temples choosing mud. He sees heirs of the Kingdom amusing themselves with chains. This is why holy fear matters. Not servile terror. Not neurotic dread. But trembling before what grace has made possible. Fear that I might forget who Christ has made me. Fear that I might treat divine intimacy casually. Fear that I might become numb while carrying heaven within me. The Fathers speak fear because love is real. Only what is precious can be desecrated. And they speak repentance because desecration is not the final word. David wept. Peter was restored. Samson, blinded and broken, cried out again. Mercy remains greater than sin. But mercy is not cheap because blood purchased it. The open door of repentance is not there so we may stroll in and out of darkness at will. It is there so that when we have fallen, we may return shattered and be remade. Isaac calls us back to baptismal consciousness. Remember what happened to you. Remember what entered you. Remember whose Body you receive. Remember whose Spirit dwells in you. Remember that your members have been signed for another Kingdom. You are not common. That is the terror and the joy of Christianity. The Christian life is not mainly avoiding bad behavior. It is guarding the flame placed in earthen vessels. It is reverencing what God has claimed. It is allowing every faculty to become liturgy. Eyes that pray. Hands that bless. Speech that heals. Mind that remembers God. Heart that burns cleanly. Body that becomes offering. Isaac thunders because he sees how magnificent you are in Christ, and how cheaply you are tempted to live. Do not use mercy to remain unchanged. Do not use repentance to excuse betrayal. Do not drag consecrated things back into slavery. You have passed through death and resurrection. You have eaten fire. You carry the Spirit. Live like one who has touched the Holy. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:11:55 Andrew Adams: yes 00:15:19 Adam Paige: An Anglican could speak to a priest in the confessional, but they wouldn’t receive absolution 00:17:58 Catherine Opie: I am currently in the UK and its 12.30am! 00:46:44 Wayne: Sorry, need to leave now... 00:56:53 Erick Chastain: In light of St. Isaac's discussion of the consecration of our members and the Eucharist: St. Cyril of Jerusalem (cat. 22, n. 3; M. 33, 1099): “The body and . . . blood are given to you, so that, when you have received the body and blood of Christ, you may be made concorporeal and consanguineous with him. For thus we also become Christ-bearers, his body and blood being distributed through our members. Thus, according to blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.” 01:01:39 Erick Chastain: scotistic dogmatic theology manual excerpt 01:01:49 Jessica McHale: I have a question about the Eucharist. It's a little off topic, but I am curious about your thoughts: I heard a Jesuit priest say once that "it's silly for someone to run into a burning church just to save the Eucharist in the tabernacle because Jesus already died once for us and He can't be hurt again." I don't know what to make of that. We do protect the Euchatist as best we can from desecration, in any way, but is it true that He can't be "hurt again" so we wouldn't need to "woory" so much abotu it 01:05:52 Julie: This was how different the early martyrs were to now 01:05:56 iPhone: Should we attend Church for Mass when is not revrence. 01:06:24 Ben: Anna: If you find yourself on the lazy/ distracted end of burnout, what does returning to zeal look like? Or is zeal the wrong word? 01:06:52 Gwen’s iPhone: I remember Fr. Groeschel  said when he was a little boy when he first saw inside the Tabernacle he expected tiny furniture.  Just a thought (off topic ) 01:07:13 Ben: 12 01:07:27 John Burmeister: Reacted to "12" with 👍 01:07:56 Kathryn Rose: Zeal maybe isn't the ideal state to seek out or try to maintain. It seems like Hesychia is what we aim for 01:13:21 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "12" with ❤️ 01:13:26 Ben: Anna: In the stillness, when one sees one's unworthiness before God.  How does one remain? 01:18:25 David Swiderski, WI: This is the day the Lord has made (Psalm 118) now comes the treasure hunt for us to find him in the day.  One of my 3rd grade students told me this once after seeing the psalm in a chapel we had at the school  and I think of it  and him often 01:20:24 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You Blessings 01:21:17 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:21:19 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:21:29 Janine: Thank you Father! 01:21:33 Aaron: thank you father! 01:21:35 Nicola Loynes: Thank you Father 01:21:36 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you your Mother and this group 01:21:39 Jessica McHale: So much gratitude for these groups/retreats -- so helpful!!!! 01:21:53 Catherine Opie: God bless. Many thanks

The shallow reader sees only a warning against suspicion. The deeper reader trembles, because this account unveils something far more demanding: the measure of a life so united to God that it no longer moves by ordinary instinct. Most men protect reputation. Most men avoid scandal. Most men keep a safe distance from misery so that their conscience remains clean and their name untarnished. St. Vitalios of Alexandria did none of this. He entered the place others cursed. He walked into darkness not to taste it, but to burn within it like hidden fire. He labored by day, ate almost nothing, gave his wages away, and spent whole nights standing in prayer for women whom society used, despised, and discarded. While others preached virtue from a distance, he purchased for them one night of freedom and filled that purchased silence with psalms, tears, prostrations, and intercession. This is not recklessness. It is sanctity. The prudent man says: “Protect yourself.” The holy man says: “Lose yourself.” The calculating man asks: “What will people think?” The saint asks: “Who will suffer if I do nothing?” The world calls such love foolish because it cannot recognize anything that does not orbit self-preservation. What made this possible? Not mere compassion. Not personality. Not activism. Not moral zeal. It was hypostatic life: the human person so opened to God that divine love begins to move through human faculties. The man remains man, yet his heart becomes a place where another will acts, another mercy breathes, another courage rises. He does not merely imitate Christ. Christ lives in him. So he can go where others cannot go. He can endure slander without defense. He can accept blows without retaliation. He can bear misunderstanding without explaining himself. He can love those who insult him. He can save those whom others have already condemned. This is why the story wounds us. We do not simply condemn others. We also love within limits. We forgive within limits. We serve within limits. We give when it costs little. We remain charitable so long as our image stays intact. We call this balance, prudence, maturity. Often it is fear wearing respectable clothing. St. Vitalios of Alexandria accepted the loss of reputation as the price of hidden obedience. He let the city think him filthy while heaven knew him radiant. Few can bear this martyrdom. Many would rather be praised for lesser virtues than despised for greater love. And see the fruit. Women were restored. The shameless learned chastity. The fallen found repentance. The violent man became a monk. The condemning city learned fear. The Patriarch gave thanks. One hidden man transformed a multitude. We live in an age obsessed with visibility, explanation, branding, image, and public vindication. We cannot bear to be misunderstood for an afternoon. Yet the saints often accepted misunderstanding for years. Why? Because once the heart belongs wholly to God, reputation becomes dust. The final words of the Elder are written not in ink, but on the ground. Dust speaking to dust: Judge nothing before the time. Not because evil is unreal. Not because discernment is unnecessary. But because what you see is almost never the whole story. The woman you dismiss may be one night from repentance. The man you mock may be a saint in disguise. The soul you slander may be carrying a cross you cannot imagine. And the one you most confidently condemn may be the vessel through whom God is saving many. If you would know whether Christ lives in you, ask not how pious you appear. Ask this: Can you love where there is no reward? Can you serve where you will be misjudged? Can you descend where others recoil? Can you lose your good name for another’s salvation? Can you remain silent while God alone knows? There begins the path of the saints. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:03:39 Janine: Yes 00:04:07 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Evergetinos Volume III page 2 section 2 00:05:06 Janine: Father ..do you think the Holy Spirit is dismantling us throughout our whole life? Or is it a later stage? 00:06:06 Janine: Yes..that makes sense! 00:11:20 Sam: Greetings 🙏 from Australia Father. 00:14:06 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Evergetinos Volume III page 2 section 2 00:15:15 Sam: Quick question Fr. How can we bring love for the Desert Fathers  in our church divided by modernism and other ideologies including sedevacantism 00:16:52 Sam: I often find people including priests aren't interested when I suggest books such as ladder of divine ascent. 00:17:01 Sam: Gday 00:18:59 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Evergetinos Volume III page 2 section 2 00:31:25 Maureen Cunningham: Maybe he saw them as his daughters 00:46:14 Anthony: Should you point out that it's not a great idea for a young person to do this 00:54:54 Kate: I understand what you are saying about being courageous.  What about not wanting to put ourselves in the path of temptation?  Was the monk confident that he would not fall into temptation?  Can we ever be sure that we would not succumb? 00:54:56 Maureen Cunningham: Mother Theresa 00:55:59 Danny Moulton: Years ago a co-worker once invited me to a Bible study and began his invitation with the words, "I don't know if you/re a Christian or not, but if you are ..."  It was one of the most convicting moments of my life. 00:56:13 Joan Chakonas: What’s great about the writing and documentation of these actions of these monks is that it is such a gift of God to set forth the benefits of taking action in spite of the obvious risk. 00:59:49 Janine: Reacted to "What’s great about t…" with 🩷 01:01:08 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "What’s great about the writing and documentation of these actions of these monks is that it is such a gift of God to set forth the benefits of taking action in spite of the obvious risk." with 🩷 01:02:36 Forrest: That humble monk securely cloaked the women with something greater than Constantine's mantle. 01:07:27 John ‘Jack’: I purchased a new business vehicle recently, it was non descriptive, plain white, I thought for a while about leaving it that way after 35 yrs in business I’m really not that concerned about the advertising aspect, but I had to admit I drove with a bit less professionalism with the blank van  than I otherwise would have.  I’ve since lettered it, for my sanctities sake . 01:08:30 Forrest: Reacted to "I purchased a new bu..." with ❤️ 01:17:51 Sam: Many saints have gone to the gates of hell to save souls. The common denominator is the extent of their holiness, formation and prudence plus virtues 01:20:43 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you Blessing 01:21:17 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:21:19 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:21:22 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you and love you, Father. 01:21:27 Julie: God bless

The Fire That Remains Life in the Spirit After the Collapse of the Religious Self Week II — Remaining in the Fire Without Rebuilding the Self The Spirit as the One Who Teaches Us to Endure ⸻ Opening Invocation O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of life, Come and dwell in us, Cleanse us from every impurity, And save our souls, O Good One. ⸻ I. After the Collapse — The More Dangerous Work Begins Last week we spoke of the fire. Of illumination. Of exposure. Of the collapse of the false life. But there is something more dangerous than never entering this fire. It is entering it and then leaving too soon. Because once a man has begun to see once the structures begin to loosen once the illusions begin to fall there arises an almost irresistible need: 1 To stabilize. To regain footing. To become something again. Even if that “something” is humbler. Even if it is quieter. Even if it uses the language of repentance. The self does not disappear easily. It adapts. It reforms. It survives even inside what appears to be its own death. And so the second work of the Spirit is not simply to expose. It is to keep a man in the place where exposure continues. ⸻ II. The Subtle Rebuilding of the Religious Self You will begin to notice this almost immediately. A thought arises: “I understand now.” “I see more clearly.” “I am different than I was.” And these thoughts feel true. They feel justified. They feel like the fruit of grace. 2 But hidden within them is the beginning of reconstruction. Because the ego does not need grand illusions. It can build itself out of something very small. Even the awareness of one’s own brokenness. Even the language of humility. You begin to identify yourself as: The one who sees The one who has suffered The one who is being purified The one who understands the deeper life And without realizing it you have become something again. Subtler. More refined. But still centered in yourself. “Do not trust in your own righteousness.” — cf. Luke 18:9 The Pharisee was not condemned for sin. He was condemned because he became something in his own eyes. And this is the danger now. ⸻ III. The Spirit Leads Into a Place With No Ground The Spirit does something that feels unbearable. 3 He removes not only falsehood but also the ground beneath your feet. You cannot rely on what you once knew. You cannot return to previous ways of praying. You cannot even take comfort in what seems like progress. Everything becomes unstable. And this is not confusion. It is purification. Because as long as a man has ground he stands on himself. Even if that ground is spiritual. Even if it is noble. Even if it is built on real experiences. The Spirit removes this. So that a man learns something new: To stand without standing. To remain without possessing. To live without securing himself. ⸻ IV. The Poverty of Not Knowing There is a kind of darkness here. 4 Not the darkness of sin. But the darkness of not knowing. You no longer know: Where you are. What is happening. Who you are becoming. You cannot interpret your life. You cannot explain your interior state. And the mind resists this violently. Because the mind wants clarity. It wants to define. It wants to grasp. But the Spirit teaches a man to let go of knowing. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 45/46) Not: Understand and know. Explain and know. Analyze and know. Be still. And this stillness feels like death to the mind. Because the mind loses its authority. ⸻ 5 V. The Prayer That Remains When Everything Else Falls At this stage, prayer changes. It becomes poorer. Simpler. More fragile. You may find that you cannot pray as before. Words feel empty. Thoughts feel forced. Even spiritual reading feels distant. And what remains? Often only this: A cry. Or even less than a cry. A turning. A presence. The Jesus Prayer begins to take on a different character. Not as something you do. But as something you cling to when everything else has fallen away. “Prayer is the refuge of help... a haven that rescues from the tempest.” — St. Isaac the Syrian Not a method. Not a discipline. But a lifeline. 6 And even this may feel dry. And still you remain. ⸻ VI. The Temptation to Interpret the Process One of the greatest dangers here is the need to interpret what is happening. To name it. To define it. To place it within a framework. You begin to say: “This is purification.” “This is the dark night.” “This is growth.” And while these things may not be false they become a way of regaining control. Because once something is named it is contained. And the Spirit resists this containment. He leads a man into something that cannot be mastered. Cannot be reduced. Cannot be explained. Because the goal is not understanding. It is transformation. 7 And transformation often happens in a way that the mind cannot follow. ⸻ VII. The Hidden Work of Endurance What, then, is required? Very little. And everything. Not effort in the way we understand it. But endurance. To remain in prayer even when it feels empty. To remain turned toward God even when nothing is felt. To remain in truth even when it exposes you again and again. This is not passive. It is a quiet, fierce consent. A willingness to be worked upon. A refusal to flee. “In your patience possess your souls.” (Luke 21:19) The fathers speak of this as long-suffering. But we often misunderstand this. It is not merely enduring hardship. It is enduring the work of God within us. 8 ⸻ VIII. The Fear of Losing Everything At some point, a deeper fear emerges. Not just the fear of being seen. But the fear of losing everything. Your sense of self. Your sense of direction. Even your sense of God. Because God Himself may seem hidden. Silent. Distant. And this is where many turn back. Not into sin. But into something safer. Something more defined. Something more manageable. But the Spirit leads further. Into a place where even God is not grasped. But only trusted. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) Not: Lord, I understand. Lord, I feel. Lord, I possess. 9 But: To whom shall we go? There is nowhere else. So we remain. ⸻ IX. The Beginning of True Freedom And slowly, something begins to change. Not dramatically. Not in a way that can be grasped. But subtly. The need to define begins to loosen. The need to possess begins to fade. The need to be something begins to weaken. And a different kind of freedom appears. Not the freedom to act. But the freedom not to construct yourself. A quietness. A simplicity. A lightness. You begin to exist without constantly referring back to yourself. And this is the beginning of life in the Spirit. 10 Not power. Not experience. But freedom from the tyranny of self. ⸻ X. Closing Exhortation Do not flee this place. Do not rush to understand. Do not rebuild what is being taken from you. Remain. Even when you do not know how to remain. Even when prayer feels empty. Even when God feels distant. Remain. Because the Spirit is not absent. He is working more deeply than you can perceive. And what He is forming in you cannot be formed in any other way. ⸻ 11 Closing Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Thou who didst endure the silence of the Cross, grant us the grace to endure the silence within our own hearts. Teach us to remain when all else falls away. Deliver us from the need to grasp, to define, to become something. And grant that, in losing ourselves, we may find our life hidden in Thee. Amen. 12

There is a sobriety in the Fathers that cuts deeper than anything sentimental, yet within that severity there burns a tenderness that refuses to let the soul perish in despair. St Isaac does not flatter us. He does not pretend that the path of virtue is smooth or that the life in Christ removes conflict. He names things as they are. Falls, compulsions, resistance, long warfare. The soul that sets itself toward God will know all of these, and not once but continually. There is no illusion here of steady ascent without rupture. The one who seeks purity will also know fragmentation. But Isaac draws a line that must never be crossed. There are falls, and then there is the death of the soul. The fall is not the end. It is not even the greatest danger. The true catastrophe is to forget the love of the Father and to abandon the struggle. It is not sin that destroys us in the end, but the turning away from God in despair, the quiet consent that says there is no use in rising again. The Fathers are relentless on this point. Even if a man falls into manifold transgressions, even if each day ends in defeat, still he must not cease. He must rise again, and not reluctantly but with determination, laying once more the foundation of what has been ruined. Not once, not occasionally, but each day. This is where the tenderness of Isaac appears, though it is clothed in the language of battle. He does not demand perfection. He demands endurance. He does not say, do not fall. He says, do not remain fallen. The image he gives is almost unbearable in its honesty. A ship broken, cargo lost, everything swallowed by the deep. And yet he tells us to return again to the sea, to acquire new goods, even to borrow if necessary, and to set out once more in hope. This is not optimism. It is something far more costly. It is trust in the mercy of God that persists even when experience seems to contradict it. Such a man Isaac calls wise. Not the one who has preserved himself from all wounds, but the one who has not cut off his hope. This is the wisdom granted by God. The Admonition of Abba Martinian intensifies this vision. The struggle will be long. The warfare will be fierce. The passions, the world, the demons will not relent. And even the one who is earnest, who desires purity, will stumble. But the command remains unyielding. Do not grow faint-hearted. Do not turn back. Do not surrender your soul to defeat even in the very moment of defeat. There is something profoundly human in this. The Fathers know the shame of falling, the exhaustion of repeated failure, the temptation to withdraw from the battle. They know the voice that says it is useless to continue. And precisely there they speak with the authority of those who have endured. Continue. Even if wounded. Even if humiliated. Even if the fall is visible to all. Continue. For what is truly terrible is not that a man has sinned, but that he has made peace with sin. Not that he has been struck down, but that he has extended his hand to the enemy and accepted defeat as final. In doing so he loses not only the struggle but the very boldness before God, the freedom of prayer, the communion of the righteous. And yet even here the door is not closed unless the soul itself closes it. The entire exhortation rests on this unspoken but ever-present truth. The Father has not withdrawn His love. The light has not ceased to shine. Even in darkness, the Lord remains a light unto us. So the Christian life is not revealed as a steady triumph, but as a continual rising. Not a life without wounds, but a life that refuses to let wounds become a grave. The saints are not those who never fell, but those who would not consent to remain in the dust. This is the fierce consolation of the desert. As long as there is breath, the battle remains. As long as the battle remains, hope remains. And as long as hope remains, the mercy of God has not been exhausted. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:09:15 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 190 para 5 00:31:45 Jessica McHale: Can I ask how to build up these "fundamentals" again without trying to "recreate" the religious self to "improve" ? For me it gets blurry when I think about "disiplines" and inadvertently re-building the "religious self". 00:45:13 Nypaver Clan: Page? 00:46:55 Nypaver Clan: 191…..got it 00:49:32 David Swiderski, WI: I wonder if Meister Eckhardt was capturing the same in his quote-“The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul. If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth.” 00:56:44 Una: Matt Talbot from Dublin. A layman 01:00:00 David Swiderski, WI: Or the Father Stu movie 01:14:00 David Swiderski, WI: 2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs our troubles. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 01:14:43 Art iPhone: Reacted to "2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs our troubles. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”" with 👍 01:14:50 Janine: “We guard ourselves too carefully from the outward difficulties encountered in giving ourselves over to the will of God, and so we lose the good fruits that are reaped in difficult circumstances endured with humility. “Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic 01:14:54 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "“We guard ourselves ..." with ❤️ 01:15:11 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "2 Corinthians 4:17-1..." with ❤️ 01:20:12 Rebecca Thérèse: Try talking about women saints if you want men to come. At the monastery of Montserrat nr 01:20:27 Janine: That is from Prayers by the lake 01:20:46 Rebecca Thérèse: near Barcelona all the decorations in the church are of female saints😂 01:22:08 Jessica McHale: Thank you, Father! Your words are so very helpful. Praise God. Prayers for you and your mother! 01:22:09 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:22:10 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:22:18 Kevin Burke: Thank You Father! 01:22:28 jonathan: God bless! thank you Father

The Fire That Remains Life in the Spirit After the Collapse of the Religious Self Week I — The Fire That Reveals the False Life Pentecost and the Beginning of the Dismantling in the Spirit ⸻ Opening Invocation O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of life, Come and dwell in us, Cleanse us from every impurity, And save our souls, O Good One. ⸻ I. The Fire Has Come — And Nothing Remains Hidden Pentecost is not comfort. It is fire. And the tragedy is that most Christians have learned to speak of the Spirit as though He were gentle in a way that leaves us intact. As though He were a consolation that confirms what we already are. But the Spirit who descends at Pentecost is the same Spirit who drove Christ into the wilderness. The same Spirit who descends as tongues of fire rests upon men and begins to undo them. Not improve them. Not refine them. 1 Undo them. Because what we call “the spiritual life” is often nothing more than a refined version of the same self we have always been. Religious. Structured. Disciplined. Even devout. But still centered in itself. Still subtly seeking itself. Still preserving itself. And the Spirit does not come to decorate that life. He comes to expose it. ⸻ II. The First Work of the Spirit — Illumination That Wounds When the Spirit comes, He brings light. But this light is not what we expect. It is not merely the light of understanding. It is not simply insight or clarity. It is the light that shows you what you are. And this is why so many turn away from it. Because the first gift of the Spirit is not consolation. It is truth. “For everyone who does evil hates the light... lest his deeds should be exposed.” (John 3:20) 2 And the truth is unbearable to a heart that has built itself on illusion. You begin to see: That much of your prayer was self-seeking. That your devotion was mixed with vanity. That your desire for God was entangled with a desire to feel something, to be something, to be seen as something. You begin to see how deeply rooted the self is even in your most sacred actions. And this is the moment where everything is decided. Because at this point, a man either: Steps back into illusion and begins again to construct a spiritual identity Or He remains. He allows himself to be seen. And wounded. ⸻ III. The Religious Self Cannot Survive the Spirit The Lenten work began the dismantling. But Pentecost intensifies it. Because now the dismantling is no longer external. It is interior. The Spirit enters the heart and begins to uncover the hidden foundations of the self. 3 Not the obvious sins. Those are easy. But the deeper things: The need to be right. The need to be secure. The need to be recognized. The need to feel that one’s life has coherence and meaning. Even the need to feel that one is progressing spiritually. All of this is brought into the light. And slowly, painfully, it begins to collapse. This is why the fathers speak so rarely of “experiences.” Because the true work of the Spirit is not the giving of experiences. It is the removal of illusions. “The Holy Spirit... shows man his sins.” — St. Silouan the Athonite And this feels like death. Because it is death. ⸻ IV. The Terror of Seeing Without Defenses There comes a moment when the usual defenses no longer work. You cannot console yourself with prayer in the same way. You cannot rely on your thoughts. Even spiritual thoughts begin to feel empty. The structures that once held your life together 4 begin to loosen. And you are left with something you did not expect: Yourself. Not the self you imagined. But the self stripped of its justifications. The self without its narrative. The self that cannot explain itself or defend itself or present itself. And this is terrifying. Because the ego does not fear sin as much as it fears exposure. It would rather remain sick than be seen as it is. But the Spirit does not allow this. He brings a man to the place where he can no longer hide from himself. And this is the beginning of true repentance. ⸻ V. Repentance as Ontological Collapse Repentance is often misunderstood. It is not simply sorrow for sin. It is not even a change of behavior. It is a change in being. A collapse. 5 A realization that what I have called “myself” is not stable, not whole, not real in the way I thought. That it has been constructed through fear, through desire, through imagination. And that it cannot stand in the presence of God. This is why repentance feels like dying. Because something is dying. “A heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise.” (Psalm 50/51) The illusion of self-sufficiency. The illusion of spiritual competence. The illusion that I can come to God as something. The Spirit dismantles all of this. And leaves a man empty. ⸻ VI. The Poverty the Spirit Creates And here is the paradox: This emptiness is not abandonment. It is the first true gift. Because only a poor heart can receive God. As long as a man is full of himself even in subtle ways he cannot receive the Spirit. He can speak about Him. He can think about Him. He can even feel things that he attributes to Him. 6 But he cannot receive Him. Because the Spirit does not dwell in a heart that is occupied. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) So the Spirit empties. Gently at times. Violently at others. But always with precision. Until a man stands before God without pretense. Without claims. Without identity. Simply present. ⸻ VII. The Refusal to Escape At this stage, the greatest temptation is escape. Not into obvious sin. But into something far more subtle: Reconstruction. You begin to rebuild. A slightly humbler version of yourself. A more “spiritual” identity. A narrative that explains your suffering and gives it meaning. 7 And this is where the process is lost. Because the ego can rebuild itself even out of its own dismantling. “He who trusts in himself is a fool.” (Proverbs 28:26) It can take the language of humility and turn it into a new identity. It can take the experience of emptiness and make it into something to possess. And so the call here is severe: Do not rebuild. Remain in the poverty. Remain in the not-knowing. Remain in the exposure. This is where the Spirit works. ⸻ VIII. The Spirit Does Not Hurry We want resolution. We want clarity. We want to arrive. But the Spirit does not work according to our timelines. He is patient. Because He is not forming an experience. He is forming a person. 8 And this cannot be rushed. So there are long periods where nothing seems to happen. Where prayer feels dry. Where understanding does not increase. Where the heart feels empty. But something is happening. Deep beneath the surface. The roots of the self are being loosened. Attachments are being severed. The ground is being prepared. “Without temptations no one can be saved.” — St. Isaac the Syrian And this hidden work is more real than anything we can perceive. ⸻ IX. The Beginning of Life in the Spirit This is where life in the Spirit begins. Not in power. Not in clarity. But in poverty. A heart that no longer trusts itself. A mind that no longer clings to its own thoughts. A will that begins to soften. This is the beginning. And it is fragile. 9 Because everything in us wants to return to something more solid. Something more definable. But the Spirit leads us into a different kind of life. A life that is not built on possession but on dependence. Not on certainty but on trust. Not on identity but on relationship. ⸻ X. Closing Exhortation Do not be afraid of what the Spirit reveals. Do not turn away when you begin to see yourself. Do not rush to rebuild what He is dismantling. Remain. Even if it feels like death. Especially then. Because this is not destruction. It is purification. It is the beginning of truth. And the heart that endures this fire 10 will come to know something that cannot be taken away: Not a constructed self. But a life hidden in Christ. ⸻ Closing Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us. Burn away every illusion. Expose every falsehood. Strip us of everything that is not of Thee. Grant us the courage to remain in the poverty Thou givest. That, emptied of ourselves, we may be filled with Thy life. Amen. ⸻ 11

The Fathers bring us to a place where the soul is stripped of every illusion about itself.   We imagine that we see clearly. We imagine that we understand others. We imagine that our words are necessary. And they tell us plainly. Be silent. A brother burns with the thought that he must speak, must reveal, must correct. Yet the Elder cuts through this urgency without hesitation. Say nothing. The Lord will take care of it. This is not indifference. This is faith. We speak because we do not trust God. We intervene because we believe that without us truth will not prevail. Beneath much of what we call zeal lies anxiety for ourselves and a hidden desire to justify our own heart. The Fathers do not negotiate with this. Silence is safer than righteousness mixed with passion. And if a brother has been exposed, even unjustly, how is he to respond? Not with self defense. Not with resentment. Not even with a demand for justice. He is to believe that the one who spoke did so for his good. This is a word that wounds the heart. To receive accusation as love. To give thanks for what humbles. To increase in love for the one who has caused pain. This is not psychology. This is the Cross. The one who lives in this way makes swift progress because he has stepped outside the logic of the world. He no longer defends an identity. He entrusts himself entirely to God. And so correction itself is transformed. The Fathers do not permit harshness born of agitation. If the heart is disturbed, the mouth must remain closed. Words spoken in turmoil do not heal. They infect. One must wait. Wait until the heart becomes still. Wait until peace returns. Then speak quietly, as if into the ear of the brother. Even here there is no formula. One must discern the soul before him. One must become small. One must abandon the authority that comes from position and take on the authority that comes from humility. And even then, correction may not be received. It does not matter. One has done what is given. God will do what remains. The Fathers expose something deeper still. Even acts of humility can be poisoned. A prostration can be filled with vainglory. Silence can conceal indifference. Authority can corrupt the mind without being noticed. Pride, the sense of power, and vainglory move quietly within everything. If these are not despised, nothing bears fruit. So the soul stands in a narrow place. Do not speak out of passion. Do not remain silent out of negligence. Do not correct to justify yourself. Do not humble yourself to be seen. There is no resting place here. Only vigilance. Only repentance. Only the slow purification of the heart. And then the Fathers place before us a final blow to our presumption. A monk is seen with a woman. He is judged. He is condemned. He is beaten. Even a saint is deceived. The Patriarch believes he is acting with zeal. The accusers believe they are protecting righteousness. All are certain. All are wrong. The truth is hidden. The monk bears wounds without protest. His life is pure. His intention is love. He carries a soul toward Christ while others condemn him in the name of Christ. This is the blindness of the fallen mind. We see appearances. We draw conclusions. We act with confidence. And we wound the righteous. Only when God Himself reveals the truth does the illusion collapse. And what is revealed is terrifying in its simplicity. There are servants of God hidden everywhere. Unknown. Misunderstood. Condemned. And we pass judgment on them with ease. The monk refuses even the gift offered to him. If a monk has faith, he has no need of money. If he loves money, he has lost faith. His freedom exposes everyone. His silence judges without speaking. His life reveals that the Kingdom of God is not what we imagine. The Fathers leave us with nothing to hold onto except this. Guard your tongue. Distrust your judgment. Humble yourself in all things. And entrust everything to God. Because the moment we believe that we see clearly, we have already fallen into darkness. And the moment we cease to defend ourselves and others before God, something begins to open.A way of seeing that is not our own. A love that does not accuse. A silence in which God Himself speaks. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:22:28 jonathan: 1 John 5:16-17 If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly. 00:27:25 Julie: Good book Searching for and maintaining peace by Father Jacques Philippe 00:28:50 jonathan: Yes it was Paul, he mentioned it in both 1 Timothy 1:19–20 and 1 Corinthians 5:5 00:34:46 Forrest: The Greek word here is not usually one for "Sin". It is more like making mistakes, as far as I read it. 00:42:13 Erick Chastain: Elder Aimilianos says that for some characters to be gentle with them is to make them a demon. 00:56:26 Joan Chakonas: Interesting that there are very few situations when in the course of my lay life I am called upon to make correction of another.  I hope that if such a need arises I find a way to do it- with Gods guidance-because I sort of approach my duty to God like my job here on earth and I have to make it happen.  I imagine the need for correction arises out of a need to avoid harm to a third party. 01:00:00 Kevin Burke: I wrote down that we started volume 2 on 11/27/23 01:14:18 Julie: It reminds me of the story of the monk that was an alcoholic and died. 01:16:31 Joan Chakonas: My takeaway was how easy it is to make a wildly wrong judgment . 01:18:46 Lorraine: Thank you 01:18:49 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:18:55 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:18:58 Joan Chakonas: Thanks Father! 01:19:01 Kevin Burke: Thank You Father! 01:19:06 Jessica McHale: Thank you! Many prayers!!!!! 01:19:16 jonathan: Thanks Father, God bless❤️ 01:19:29 Caroline: Thank you ♥️

We want to help. We want to fix. We want to speak the right word at the right time and be the instrument of someone’s healing. And hidden beneath all of it, almost always, is something far less pure. We do not trust that God can work without us. ⸻ The Fathers cut through this illusion without mercy, but not without compassion. A man begins to speak and sees that his heart is stirred by vainglory. Not always in the moment. Sometimes afterward. The sweetness comes later. The memory of being useful. Of being seen. Of being right. So he asks the obvious question. Should I remain silent? The Elder refuses the simplicity of that escape. Silence is not purity if it is chosen to protect one’s image. Speech is not corruption if it is offered in obedience. The issue is not whether you speak or remain silent. The issue is whether you are willing to be exposed. If a word must be spoken for the sake of another, then speak it. But do not pretend you are clean. Do not wait until your heart is free of vainglory. It will not be. Speak, and then stand before God and accuse yourself. “I spoke with vainglory.” This is the path. Not control. Not perfection. But truth. ⸻ We prefer another way. We want to purify our motives before acting. We want to feel clean before we speak. We want to be certain that what we say is necessary, righteous, even indispensable. This is fantasy. It is a refined form of pride. ⸻ The Fathers show us something far more severe. There are times when speaking is required. There are times when silence is required. And we are rarely capable of discerning which is which on our own. So we are placed under obedience. When something disturbs us, we assume it must be addressed. We feel the agitation in the heart and call it discernment. We speak to relieve ourselves and call it charity. The Elder names it plainly. If you speak to quiet your own heart, you have already fallen. This is devastating. Because it exposes how much of what we call concern is nothing more than self-protection. We do not want the discomfort. We do not want the tension. We do not want to suffer the presence of what is unresolved. So we speak. Not to heal. But to escape. ⸻ And when others are disturbed, we cloak ourselves even more skillfully. “I am speaking for them.” The Fathers do not deny that responsibility exists. But they strip it of illusion. You are not the healer. You are not the judge. You are not the one who must set things right. Bring it to the Abba. Submit it. Be freed from the illusion that everything depends on your intervention. This is where our resistance intensifies. Because submission feels like passivity. And passivity feels like failure. But what we are being asked to surrender is not action. It is control. ⸻ There is also fear. “If I speak, he will hate me.” The Elder calls this thought what it is. Evil. Not because the fear is imaginary, but because it shifts the center away from God to human reaction. It makes peace, reputation, and emotional safety the measure of truth. The image is stark. A sick man resents the physician. But the physician does not stop the treatment. If you are to act, act in God. Not to be liked. Not to be justified. Not to be safe. ⸻ And then the final blow. What if you see clearly that your desire to speak is poisoned? That you want to accuse, to expose, to correct in a way that elevates yourself? Then do not pretend. Do not remain silent in false righteousness. Do not speak in hidden judgment. Confess your sickness. Go to the Abba and say, “I want to accuse. I cannot purify my heart.” Now something real can begin. Not only the healing of your brother. But your own. ⸻ This is the truth we resist. God is not waiting for our perfect words. He is not dependent upon our interventions. He is not hindered by our silence. But He will not heal the heart that refuses to be seen as it is. ⸻ We want to be useful. The Fathers want us to be honest. Because only the honest man can be entrusted with speech. And only the one who has relinquished control can remain silent without bitterness. ⸻ In the end, the question is not this: Should I speak or remain silent? The question is this: Am I willing to let God work without securing a place for myself in the outcome? Until that is answered, both our silence and our speech will remain infected. And yet, even this is not the end. Speak when you must. Remain silent when you must. And in both, stand before God and say the only true word: “I am not pure. Have mercy.” --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:58 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 373 Volume II number 4 00:07:46 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 373, # 4, top paragraph 00:09:54 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 00:14:14 Janine: Christ is Risen! 00:15:07 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 00:15:19 Bob Čihák, AZ: American English translation: You BET He's risen!!! 00:16:09 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 373, # 4, top paragraph 00:23:53 Maureen Cunningham: Job He get up and makes sac fries for his children . In case they would sin 00:58:22 John ‘Jack’: Some of the best council I’ve ever received was “you’re in a difficult situation” it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it gave me immense clarity. 01:19:11 Danny Moulton: It seems that tonight's learnings require a great deal of trust that  God can handle another person's shortcomings without our "invaluable" help. 01:19:25 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "It seems that tonigh..." with 👍 01:20:11 Una: Reacted to "It seems that toni..." with 👍 01:21:42 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you. Happy Easter everyone!☺️ 01:21:45 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father. 01:22:14 Jessica McHale: Many prayers to you and our mom!

There is a clarity in the Fathers that we often resist because it leaves us no place to hide. They do not flatter the human condition. They do not soften the reality of sin. They do not pretend that the spiritual life is anything other than a battle that reaches into the depths of our thoughts, our desires, our bodies, and our will. They name things as they are. We are weak. We are unstable. We are easily turned. Even when we desire the good, we fail to do it. Even when we hate sin, we fall into it. And yet, they are not severe in the way the world is severe. Because at the heart of their vision is not condemnation, but God. Hope in Him is the foundation of everything. Not hope in ourselves. Not hope in our effort, our consistency, or our understanding. But hope in the One who “abundantly pours forth righteousness,” and in whom there is no injustice. This hope is not sentimental. It is forged precisely in the experience of our instability. It is born when every illusion about ourselves begins to collapse, and we see that if we are to live, it must be by His mercy alone. This is why God permits what we fear. St. Isaac speaks with a boldness that unsettles us: the insults, the illnesses, the humiliations, the intrusive thoughts, the warfare of the demons, the instability of mind and body—these are not signs of abandonment. They are gifts, though bitter ones. They are the means by which the heart is broken open, by which prayer becomes real, by which a man is drawn out of himself and made to cry out to God without distraction. God wounds in order to heal. Not arbitrarily. Not cruelly. But because without this, we would remain imprisoned in negligence, in pride, in the quiet assumption that we are capable of sustaining ourselves. Humility, then, is not a virtue we adopt. It is the truth revealed in us when we see our condition clearly. It is the knowledge that we are created, changeable, dependent—that at any moment we can fall, that we cannot preserve ourselves, that we require the power of another for even the smallest good. And this knowledge, if it is embraced, becomes the door to everything. Because the one who knows his weakness will not trust himself. And the one who does not trust himself will begin to trust God. This is the beginning of the path—and the way one remains on it. For as soon as we forget this, we fall into negligence. And negligence is not simply laziness; it is a kind of spiritual sleep, a dulling of the heart, a quiet turning away from vigilance. And when this happens, St. Isaac tells us something that pierces deeply: we are handed over. Not as punishment in the human sense, but as awakening. We are allowed to fall into the very things that reveal us to ourselves. The thoughts we thought we had conquered return. The passions we thought were gone reappear. The weakness we ignored becomes undeniable. And in this, we are shaken—not to destroy us, but to rouse us from illusion. So that we might begin again, but this time in truth. And here the Fathers make a distinction that is as compassionate as it is exacting. Not all sin is the same. There are sins born of weakness, of ignorance, of habit, of the long war within the flesh. There are sins that wound the heart precisely because they are not desired, that bring grief, that provoke tears, that drive a man back to God. And near to such a man, St. Isaac says, mercy is undoubtedly present. But there is another path. The path of negligence embraced. The path where a man abandons the struggle, not because he is weak, but because he no longer wishes to fight. Where he becomes inventive in sin, obedient to it, even zealous for it. Where repentance is postponed, ignored, or despised. This is the tragedy. Not that we fall, but that we cease to care that we have fallen. The Fathers are unyielding here. Because love demands truth. The measure is not perfection, but direction. Not sinlessness, but the heart’s orientation. Does a man grieve his fall? Does he turn again? Does he remain in the arena, even if wounded, even if ashamed, even if confused? If so, he is not far from God. And so the word that emerges from all of this is both fierce and consoling. Give thanks for everything. Not because everything is good in itself, but because God uses everything for our healing. Even our falls, when met with repentance, become a place of encounter. Even our weakness becomes a teacher. Even the most bitter experiences, when received with faith, become the ground of humility, and therefore of grace. Blame yourself, says Isaac—not in despair, not in self-hatred, but in truth. Refuse to accuse God. Refuse to abandon the struggle. Refuse to let your fall become a justification for further distance. Remain. This is the radical vision. A man stripped of illusion. A man who knows his weakness. A man who endures the warfare. A man who falls and rises, falls and rises again. A man who gives thanks in all things. A man who entrusts himself entirely to the mercy of God. Such a man, though wounded, is being healed. Such a man, though weak, is being sanctified. Such a man, though nothing in himself, is held by the goodness and love of God—and will not be lost. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:19 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 187 paragraph 10 00:05:15 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 00:06:57 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/to-become-fire-and-person 00:12:58 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 187 paragraph 10 00:13:27 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 00:13:43 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/to-become-fire-and-person 00:22:57 Jessica McHale: So, if a person has fear/anxiety about something in their life, coudl it be that the fear/anxiety someoen feels is God's way to humble us to trust in Him rather than give in to the fear? Is fear a way to humble us so we have total trust in Him? 00:43:05 Maureen Cunningham: Anger would be passion  that is a habbit 00:43:08 Erick Chastain: An instance of this: I  sometimes hear secular people in the world say things like "my patience has its limits". People in the world have very low standards sometimes. 00:43:17 Eleana Urrego: One of the promises of the rosary praying is be deliverance from addictions and obsessions. 00:48:05 David Swiderski, WI: A spiritual director had used to quote Oscar Wilde- We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell . Adding Christ came to save us from ourselves. 00:48:28 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "A spiritual director..." with 👍🏼 00:49:22 Una: Can you unpack "hypostatic person" a bit? Thanks. 00:49:35 Eleana Urrego: Hell is absence of God 00:49:54 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "Can you unpack "hypo..." with 👍🏼 00:51:14 David Swiderski, WI: It is not I that live but Christ in me 01:02:03 Elizabeth Richards: Back to humility of heart 01:02:16 Elizabeth Richards: dependence 01:04:59 David Swiderski, WI: That's just the way I am is how I see this expressed 01:07:14 Eleana Urrego: Father, when you say not to excuse praying time, it might also sound like it's up to me to become a saint by my own effort, and that might be religious pride, as you mention in the retreat. 01:11:19 Aaron Johnson: Hi Father, would any form of laxity in prayer/spiritual life due to physical fatigue (physical illness for example), how can one discern if their laxity is either due to weakness or from religious pride? 01:15:31 Elizabeth Richards: When is the retreat? 01:16:12 Eleana Urrego: wow I was not aware, thanks 01:16:17 Kate: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 01:17:18 Elizabeth Richards: Thanks! The Lenten Retreats have been powerful. 01:18:28 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You 01:18:58 Jessica McHale: Many prayers, blessings, and grace from our great God!!!! 01:18:59 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:19:00 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your Mother and this group. 01:19:03 Bob Čihák, AZ: Love you and thank you, Father. 01:19:09 Aaron Johnson: Thank you!

There is a humility that we speak about. And there is a humility that is given. The first is clean. Understandable. Manageable. The second is devastating. Saint Isaac does not speak of an idea. He speaks of a man who has seen something in himself, not once, but repeatedly, until illusion collapses. “A man who has reached this in truth and not in fancy…” This is the dividing line. Most of what we call humility is still fantasy. A posture. A tone. A self-perception. But true humility is born only when a man has been brought face to face with his own instability, his own powerlessness, his own inability to sustain even the smallest good without God. Not conceptually. Existentially. ⸻ This is why Isaac says that everything begins with the recognition of one’s weakness. Not as an idea. But as a state of being. A man comes to see that he cannot hold himself together. He cannot secure his own heart. He cannot even pray without distraction, without resistance, without collapse. And from this recognition, something begins to cry out. Not beautifully. Not eloquently. But desperately. Out of need. Out of poverty. Out of a knowledge that if God does not draw near, he will fall apart. This is the beginning of real prayer. Not devotion. Dependence. ⸻ And yet here is the scandal. God does not always respond as we expect. He draws near . . . yes. But not always by removing the trial. Not always by granting the request. Sometimes He withholds. Not out of indifference, but out of wisdom. Because the very delay becomes the means by which the soul is held near Him. Isaac dares to say that God defers His help so that the man will not depart. So that he will remain in prayer. Remain in need. Remain in proximity. This is not cruelty. It is a love that refuses to let the soul return to self-sufficiency. ⸻ And more troubling still: God permits temptation. Not always. But at times. The assault comes. The fire burns. The instability is exposed again. And the man cries out: Why? Why does God not remove this? Why does He allow this struggle to continue? Isaac answers with a severity we would rather avoid: So that you may learn war. So that you may be instructed. So that you may know. Not in theory, but in experience; that without Him, you are nothing. ⸻ This is where humility is forged. Not in peace. But in exposure. Not in success. But in repeated failure. Not in clarity. But in the confusion of being unable to sustain oneself. The man who does not know this, Isaac says, walks on a razor’s edge. He may appear stable. Even virtuous. But he stands near the lion. The demon of pride. Because without the knowledge of one’s weakness, the soul inevitably attributes its stability to itself. And this is the beginning of the fall. ⸻ Humility cannot be acquired directly. It cannot be chosen as a virtue. It must be given through conditions that undo the illusion of strength. Through delay. Through struggle. Through temptation. Through the repeated discovery that one is not what one thought. This is why Isaac says that humility is acquired only by humility’s own means. Which is to say: By being brought low. By being shown the truth. By having the inner architecture of conceit quietly dismantled. ⸻ And here the most piercing word emerges. Without humility, a man’s work is not perfected. Even if it appears good. Even if it appears fruitful. It does not rise above fear. It is not sealed by the Spirit. It remains within the realm of the self. Unstable. Vulnerable. Unfounded. Because only humility forms the foundation that cannot be shaken. A city built on humility stands. A life built on anything else trembles. ⸻ And so we must ask: What if the very things we are trying to escape, the delay, the dryness, the temptation, the instability, are the very means by which God is drawing us near? What if the unanswered prayer is the mercy? What if the struggle that does not cease is the protection? What if the exposure of our weakness is the only way we will ever become real? ⸻ We want relief. God desires communion. We want stability. God gives us Himself. And He will not allow us to possess Him as long as we believe we can stand without Him. ⸻ The widow cries out before the unjust judge. Relentlessly. Without dignity. Without restraint. Because she knows she has no other hope. Isaac places this image before us for a reason. This is the posture of the humble man. Not composed. Not self-contained. But persistent. Needy. Unashamed. Because he has seen the truth. ⸻ In the end, humility is not thinking less of oneself. It is knowing, without illusion, that one cannot live without God. And not merely knowing it, but remaining there. In prayer. In need. In trembling. Afraid not of punishment, but of losing the nearness of God. ⸻ This is the paradox. The man who is weak becomes unshakable. Because his life is no longer founded on himself. But on the One who draws near to the broken. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:00 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 186 para 5 00:07:13 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 186, #5, second paragraph 00:07:51 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://mailchi.mp/f5f7aa457031/bb0iyi082g 00:08:20 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Registration link for retreat 00:13:56 John ‘Jack’: Will join you in spirit Father 00:14:32 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://mailchi.mp/f5f7aa457031/bb0iyi082g 00:17:51 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 186, #5, second paragraph 00:19:32 Eleana Urrego: Page? 00:20:15 Eleana Urrego: please 00:20:28 David Swiderski, WI: P 186, #5, second paragraph 00:21:35 Eleana Urrego: Replying to "P 186, #5, second pa..." Thank you! 00:30:15 Ben: Anna: Father, in theory I understand not seeking out distractions and being present in the reality, but what about when one's reality is unbearable?  When we're exhausted, sick, unable to read or think deeply and even vocal prayer is heavy?  How does one direct that restlessness towards God? 00:30:21 Adam Paige: Speaking of repentance and uprooting the passions.. a very blessed feast of Saint Mary of Egypt to all ☦️ 00:44:32 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "Speaking of repent..." with ❤️ 00:45:28 John ‘Jack’: When folks  ask “how are you” lately rather than saying a half hearted “good.” I say “better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today” I catches them delightfully off guard and opens some wonderful conversations 00:45:39 David Swiderski, WI: This reminds me of a story common in Latin America and not far from the truth of many humble and simple people I encountered in churches which always inspires me. 00:45:49 David Swiderski, WI: A priest was walking through the church at noon. Passing the altar, he decided to stay nearby to see who came to pray. The door opened and he frowned as a man walked down the aisle—unshaven, wearing a torn shirt and a worn‑out coat with frayed edges. The man knelt briefly, bowed his head, then left. For several days, always at noon, the same man entered, knelt for a moment, and walked out. The priest, uneasy, began to suspect he might be a thief. One day he stopped him and asked what he was doing. The man explained he worked nearby and had only a short lunch break, so he came to pray. “I only stay a moment,” he said. “The factory is far, so I kneel and say: ‘Lord, I just came again to tell you, Jesus, how happy I am when you free me from my sins. I don’t know how to pray well, but I think of you every day. So Jesus, this is Jaime reporting.’” 00:58:49 John ‘Jack’: I’ve recently heard (Ren; in one your older conferences, sorry Father 😬) that Gods grace is often most evident in the “tension” of life.  Life v death Having v desiring Peace v turmoil  So on. 00:59:27 John ‘Jack’: Replying to "I’ve recently heard …" Agreed. She is 01:03:22 Eleana Urrego: Because in Spanish is different "do not let us fall into tentation" 01:03:52 Una: Maybe "lead us not into temptation" could be better thought of as "leave us not in temptation"? 01:05:46 David Swiderski, WI: I had a mentor that always said when I said I have a problem to come back in and say "I have an opportunity to overcome and succeed at xyz" 01:06:16 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "I had a mentor that ..." with 👍🏼 01:06:26 Ben: Anna: if we understand that we will certainly fall if we are allowed to be tempted then we will perhaps beg God not to let us come to that. 01:06:32 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Reacted to "I had a mentor tha..." with 👍 01:12:12 Mary: Constant prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. 01:12:27 Jacqulyn Dudasko: Reacted to "Constant prayer: Lor..." with 👍 01:14:34 Janine: Always praying for you Father! 01:15:12 Elizabeth Richards: Thank you Father!  Исус воскресне! 01:15:15 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:15:16 Jessica McHale: fruitful holy week and many prayers 01:15:16 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father, may God bless you, your mother and this group 01:15:17 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Thank you Father! 01:15:44 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you a Blessed Easter to all, Thank You 01:15:50 Paul Grazal: Great !  Thanks Father

There is a form of speech that wears the mask of righteousness and yet is born entirely of death. The Fathers tear this mask from our face. Mariam spoke what was true and was struck with leprosy. Truth did not save her. Because truth, when mixed with accusation, becomes poison. This is the terror. You may be right. You may see clearly. You may even discern accurately the fault of another. And still be condemned. Because the issue is not correctness. The issue is the heart. The Fathers do not ask “Was it true?” They ask “Why did you speak?” ⸻ The soul that delights in exposing another is already diseased. And God, in His terrible mercy, sometimes makes visible what is hidden. Mariam’s flesh became white with corruption because her heart had already been corrupted. Her body told the truth that her tongue had concealed. The outward man became a mirror of the inward. This is the judgment of God. Not punishment as we imagine it but revelation. The hidden made visible. The secret made undeniable. ⸻ You think your words are small. A single remark. A passing judgment. A quiet disclosure. But the Fathers say this is not small. This is participation in the fall itself. The serpent did not strike Eve with violence. He spoke. And she listened. Calumny is not merely speech. It is communion with the serpent. ⸻ And yet the Fathers do not leave us in silence. They show a path but it is narrow and almost unbearable. To speak of another’s sin may be necessary. But only under obedience. Only for healing. Only without passion. Only as one who trembles. Anything else is self-deception. Even the desire to justify yourself to prove that you spoke “out of love” is already corruption. Why do you need to be seen as righteous? Why do you need to be understood? This too is vainglory. ⸻ The true man of God hides himself. If he must speak he speaks as an instrument not as a judge. If he sins he condemns himself first. If he wounds another he falls before him and confesses without excuse. If the other does not know he remains silent and weeps before God alone. He does not “clarify.” He does not “explain.” He does not protect his image. Because he has renounced himself. ⸻ The Fathers reveal something we do not want to see. We do not speak to heal. We speak to elevate ourselves. Even our “discernment” is often nothing more than refined pride. We divide the Body of Christ and call it righteousness. We expose our brother and call it truth. We poison love and call it zeal. ⸻ But look at Mariam. Separated from her brother her own body became divided. Her flesh turned against her because her heart had turned against another. Division always returns to the one who creates it. This is the law of the spiritual life. ⸻ Life in Christ is not moral correctness. It is union. Union with God. Union with one another. And this union is so delicate so holy that even a single word spoken wrongly can tear it. ⸻ Therefore the Fathers cry out: Either rebuke with tears and trembling under obedience and love or remain silent. There is no middle ground. Because the tongue reveals the heart. And the heart will be judged. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:03:26 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 370 00:11:16 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-fire-that-remains 00:13:05 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 370, first paragraph 00:14:20 Jessica McHale: Sounds great! 00:28:01 Una: "It was like something you read in the newspaper," said Brendan Gleeson. Boom! LIke a Flannery O'Connor story (The Misfit). 00:31:58 jonathan: How do you bear the weight of the worlds sadness. I used to justify my detachment, by saying that if i had to 'consume' all the sadness and evil in the world, it would ruin me.  I cannot imagine how anyone could bear psychologically, the weight of the worlds evil. It would break the average man. 00:37:56 Forrest: What sadness do we know from natural means? Compared to unnatural (technological) means? When we detach from concentrated news feeds we are able to recognize the relationships close to us, and enter into THAT sadness, not the global world. 00:40:23 Lee Graham: Reacted to "What sadness do we k…" with ❤️ 00:40:54 Danny Moulton: In some sense sadness at a distance is safe sadness. 00:45:09 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 371, A 01:03:27 John ‘Jack’: Sounds like we are being told to be meek and humble of ❤️ 01:14:42 Jason Fischer: When we are judgmental in a critical or self righteous way, aren't we attempting to play God? 01:19:46 iPad (2): That is wonderful! Thank you Father! 01:19:49 Paul Grazal: Look forward to it. 01:20:08 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you Blessing to all 01:20:51 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:20:53 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:58 Jessica McHale: Thank You!!! Many, many, any Prayers! 01:20:59 jonathan: God bless you Fr 01:21:18 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father. 01:21:19 Paul Grazal: good nite

“A heart that is broken and humbled, God will not despise.” ⸻ A man begins in need. Not in strength. Not in clarity. Not in light. He begins in the knowledge that he cannot sustain himself. That something is lacking. That without help from above he will collapse inward upon his own poverty. So he prays. Not once, but many times. Not with ease, but with insistence. He multiplies prayers because he feels his need multiplying within him. And in this repetition something begins to happen that he did not plan. His heart is broken. Not by violence, but by truth. For no man can stand long in supplication without being humbled. To beg is already to descend. To entreat is already to abandon self-sufficiency. And so the heart, once scattered and wandering, begins to be gathered. Humility draws it inward. It ceases to roam because it has found its place. The low place. And there, suddenly, everything changes. Mercy encircles him. Not as an idea, not as a consolation imagined, but as a presence that moves within him. A quiet strength. An assurance not born of reasoning. He perceives that help has come. That Another is acting. That he is no longer alone within himself. And this perception gives birth to faith. He understands now what prayer is. Not words cast into the air. Not effort straining toward heaven. But refuge. Shelter. Light. A staff in weakness. A shield in battle. A harbor in the storm. Everything he sought elsewhere is found here, hidden within this turning of the heart toward God. Prayer is no longer something he does. It becomes something he enters. And then, without warning, it becomes joy. The labor ceases. The heaviness lifts. The tongue that once struggled now moves with ease, or falls silent altogether. For the heart itself has begun to pray. It overflows. It glistens with assurance. It burns with a quiet knowledge that cannot be spoken. And from this burning, thanksgiving erupts. Not as duty. Not as obligation. But as astonishment. The soul, seized by the nearness of God, cannot contain itself. It bows, it trembles, it gives thanks. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes with a cry. Sometimes with a whisper that is more flame than sound. This is the prayer that is given. Not achieved. Not mastered. Given. And here the Christian life is revealed for what it truly is. Not discipline alone. Not struggle alone. But joy. A joy that is born only in the humbled heart. A joy that the world does not know. A joy that rises from the knowledge that God Himself has drawn near, and that all things are now held within Him. If you would learn to pray, do not seek words. Descend. Let your heart be broken. Remain there. And you will find that prayer is already waiting for you, not as effort, but as fire, as refuge, as joy that sends up thanksgiving without end. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:18 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 185 paragraph 2 00:13:05 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 185 paragraph 2 00:14:16 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 185 paragraph 2 00:15:57 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 185, 2 00:18:24 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "P. 185, 2" with 👍🏼 00:28:09 Kathryn Rose: Mary as co-redemptrix 00:28:14 Eleana Urrego: Mary is the supplicant omnipotence. 00:31:36 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "Mary as co-redemptri..." with ❤️ 00:32:03 Jessica McHale: i think a sign of deepenied relationship with God is that prayer become joyful. It's like checkiing in during the day with a spouse and coming home at night to spouse, waking up to a spouse. I see Issac's point about humbling, but it can be a joyful humbling and sign of great trust and love. 00:36:11 Kevin Burke: Reacted to "Mary as co-redemptri…" with ❤️ 00:43:38 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 186, #4, first paragraph 00:49:09 Kathryn Rose: Joyful /ecstatic prayer is like god praying within us rather then us praying to god 00:49:52 Maureen Cunningham: Treasury of assurance could say a little 00:50:01 Eleana Urrego: Pray is how my heart breaths 00:50:19 Kate: Is this joy something other than psychological joy?  A joy that is not necessarily felt on a psychological level? 00:55:19 John ‘Jack’: I’d recently spoken to a man (an unbeliever) ; who had a believer friend come to his fathers funeral, he said the freind had a joy about him that actually changed him more than anything else ever had before. 00:56:23 John ‘Jack’: Yes 00:56:38 Maureen Cunningham: Pearl of great price 00:56:47 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "I’d recently spoken ..." with 😯 00:59:31 David Swiderski, WI: If you look back to the early church it was seeing love and joy that brought people to God. A spiritual director early in my life asked me "how many candles" have you lit for good things that have happened- getting a job, some blessing and how many asking for help for yourself or others. Love is rushing to share all good things with beloved as well as sharing our burdens. 01:00:59 Kathryn Rose: Yurodstvo is a Russian term for "holy foolishness" - becoming foolish for God 01:02:08 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "Yurodstvo is a Russi..." with ❤️ 01:02:47 John ‘Jack’: Was just thinking today how so many of us will question why this “bad thing” happens, yet if we count them against our many blessings (which we often do not) it’s insignificant, just uncomfortable for us, so don’t like it. 01:05:37 Joan Chakonas: From My 51 years in the secular world I can attest to a zero apprehension of life with Christ; it is really hard to describe. But upon my first communion in 2012 it literally radically changed my life.  Overnight I felt the Eucharist and I became a daily communicant.  A completely different life ever since. 01:06:10 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "From My 51 years in …" with ❤️ 01:06:12 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "From My 51 years in ..." with ❤️ 01:12:03 Kathryn Rose: I am learning how to pray different psalters, which I'm finding is a completely different than regular prayer. What is the purpose of psalter? 01:14:57 David Swiderski, WI: It helped me to understand the psalms a simple book Psalm basics for Catholics really helped me by John Bergsma. They are grouped. The book can be understood for kids as well. 01:14:58 John ‘Jack’: That’s the one I use, every day 01:15:24 Anna: Praying Psalter for a single night discussion 01:16:41 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You 01:17:16 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:17:20 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:17:27 Art: Thank you Father! 01:17:34 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you father, may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:17:47 Anna: Lol 01:17:47 John ‘Jack’: I love a copy please! 01:17:50 Anna: 😂 01:17:51 Andrew Adams: Lol 01:17:56 Paul Grazal: too funny 01:17:58 Eleana Urrego: me 2 please 01:18:05 Anna: Amazon 01:18:18 Anna: What's the book? 01:18:28 Jesssica Imanaka: God Bless you Father and everyone! See you in teh Summer! 01:18:50 Andrew Adams: Should we send addresses if we haven’t already? I didn’t realize we were that far along. 01:18:53 Eleana Urrego: I dont mind please 01:19:34 Paul Grazal: Thank you Father ! 01:19:40 Kevin Burke: Thank you Father! 01:19:45 Eleana Urrego: how can I get a book? 01:19:47 jonathan: God bless you father    

You think sin begins when you speak. The Fathers say it begins when you listen.   The serpent did not force Eve. He spoke. She inclined her ear. And through that small opening, death entered the world.   You fear great sins because they are visible. But calumny is quiet. It asks only for your attention.   A word is offered. You do not resist. You do not rebuke. You do not turn away. You listen.   And in listening, you receive.   The Fathers do not soften this. They do not call it weakness. They call it destruction.   The one who speaks slander kills with his mouth. But the one who listens becomes his accomplice. The poison does not remain in the speaker. It passes into you. You carry it. You knead it into your heart. Soon you will speak it. And then you will call it discernment.   You say, “But it is true.” The Fathers answer: truth on the tongue of a demon is still poison.   The devil does not always lie. He mixes truth with venom. He sweetens the word so that you will swallow it. And once it is within you, it becomes bitterness.   This is why Christ refused even the true words of demons. This is why the Apostles closed their ears. Not because they feared lies. But because they knew how truth can be weaponized.   You do not understand the violence of this sin. You think it is speech. The Fathers say it is murder.   “Better to eat meat and drink wine than to eat the flesh of your brother.”   When you listen to calumny, you consume him. You strip him of dignity in your heart. You become incapable of seeing him as God sees him. And at that moment, you have already judged and condemned him.   Do not deceive yourself. Silence is not innocence if your ears are open.   A soldier may be covered in armor. But a single opening is enough for death.   Your ear is that opening.   You guard your body from impurity. You guard your tongue when it suits you. But your ears remain unguarded, curious, receptive.   You sit near the accuser. You nod. You take it in.   And you call this harmless.   The Fathers call it the fall of Adam repeated.   Close the door.   Do not negotiate. Do not linger. Do not taste the sweetness of another’s shame.   Flee the word before it enters. Cut it off before it forms within you. Refuse even the appearance of listening.   Better to be thought rude than to be found complicit in death.   Because once the word enters, it does not leave easily.   And if you allow it to remain, you will become what you have received.   The serpent no longer needs to speak. You will speak for him. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:34 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 368, G 00:17:18 Una: What is the email? 00:17:26 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "What is the email?" with 👍 00:17:58 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: [email protected] 00:21:24 Lee Graham: Please give me the name of Themes in Psychology 00:22:34 Jessica McHale: Replying to "Please give me the..." Themes in Orthodox Patristic Psychology: Humility, Obedience, Repentence, and Love 00:28:32 Lee Graham: Replying to "Please give me the n…" Thank you 00:34:06 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 368, H 00:55:21 Jason Fischer: When you speak of silence, would that include meditation 00:56:49 Joan Chakonas: Even dark truth expressed in calumny is better left to God to handle.  Nothing good comes  from evil spoken or in fact. 01:01:10 Jonathan Grobler: We're do we draw the line between calumny, and informing the church of someone's grave sin. Paul told us to not to talk about people's venial sins, but if we see someone committing sin that leads to death, to first talk to them in private, and if they do not wish to listen, to then escalate it to the church. 01:18:35 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You always a blessing. The Blog was wonderful. Blessing 01:18:55 Lee Graham: Thank you since I missed last week 01:19:05 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Thank you, Father. Have a good night. 01:19:57 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:20:06 Jennifer Dantchev: Thank you!

After speaking in broad and sometimes severe lines about the struggle of the spiritual life, the holy elder begins to lower his voice. He does not abandon the path he has shown. He reveals what makes it possible to walk it. Not strength. Not resolve. Not mastery. But hope and humility. He speaks first of hope, not as an idea, but as a living trust in the providence of God. A man begins to see that his life is not held together by his own vigilance. There are moments he does not see, dangers he cannot anticipate, falls he cannot prevent. And yet he is preserved. A stone is about to fall. A wall begins to give way. Death itself draws near without warning. And still, God restrains it. Or quietly leads the man away. Or even permits the blow, yet removes its power to destroy. The heart that begins to perceive this does not become careless. It becomes peaceful. Hope is born when a man sees that his life is already in the hands of Another. This hope does not belong to the negligent or the indifferent. It is not given to one who abandons effort, but to one who labors and yet ceases to trust in his labor. He still acts, still watches, still struggles, but inwardly he has shifted his ground. He no longer leans upon his own understanding. He leans upon God. And from this, a strange boldness arises. Not presumption. Not testing God. But a quiet fearlessness. The soul begins to move through the world without the same anxious calculation, because it knows that even what it cannot foresee is already known. God becomes his constant concern. And so God becomes his constant care. ⸻ Then the elder turns, even more gently, to humility. He does not begin with virtue. He begins with weakness. “Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness.” Not the man who despises himself. Not the man who speaks harshly of himself. But the one who sees. This knowledge does not come through reflection alone. It is given. A man is allowed to be tempted. He struggles. He plans. He guards himself. He tries to secure peace through effort, discipline, vigilance. And yet he finds no rest. Fear remains. Trembling remains. The heart refuses to be stilled. Then, quietly, something is revealed. Not his failure, but his need. The soul begins to understand that no arrangement of its own can give it the certainty it seeks. All its hedging about, all its carefulness, all its ascetic labor—these are not enough to establish peace. And this is not a condemnation. It is a gift. Because at that moment, the heart turns. It begins to seek another help. A help that is not its own. A help that saves. Humility is born here, not as an achievement, but as a recognition. The man sees the distance between his weakness and God’s strength, and in that seeing, he no longer trusts himself in the same way. He becomes watchful, not out of anxiety, but out of truth. He gathers himself inwardly, not out of fear, but out of clarity. He knows now that without God, he cannot stand. And with God, he does not need to be afraid. ⸻ Thus hope and humility meet. Hope says: God holds my life, even when I do not see how. Humility says: I cannot hold my life on my own. And together they open the path. Not a path of certainty as the world understands it. Not a path of control or self-assurance. But a path of quiet reliance. A man begins to walk it when he entrusts himself—again and again, in small and hidden ways—to the One who has already been carrying him all along. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:14:25 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 183, #6, last paragraph 00:15:15 Janine: That’s a great book! Watchful mind 00:15:31 Bob Čihák, AZ: I'll take one! 00:15:54 Alan Henderson: I came in late, which books is he offering to give? 00:16:28 Art iPhone: The Watchful Mind was one . 00:16:29 Wayne: Already have a copy. 00:18:37 Andrew Adams: I’d be interested in both 00:18:44 Jessica McHale: Would love copies! 00:18:48 Maureen Cunningham: Wonderful a yes from  Ken and I 00:19:03 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 183, #6, last paragraph 00:19:44 Ursula McKenzie: I'd like both! Ursula 00:32:18 Ryan Ngeve: Father how far can one go with his ‘daring’ before it is considered ‘testing the Lord’ 00:35:17 Gwen’s iPhone: I always been the told the ultimate way to tempt God is to commit suicide. 00:37:42 John ‘Jack’: I sometimes wonder if the reason I don’t feel anxious very often is that I’ve created a life for myself wherein I don’t venture into “uncomfortable” or unknown situations.  I’ve expressed this concern to others before and they assure me I don’t “play it safe” in this regard. I just hope they’re being truthful and not just kind.  I dealt with anxiety often in my younger days. 00:37:59 Anna: It's also caused by medications or medical issues that are not related to psychology or satanic. 00:42:34 Maureen Cunningham: What you said a few  Wen. Ago about abuse that a person 00:42:56 Maureen Cunningham: Suffers one thing after another. 00:45:03 Erick Chastain: God seems to use difficult circumstances and anxiety-provoking situations to systematically destroy our self-reliance. Especially when we try to solve the situations as st isaac says, when we try to do so naturally in part. 00:45:25 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "God seems to use d..." with 👍 00:45:26 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "I sometimes wonder i…" with 👍 00:55:36 Ben: Isaac himself lost his sight, didn't he? Did it literally happen to him, I wonder, what the psalm says? 01:10:23 Jesssica Imanaka: Speaking of this surety in religious life, I need to hop off to attend Vespers now! 01:10:29 Ryan Ngeve: Father is it possible for watchfulness to lead to a type of self-absorption? If so, how and how does one overcome it. 01:18:31 John ‘Jack’: Likewise 01:18:32 Julie: Thank you Father 01:18:34 Paul Grazal: wonderful !  getting through loud and clear Father 01:18:41 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You  everyone  Blessing Father so thankful for your teachings 01:18:41 Kevin Burke: Amen! 01:18:43 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:19:22 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:19:24 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:19:32 Francisco Ingham: Thank you father! 01:20:03 Maureen Cunningham: Just tell me how much to send and were 01:20:07 Andrew Adams: Sign me up 01:20:11 Rod Castillo: Please count me in for both books 01:20:11 Jessica McHale: You are such a blessing!!!! Thank you! Many prayers! 01:20:12 Kevin Burke: Watchful mind!

Lenten Retreat 2026 Fourth Reflection The Man Who Has Nothing Left But God On the Life That Appears When the Self That Lived Has Died “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20 There comes a moment that the man cannot perceive directly, because the one who would perceive it is no longer there. He has passed through the loss of support. He has passed through the disappearance of certainty. He has passed through the collapse of identity. He has passed through the experience of abandonment in which he could no longer locate himself in relation to God or even in relation to himself. He has stood where nothing remained to sustain the sense that he existed. He did not cross this threshold through effort. He did not achieve it through discipline. He did not arrive there through understanding. He arrived there because everything he used to sustain himself had been taken. And he did not die. This is the first revelation. He did not die. The self he knew has disappeared. The structure that allowed him to experience continuity has dissolved. The identity he inhabited cannot be recovered. And yet he remains. But he does not remain as he was. Before this, he experienced himself as existing from himself. Even in humility. Even in repentance. Even in dependence on God, he remained the one who depended. He remained the center from which his life was lived. Now this center cannot be found. 1 He cannot locate himself as the source of his own existence. He cannot experience himself as self originating. He exists. But not from himself. The Psalmist speaks from within this mystery when he says, “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” Psalm 62:8 Before this, the man believed he clung to God. He believed his faith held him in relation to God. He believed his perseverance sustained his life. Now he sees that even his clinging was sustained. He sees that he has never lived by his own strength. He sees that he has never possessed life in himself. St. Symeon the New Theologian writes that when grace reveals itself fully, the soul sees that it has always existed by borrowed life. Not poetic life. Actual life. The man now experiences himself as upheld. Not helped. Upheld. This produces a peace that cannot be explained to the man who still lives from himself. Because the man who lives from himself must constantly preserve himself. He must maintain continuity. He must protect identity. 2 He must secure stability. He must ensure that he continues. Fear is inseparable from this condition. Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of death. Fear of disappearance. But the man who no longer lives from himself cannot preserve himself. Because he no longer possesses himself. Christ says, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25 This finding is not recovery. It is discovery. The discovery that life was never his. The discovery that existence belongs to God. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that the man who has come to know his nothingness has come to know the truth of his existence. Nothingness does not mean nonexistence. It means the absence of autonomous existence. The man exists entirely in God. St. Paul says, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28 Before this, these words were believed. Now they are known. 3 Not as thought. As being. The man no longer moves toward God. He moves in Him. He no longer depends on God as one thing depends on another. He exists as one upheld from within. Christ says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” John 15:4 This abiding is not effort. It is the end of resistance. The man no longer attempts to ground himself. He no longer attempts to preserve himself. He no longer attempts to exist from himself. These movements have ended. Because the one who performed them has died. St. Silouan the Athonite writes that the soul that has come to know God through the Holy Spirit no longer fears anything. This fearlessness does not arise from strength. It arises from dispossession. Nothing remains to be protected. Nothing remains to be preserved. Nothing remains to be secured. The man exists. 4 But he does not belong to himself. St. Sophrony writes that the human person becomes fully real only when he ceases to exist as an autonomous center. Autonomy is the consequence of separation from God. Communion is the restoration of life. The man who lives in communion no longer experiences himself as isolated existence. He experiences himself as relation. Relation becomes the ground of his being. This does not remove suffering. It removes separation. The man still suffers. He still experiences uncertainty. He still experiences weakness. But these no longer threaten his existence. Because his existence is no longer located where suffering occurs. Christ says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Kingdom belongs to those who possess nothing. Because possession creates separation. The man who possesses nothing exists without separation. St. John the Baptist expresses this final truth with terrifying clarity. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30 This decrease is not moral humility. 5 It is ontological disappearance. The self that lived apart from God has ended. What remains is life. Not his life. God’s life. St. Paul writes, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3 Hidden. Not visible. Not possessed. Hidden. The man no longer experiences himself as possessing life. He experiences life as possessing him. This is resurrection. Not after death. Now. The man who has nothing left but God discovers that he has lost nothing. Because nothing he lost was life. And what remains cannot be lost. Because it is God Himself. And there is no one left to live apart from Him. ⸻ 6 This life does not appear as triumph. It appears as quiet. It appears as simplicity. It appears as the absence of self concern. Because the one who was concerned for himself has died. Christ says, “Do not be anxious about your life.” Matthew 6:25 This command is impossible for the man who lives from himself. Because he must preserve himself. He must anticipate loss. He must guard against death. But the man who no longer lives from himself has nothing to guard. Nothing to preserve. Nothing to secure. His life is no longer his responsibility. It is God’s. St. Peter speaks this truth plainly, “Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 Not as comfort. As ontology. The man no longer carries himself. He is carried. 7 St. Silouan writes that when the soul comes to know this life, it desires nothing else. Even suffering cannot remove its peace, because its life is no longer located in what suffers. The body may weaken. The mind may grow silent. The world may collapse. But the life remains. Because it is not created life. It is participation in uncreated life. Christ says, “Because I live, you will live also.” John 14:19 Not because you are strong. Not because you are faithful. Because I live. Archimandrite Sophrony writes that at this stage, man begins to live hypostatically. He exists no longer as an isolated psychological individual, but as a person whose being is rooted in the divine Person of Christ. This life is hidden even from the man himself. He cannot grasp it. He cannot analyze it. He cannot possess it. He can only live it. This is why the saints appear ordinary. They do not experience themselves as extraordinary. They experience themselves as nothing. 8 And precisely in this nothingness, God becomes everything. Abba Macarius said, “The man who has truly come to know himself sees himself as beneath all creation.” Not as metaphor. As reality. Because he no longer lives from himself. God alone lives in him. Archimandrite Zacharias writes that when this life appears, prayer becomes self acting. The heart continues in God without effort. The man no longer generates prayer. Prayer becomes the life of God within him. St. Paul speaks of this mystery, “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26 Not we pray. The Spirit prays. The man has become the place where God lives. This is why fear disappears. Not because suffering ends. But because death has already occurred. The man has already lost himself. There is nothing left to lose. Christ says, “He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” John 11:25 This is not only future. It is present. 9 The man has died. And now lives. This life cannot be destroyed. Because it is not his. It is Christ. St. Ignatius of Antioch, walking toward martyrdom, said, “It is no longer I who live, but there is within me a living water that speaks and says, Come to the Father.” This is the voice of the life that remains. The life that appears when the self that lived has died. This is the final dismantling. The end of autonomy. The end of separation. The end of the illusion of self existence. And the beginning of life. The man who has nothing left but God discovers that God is everything. And that this is enough. And that it has always been enough. And that there is no one left to live apart from Him. 10 --- Text of chat during the group: 00:02:25 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: From the dismantling of the religious ego there emerges first a profound poverty of heart. The man who once relied upon his virtues, his understanding, or his religious identity discovers that none of these can sustain him before God. What comes into being in this poverty is humility—not as an idea about oneself, but as a quiet truthfulness. The soul no longer needs to defend itself, justify itself, or measure its progress. Having seen its own weakness and the mercy of God, the heart becomes simple and soft. Compassion begins to arise almost without effort, because the man now recognizes in others the same frailty he has discovered within himself. Prayer also changes in character. It is no longer the activity of someone seeking spiritual achievement, but the cry of a heart that knows its need for God and rests in His mercy. 00:02:40 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: From this humility something deeper is gradually born: a new way of existing before God and others. The person who once lived within the tight circle of self-concern begins to expand inwardly. Peace appears—not the fragile peace that depends on circumstances or success, but a deeper stillness that comes from having nothing left to protect or prove. The heart becomes capable of bearing others, interceding for them, and loving without calculation. In the language of the fathers and the modern elders, this is the beginning of true personhood: the birth of a man whose life is no longer organized around the maintenance of the self, but around communion with God. What emerges from the dismantling of the religious ego, therefore, is not spiritual ruin but a hidden new life—humble, spacious, and quietly alive with the presence of God. 00:31:43 Bob Čihák, AZ: These paradoxes remind me of Chesterton's. 00:39:44 Adam Paige: Reacted to "These paradoxes remi…" with 👍 00:53:43 Eleana Urrego: Virgen Mary was not a powerful woman 01:02:32 Francisco Ingham: “What remains is Life” So beautiful Father, life giving words 01:03:23 Maureen Cunningham: It Beautiful 01:05:01 David Swiderski, WI: Some of the holiest people who seem to carry an aura or sense of peace have often had very traumatic and bad experiences and most not priest or monks but ordinary people. Others when confronted with the same become narcissists and hold the illusion of being successful.  There is a sense of joy felt being around them and sadness in leaving them.  It seems that tearing down of anything tying us to things of this world is often a blessing. When you have nothing left to depend on there is only faith then the smallest things and kindnesses become treasures that were invisible in the past. That point seems an invitation for us unencumbered by things of this world to draw closer to the source of all that is good. I think all of us can look at a younger version of ourselves not recognizing that person as us but almost as a stranger with the thought- what was I (that person) thinking. Humility, loss, repentance seem to lead us to see not with our eyes but a glimpse of what He sees. 01:07:57 Francisco Ingham: Reacted to "Some of the holiest …" with ❤️ 01:36:53 Danny Moulton: I couldn’t help but think of Aquinas and his sudden awareness that his work was “straw.” I wonder if he experienced the transformation you mention. In other words, a shedding of himself to live fully in God. 01:37:50 Maureen Cunningham: When you say become prayer does that mean you are no longer requesting 01:38:31 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Reacted to "Some of the holies..." with ❤️ 01:38:35 Fr Martin, Arizona: Certainly, as you spoke today, I felt myself drawn into this desire to live in the breath of love, that God is enough, upheld in love. It seems to make sense somewhere within me. Will I still maintain this sense or thought when my pastoral counsel tells me what it wants in the parish at our meeting tomorrow? I’m sad that I too often find myself in myself again. 01:38:42 Danny Moulton: Reacted to "Some of the holiest ..." with ❤️ 01:40:09 Ben: Anna; That anecdote of St. Philip Neri bursting into tears at the party and the teaching that we will no longer see the sins and faults of our neighbour seem to contradict each other. 01:45:00 iPhone: As one makes spiritual progress is some of the fear rooted more in entering the unknown? I think a big part of identity is centered on social relationships. How might this be an impediment in one’s spiritual journey? Is it a spiritual mourning to lose those aspects/sources of one’s identity? 01:53:20 Parnak K.: He went through severe trauma as a child then again in his late adolescence, when he had nothing to live for, and wanted to die.  He somehow held on, after “surviving” on alcohol and another addiction.  Finally, after managing to achieve a false appearance of being successful, a deep sense of emptiness and loss finally hit him. He surrendered to God and asked Him to come back in his life.  His life changed.  He received the sacraments once more, only now with real meaning.  But still, he did not receive the total transformation described here, even though he was thoroughly dismantled and God restored him to life. 01:53:25 Jared: I struggle to harmonize God's command to provide and care for my family with his command to not be anxious for anything. I know that in myself I do not have the ability to care for them as I should, yet I often live as though everything depends on me. I don't trust God enough to make up for my deficiencies. Also, I worry about bad things happening to my family because I know it will also bring me deep pain. My identity is bound up with them. Sometimes, I wonder if God is calling me to make difficult decisions, but I hesitate to make them because I wonder how those decisions will affect my family's security. God cares for me and my family more than I do, more than I can ever imagine. Why can't I trust him whole-heartedly and without reserve? Why can't I let go and stop holding on so tightly to my both my family and my sense of responsibility for them? 01:57:01 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Reacted to "I struggle to harm..." with 👍 02:00:27 Jessica McHale: This retreat has clarified something I’ve struggled with for eight years and thought six relocations. I’ve been searching for 'community' as a way to find a home, but I realize now that God has been stripping away that desire to show me something greater. I am not going to find Him in a parish, a group, or an identity with a community; I will only find Him in Himself. This isn't a punishment, but a beautiful reality: He is enough. While community is a gift, it is not my 'destination.' Thank you for helping me confirm that He is all I truly need and to focus on that union. 02:01:00 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Reacted to "This retreat has c..." with ❤️ 02:01:38 Sophia Bomba: Reacted to "This retreat has c..." with ❤️ 02:01:47 David Swiderski, WI: Reacted to "This retreat has cla..." with 👍 02:02:01 Danny Moulton: Reacted to "This retreat has cla..." with ❤️ 02:06:16 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. Where 75 gather on Zoom He is present :) 02:06:26 Julie: Thankyou Father🙏 02:06:38 Rita’s iPhone: Thank you! 02:06:43 Jesssica Imanaka: Reacted to "Thank you Father may..." with ❤️ 02:06:44 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Thank you, Father. This was wonderful. God bless you. 02:06:44 Jared: Thank you very much for these talks Father! They've made me think a lot. 02:06:45 Janine: So wonderful! And you explained it clearly! Thank you! 02:06:48 Gwen’s iPhone: Thank you. Prayers. 02:07:00 kristy: Thank you! 02:07:03 Jessica McHale: Hallelujah! Thank you, Father and God bless you and your mother. Many prayers!!! 02:07:04 Ivan: Thank you! 02:07:07 Bob Čihák, AZ: I pray for you every day, Father 02:07:44 Sophia Bomba: Thank you Fr. This was a wonderful retreat. 02:07:44 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father, for the amazing retreat! 02:07:47 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 02:07:59 Jesssica Imanaka: Thank you, Father! 02:08:12 Erick Chastain: Thank you fr

“Faith has need of labors also, and confidence in God is the good witness of the conscience born of undergoing hardship for the virtues.” — St. Isaac the Syrian ⸻ There is a sobriety in St. Isaac’s teaching on hope that cuts through every illusion of easy religion. He will not allow hope to become sentiment, nor will he permit it to be reduced to a desperate cry uttered only when life begins to collapse. The man whose heart is buried in earthly concerns, he says, eats “dust with the serpent.” His life is absorbed by distraction, indulgence, and negligence toward God. Yet when affliction comes he suddenly raises his hands and declares: “I shall hope in God.” For Isaac this is not hope at all. It is self-deception. True hope does not arise magically in moments of crisis. It is born slowly through a relationship with God cultivated over time through labor, repentance, and love. The soul that hopes in God has already spent itself for Him. It has struggled to keep His commandments. It has endured hardship for the sake of virtue. Hope therefore becomes the quiet testimony of a conscience that knows it has been walking with God. Faith without such labor is like grasping the wind. One cannot claim confidence in God while living carelessly before Him. Hope grows only in the soil of a life turned toward God with sincerity and effort. Yet Isaac’s realism never becomes harsh. Even as he exposes the foolishness of a man who suddenly invokes God in the midst of self-inflicted trouble, he does not deny the mystery of divine mercy. God remains long-suffering. Even the negligent are often protected by a providence they scarcely notice. A traveler may unknowingly pass through danger — a wild beast, a murderer, a serpent hidden in the road — and yet be preserved by circumstances quietly arranged by God. This preservation is not a reward. It is mercy. In this way Isaac draws the reader into a profoundly relational vision of faith. God is not a mechanism to be activated in moments of distress. Nor is hope a formula that guarantees relief. Rather, hope grows within a living relationship between the human heart and the God who desires that heart. God seeks us patiently. But hope becomes real only when we begin to seek Him in return. Thus Isaac leads the soul away from both presumption and despair. He calls us to a hope that is sober, honest, and deeply human — a hope born not from passivity but from love. The one who labors for God, who sweats in His husbandry, who struggles to keep faith even in weakness, gradually discovers that confidence in God begins to take root within him. Hope then becomes something quiet and strong. Not a cry of desperation. But the steady trust of a heart that has learned, through labor and repentance, to live before God. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:10:07 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 182, #3, first paragraph 00:19:03 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 182, #3, first paragraph 00:40:42 Jessica McHale: When I am very tired, and I pray Vespers or Compline, I sometimes move through the psalms with inattention and just moving through because I am so tired. At those times, is it better to give 2 lines of attention to God or push through all the psalms? I love praying the Hours, but when I am so tired after a long day (for a variety of reasons), it can be a challenge to really be with the Lord when praying. 00:41:27 Wayne: Reacted to "When I am very tired..." with 👍 00:43:47 Nypaver Clan: Page # ? 00:44:08 Jesssica Imanaka: 182 00:44:12 Myles Davidson: Replying to "Page # ?" 182 00:44:15 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "182" with ❤️ 00:44:30 Myles Davidson: Replying to "Page # ?" About to start last paragraph 00:48:55 John ‘Jack’: I’m often taken how we/one can say “ how can a good God let these bad things happen” yet we spend minimal time in prayer worship. Why would we expect blessings of a relational love of God when we don’t show him love. 00:48:56 Ryan Ngeve: Father, isn’t the very act of toiling for God an act of hope itself? 01:03:31 David Swiderski, WI: I have been trying to follow the Kathisma which I like for Matins but to be honest the vespers with the daily repeat of 18 feels tiresome for some reason. Just wondering why the matins changes each day but the vespers only has the same group over and over. 01:07:00 Jessica McHale: I use a Melkite breviary and the Kathisma for vespers does change. Orthros is very long. It's been great for me to get to know the psalms much more by following the Kathisma. 01:08:59 Myles Davidson: Th 1962 Breviary and previous in the Latin rite work on a weekly cycle 01:10:10 Joan Chakonas: I find consolation in reminding myself, when annoyed by something as mundane as being stuck behind a school bus, that its Gods will that I am stuck behind the school bus at this moment.  My annoyance evaporates and This gift from God is like gold to me.  His will is something I’ve been focusing on this Lent-it is so consoling to keep this in mind . 01:10:57 ROBERT IAROPOLI: Reacted to "I find consolation..." with ❤️ 01:13:08 Jesssica Imanaka: Reacted to "I find consolation i..." with ❤️ 01:13:09 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "I find consolation i..." with 👍🏼 01:13:26 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "I find consolation i…" with ❤️ 01:13:33 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "I find consolation..." with ❤️ 01:13:36 Ben: Reacted to "I find consolation i..." with ❤️ 01:14:37 Ben: Anna: Is it helpful to do penance for all the sins we would have commit but God saved us from? 01:16:44 Fr Martin, Arizona: I still today have seen God rescue people as Isaac says. Trust God. On my way to Pittsburgh my connecting flight arrived late, I still prayed and went to the gate. The plane to Pittsburgh had boarded, closed the door, and the clerk called inside the plane and told them to open the door and let me on. I've never seen that before. I've sometimes been frustrated by being delayed to find out that God had a reason for my delay. Even delays build my faith and trust in God. 01:19:10 David Swiderski, WI: Every day, a farmer relied on his horse to work his fields. One day, the horse ran away. The villagers said, “Such bad luck,” but the farmer replied, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?” Weeks later, the horse returned with a herd of nine more. The villagers cheered his “good luck,” but he gave the same calm reply. Later, the farmer’s son tried to tame one of the new horses, fell, and broke his leg. Again the villagers lamented the “bad luck,” and again the farmer said, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?” A month later, the army came through town, conscripting every able-bodied young man. Seeing the son’s broken leg, they passed him by. The villagers celebrated the farmer’s “good luck,” but he simply repeated, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?” 01:19:28 David Swiderski, WI: My Uncle used to tell me this story when I was young I still remember it fondly 01:20:12 Elizabeth Richards: Reacted to "My Uncle used to tel..." with ❤️ 01:20:24 Julie: Reacted to "Every day, a farmer …" with ❤️ 01:20:32 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "Every day, a farmer …" with ❤️ 01:20:36 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "My Uncle used to tel..." with ❤️ 01:20:53 Catherine Opie: Yes if I get frustrated or anxious that my plans will not come to fruition I am missing all the gifts God is offering me in the moment. 01:22:58 Maureen Cunningham: Lord’s Blessing to all . Thank You Father 01:23:11 Janine: Thank you Father! 01:23:43 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father, may God bless you your mother and this group. 01:23:44 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:23:52 Joan Chakonas: Thank you Father 01:23:53 Elizabeth Richards: Amen- peace to you Father 01:23:54 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father 01:23:56 Jessica McHale: Thank you!!! Many prayers!

A brother said to an elder, “Father, what is calumny?” The elder said, “Death.” The brother was troubled. “I did not strike anyone.” The elder said, “You struck your brother with your tongue.” Silence fell between them. The elder continued, “A man may fast. He may keep vigil. He may pray the Psalms all night. But if he speaks against his brother, he destroys everything.” The brother asked, “Even if what he says is true?” The elder said, “Truth spoken without love is a knife.” The brother lowered his head. “What then is condemnation?” The elder replied, “When a man sees the sin of his brother and says in his heart, ‘I know what this man is.’” The elder struck the ground with his staff. “Only God knows what a man is.” Silence. The brother spoke again, “Father, sometimes others speak against a brother in my presence. What should I do?” The elder said, “Close the door.” The brother did not understand. The elder explained, “Close the door of your ears.” “If you listen, the fire enters you.” The brother said, “And if I agree with them?” The elder said, “Then you have lit the fire yourself.” The brother trembled. The elder said, “Many think the sin is speaking.” “It begins earlier.” “It begins when the heart enjoys hearing evil.” The brother whispered, “Why is this sin so grave?” The elder said, “Because the man who condemns his brother leaves the place of the sinner and sits in the place of God.” The elder looked at him sharply. “And God does not share His throne.” A long silence passed. The brother said, “What must I do if someone begins to malign another?” The elder replied, “Say this: ‘I am worse than he. I cannot judge anyone.’” “In this way you save your soul.” The brother said, “And if I have already spoken evil?” The elder said, “Go to your brother. Bow to the ground. Say, ‘Forgive me. I have killed you with my tongue.’” The brother lifted his eyes. “Is it truly so serious?” The elder said, “The serpent expelled Eve from Paradise with a whisper.” Silence returned. Then the elder spoke one final word. “If you wish to know whether the grace of God lives in you, watch your mouth.” “The mouth that blesses is alive.” “The mouth that condemns is already dead.”

Third Reflection Lenten Retreat 2026 When God Begins to Take Everything On the Delusion of Belonging to God While Still Belonging to Oneself “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46 There comes a point in the spiritual life when the man can no longer recognize himself. Until this point, he has struggled with visible things. With sins. With distractions. With passions that moved through his body and mind. He struggled to restrain them. He struggled to purify himself. He struggled to become faithful. This struggle had structure. It had direction. It had meaning. He could see what he was fighting. He could measure progress. He could recognize failure and repentance. He lived with the sense that he was moving toward God. Even when he failed, he knew where he stood. Even when he fell, he knew he could rise. His existence had continuity. His identity had stability. He was a man seeking God. He knew himself as such. Then something begins to happen that he cannot understand. God removes not sin, but support. Not temptation, but stability. Not rebellion, but ground. 1 Prayer continues, but something within it has disappeared. The words remain. The effort remains. The intention remains. But life has receded. He speaks to God, but he does not experience being heard. He calls, but nothing answers. He remembers when prayer gave him warmth, when the name of Christ carried sweetness, when he felt himself held in a presence greater than himself. Now that presence cannot be found. He does not know whether it has left or whether he has. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that there is a stage in which God withdraws the perceptible operation of grace so that the soul may be taught that it does not possess Him. This withdrawal is not punishment. It is revelation. Until this point, the man believed he depended on God. Now he sees that he depended on his experience of God. He depended on the stability that experience gave him. He depended on the sense that he knew where he stood. This sense has now been taken. He no longer knows where he stands. He no longer knows what he is. He no longer knows how to locate himself before God. Evagrios says that when grace withdraws, the soul is handed over to knowledge of its own powerlessness. 2 Not intellectual knowledge. Existential knowledge. The man discovers that he cannot produce even the smallest movement toward God by his own strength. He cannot restore what has been taken. He cannot recover the life he once knew. He cannot make himself alive again. This knowledge terrifies him. Because until now, he has lived with the assumption that he existed. That he endured. That he remained himself across time. That his relationship with God was something he inhabited. Now even this has dissolved. He experiences groundlessness. Not emotional instability. Ontological groundlessness. He cannot find the place within himself from which he once lived. St. Macarius the Great says that until the soul passes through abandonment, it cannot be freed from the illusion that it possesses life. This illusion is so subtle that even humility cannot destroy it. The man may believe he is nothing. He may confess his weakness. He may acknowledge his dependence. And still exist as the center of his own life. 3 God removes this center. Not suddenly. But completely. The man cannot stop this process. He cannot preserve himself. He cannot secure himself. Everything he relied on to know himself has been taken. This produces the deepest temptation. Not the temptation to sin. The temptation to restore himself. To rebuild identity. To recover stability. To become again the one he was. Many do this unconsciously. They reconstruct their religious self. They recover certainty. They regain structure. They resume existing as before. And they lose something they do not understand. They lose the possibility of union. Because union requires the disappearance of the one who lives apart from God. St. Paul writes with terrifying clarity, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3 4 Hidden. Not strengthened. Not improved. Hidden. The man can no longer find himself. Because he no longer exists where he once lived. Christ entered this darkness fully. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He entered the experience of abandonment. Not because He had lost the Father. But because He had surrendered every human ground. He stood where man stands when nothing remains. So that man could stand there and live. St. Silouan says, “Keep thy mind in hell and despair not.” Hell is the place where every support has been removed. Where the self cannot preserve itself. Where existence depends entirely on God. The ego cannot survive here. This is its death. The man who remains here without turning back passes beyond himself. But he does not yet know this. He knows only loss. 5 Only absence. Only the disappearance of the one he believed himself to be. This is the threshold of resurrection. But resurrection cannot yet be seen. Only death can be seen. And the man must remain. ⸻ This is the most terrible mercy God gives to those He draws near. Because as long as the man can still find himself, he still lives from himself. As long as he can still locate stability within his own experience, he has not yet been born of God. Christ said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 Remains alone. Even if it is righteous. Even if it is faithful. Even if it believes itself to belong to God. As long as it remains intact, it remains alone. St. Sophrony writes that God allows the soul to descend into this darkness so that it may learn to exist from Him alone and not from any created support, including its own experience of grace. This descent feels like death because it is death. The death of psychological continuity. The death of spiritual self recognition. The death of the one who could say, I am the one who prays. 6 Now prayer continues. But the one who prayed cannot be found. The Jesus Prayer may still be spoken. The lips may still move. The mind may still form the words. But the center from which it once came has been shattered. The man stands before God without himself. This is why the psalmist cries, “I am forgotten like one dead, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.” Psalm 30:12 LXX Forgotten. Broken. Without place. Without continuity. Without self possession. St. Isaac says that when the soul enters this stage, it feels itself suspended between existence and non existence. It cannot return to what it was. It cannot yet see what it will become. It cannot move forward. It cannot move back. It can only remain. This remaining is crucifixion. Christ did not descend from the Cross. 7 He remained. He did not preserve Himself. He entrusted Himself. “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.” Luke 23:46 This is the final act of abandonment. Not abandonment by God. Abandonment of oneself into God. Archimandrite Zacharias writes that at this stage, man learns true obedience. Not obedience of action, but obedience of being. He no longer acts from himself. He no longer preserves himself. He exists in radical dependence. This dependence feels like non existence. Because the ego cannot live this way. The ego requires ground. Continuity. Self possession. Identity. God removes all of it. Not to destroy the person. But to reveal the person. Because the person does not exist in himself. The person exists in God. St. Paul writes, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28 Not alongside Him. Not with assistance from Him. 8 In Him. When this is seen, the man understands that his previous life, even his spiritual life, was sustained by illusion. He believed he lived. He believed he endured. He believed he remained. Now he sees that he does not possess existence. Existence is given. Moment by moment. Breath by breath. “God withdraws His breath, and they perish and return to their dust.” Psalm 103:29 LXX The man feels this. Not as theology. As reality. He feels that if God does not sustain him, he will cease. Not morally. Ontologically. This is why fear arises. Not fear of punishment. Fear of non being. But if the man remains, something begins to happen that he cannot yet perceive. A new center begins to emerge. 9 Not located within himself. Located in God. Christ begins to live where the ego once lived. This is why St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Galatians 2:20 Not metaphor. Ontological fact. The old center has died. A new center has been given. St. Silouan writes that when man descends into this hell and remains with faith, the Lord Himself becomes his life. Not as comfort. As existence. The man no longer lives toward God. He lives from God. But before this becomes clear, there is only darkness. Only abandonment. Only the terrible silence of God. St. Sophrony says that this silence is not absence, but the deepest form of presence. God is acting beyond perception, dismantling the final illusion that man possesses himself. The man feels forsaken. But he is being carried. He feels abandoned. 10 But he is being born. This is the third dismantling. Not the destruction of sin. Not the destruction of righteousness. The destruction of the illusion that one belongs to God while still belonging to oneself. God takes everything. Even the man’s experience of belonging to Him. So that the man may finally belong to Him completely. And the man must remain. Without returning. Without rebuilding. Without preserving anything. He must remain in the darkness where Christ Himself stood. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And wait for the life that only God can give. 11

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 St. Isaac places hope after the first labor of virtue for a reason. A man must first discover that his virtues cannot save him. He fasts. He keeps vigil. He disciplines the body. He restrains the passions. He learns obedience to the commandments. Yet even after these labors something remains uncertain within him. The heart still trembles before the future. The mind still calculates. The soul still tries to secure itself. Virtue alone does not destroy fear. Because fear is rooted in the illusion that life depends upon us. So Isaac begins to speak about hope. Not optimism. Not religious comfort. Not the quiet belief that God will make things easier. Divine hope is something far more terrible. Divine hope appears when a man finally believes the words of Christ. “Make no provision for the flesh.” The man who hopes in God no longer arranges his life around survival. He arranges it around God. This is why Isaac describes the man who ceases to give thought to worldly provision. Such a man has not become careless. He has become free. He has discovered something the world does not understand. God is not an idea that accompanies life. God is life. The world trains us to think first about preservation. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Security. Reputation. Position. The future. Even religious men often organize their spiritual life around these concerns. They seek God but only after they have secured themselves. Christ reverses this order. Seek first the Kingdom. Not second. Not after your plans are settled. Not after the future is secured. First. When this commandment is believed, everything changes. Afflictions no longer appear as threats. Loss no longer appears as catastrophe. Uncertainty no longer produces panic. The man who hopes in God has already placed his life in God’s hands. Nothing remains to defend. This is why the saints could live with such strange freedom. They possessed little. They planned little. They secured little. Yet they lacked nothing. The world itself began to serve them. Not because they controlled the world but because they had already abandoned it. Divine hope therefore exposes the false hope that governs most lives. False hope says God will protect the life I am building. True hope says God Himself is my life. False hope clings to stability. True hope walks where Christ walks. Into uncertainty. Into poverty. Into the wilderness. Into the Cross. And yet the man who walks there does not despair. Because he has discovered something greater than safety. He has discovered the faithfulness of God. This is why Isaac places hope after the discipline of virtue. Virtue trains the body. Hope gives the heart to God. Without hope the ascetic life becomes anxiety dressed in religious clothing. With hope the man becomes light. He lives before God without calculation. He labors. He prays. He stands watch over the heart. And he entrusts everything else to the mercy of God. Such a man has begun to believe the Gospel. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:38:12 Janine: Happy are you poor 00:40:55 Jessica McHale: I feel as though the money, savings, job, housing I have is all a gift from God. My life has been a little complicated and I see these material things as passing--I don't have hope in them at all--but I feel blessed at what's He's given me. My job allows me to say the Hours and attend Divine Liturgy or Mass daily. If I lose all material things, it's no loss. God will provide. Living simply, even though I have security in "savings etc" makes me really see how unimportant material things are. I don't need most things the average person needs. I have a long way to holiness though, :). But this helps me to try to focus on God throughout the day and become more "ascetic" in the modern world. Praise God. 00:45:46 Nypaver Clan: Page # ? 00:45:50 Anthony: There are people Our Lord did not call to follow Him in the evangelical counsels.  The Gadarene demonic.  The man blind from birth. Even Nicodemus. Maybe I'm trying to justify myself, but I wonder if the evangelical counsels are for some people but not others 00:45:59 Andrew Adams: Replying to "Page # ?" 182 00:46:02 Eleana Urrego: 182 00:46:09 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "182" with 👍 00:46:15 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "182" with 👍 00:47:25 Julie: Today’s reading was similar to this ,Luke 16:19-31 00:48:28 Eleana Urrego: I have joy in poverty because I can see the divine providence in action ❤️ 00:53:43 David Swiderski, WI: This makes me think about a popular book called the "Secret" which seems like self worship and strange but I have met a lot of people who feel this is their truth. It seems empty and controlling eliminating a focus on God, family, empathy a lot of what makes life worth living. It has also been recommended to some friends by psychologist and some businesses. I have seen Presidents and VPs of large multinationals spending time before days or meetings speaking to mirrors with positive statements on how great they are, how they are winners which almost seems like prayers and worship to the ego. 00:54:31 Myles Davidson: Reacted to "This makes me think ..." with 👍 00:54:47 Eleana Urrego: Demonic 00:55:02 Kevin Burke: Reacted to "Demonic" with 👌 00:55:15 David Swiderski, WI: The new generation uses their phones not mirrors anymore. :) 00:55:38 Robert Iaropoli: Father, am I being asked to embrace hopelessness in self? I was embarresed and resistant of taking such a view for a long time bc I really wanted to be seen as and feel that I am a competant, powerful, self relient man, and I dont like ducking out of a fight, but experience tells me that that attitude  just leads me to getting the snot kicked out of me. 01:01:25 Joan Chakonas: If you talk to God throughout the day He brings you where you need to be in that very moment.  Like he brought me to the philokalia ministeries through my friend Janine.  Monday night was a seismic wake up to stop my idle internet browsing because I chose to take the guidance of the fathers seriously.  I expect to fail often but I will keep trying and believe I will succeed with His help.  Just a thought 01:06:56 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "If you talk to God t..." with ❤️ 01:11:15 Jesssica Imanaka: The footnote on trust and confidence on p. 181 seems important in terms of understanding what hope really means. 01:15:27 Gwen’s iPhone: Fr Freeman’s book “Everywhere Present” has life changing for me. 01:16:57 David Swiderski, WI: My Grandfather explained hope to me with this saying: We all fall, we all have times we are on knees but the person with faith and hope can be seen because he always have their arm outstretched trying to reach God. And sometimes our fingertips feel his presence.

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Psalm 13 A man stole two sheep and thought he could seal the theft with holy words. He walked toward the monastery with perjury already formed in his mouth. He believed that if he spoke boldly enough before the relics, heaven would remain silent. This is how sin matures. Not in ignorance, but in presumption. He did not merely lie. He invoked God as witness to his lie. We imagine that oaths make us strong. In truth they expose our pride. The man who swears lightly believes he commands reality. The fathers say it is better not to swear at all. Even truth becomes dangerous when uttered without trembling. Kyriakos feared losing two sheep more than losing his soul. And so the mercy of God came to him as blows. We recoil at the severity. But what is more severe. A body struck in the night or a conscience hardened forever. The vision stripped him of speech. That is the beginning of repentance. The tongue that dared to manipulate God fell silent before Him. And then we are told something equally sharp. Another man swore not to forgive. He placed hatred beneath the Cross and called it fidelity. How often do we do the same. We baptize resentment with pious language. We defend our implacability as righteousness. We call stubbornness integrity. The elder smiled because he saw the absurdity. To swear by Christ in order to disobey Christ is madness. Repentance broke the oath. Mercy broke pride. Reconciliation restored life. Then the mothers and fathers speak of something quieter but just as deadly. Calumny. We think murder requires blood. The desert says it begins with a whisper. To listen to slander is already to participate in it. The ear becomes the accomplice of the tongue. The heart is kneaded with yeast that does not belong to it. St Synkletike says some people feed on this. It is recreation. We leave prayer and feed on stories about others. We speak of faults not to heal but to taste superiority. When we do this, prayer rots. The face of our brother becomes distorted. We no longer see an icon. We see an accusation. The fathers tell us to become as one who hears not. This is harder than speaking. Silence requires humility. It requires the refusal to be entertained by another’s fall. The man who guards his tongue guards his soul. The man who refuses to swear lightly refuses to command God. The man who will not receive a vain report protects Paradise at the gate of his ear. We want refined spirituality. The desert gives us something simpler. Fear God. Guard your mouth. Refuse the whisper. Break the oath of hatred. And if you have dared to lie before Him, fall silent quickly. Better a bruised pride than a hardened heart. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:44 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 360, Hypothesis 48, A 00:10:52 Anna Lalonde: Hey Fr Charbel! I signed up for Saturday and I haven't gotten any emails so don't have time or zoom link. 00:11:34 Anna Lalonde: Yes I checked junk mail 00:14:56 kristy: I found it the way it was thank you! 00:16:39 Joan Chakonas: I just search under philokalia ministeries and it pops up everytime 00:17:09 Anna Lalonde: [email protected] 00:17:38 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 360, Hypothesis 48, A 00:22:25 Anna Lalonde: The emails from "Fr. Charbel Abernethy" are going to my Gmail "Promotions" box not my "Inbox" so I miss them. The emails from "Father Charbel" for weekly meetings come in my inbox. 00:35:07 Anthony: Kriakos must have been very serious to be carried by an ass, clip-clop what I presume are rough roads in his condition. I was hoping for a different ending. 00:40:28 John ‘Jack’: I was told years ago during  confession that “thoughts are not sins” that never set well with me, what are your thoughts on this ? 00:42:46 John ‘Jack’: Reacted to "I was told years ago…" with 👍 00:47:11 John ‘Jack’: Replying to "I was told years ago…" Admittedly that was back in my more scrupulous/pious  days 00:52:04 John Burmeister: provocation 00:52:22 John Burmeister: 2. momentary disturbance 00:53:54 John Burmeister: 3. communion, 4 assent, 5 prepossession, 6 passion 00:58:17 Forrest: Canon law 1196 says that a pastor (and bishops and the Pope) can dispense from private vows for a just cause provided that a dispensation does not injure a right acquired by others. 01:00:27 Anna Lalonde: What level of thought is a sin? How can we actually know when we sin from our thoughts? 01:01:45 Anthony: I read or heard that delight is an indication of sin 01:01:54 Anthony: Delight in the evil 01:03:45 John ‘Jack’: The snakes head! 01:04:18 Robert Iaropoli: Where does delusion play into the thoughts? Some ideas sound good and you dont realize your a captive too its to late? 01:04:18 John Burmeister: communion is when man becomes morally responsible for having allowed to be thought, assent is when you resovle to act 01:12:04 Angela Bellamy: I see this through the television. People love to discuss the violence and evil as entertainment. It's as though there is no understanding. 01:12:22 Joan Chakonas: Sounds like doomscrolling on x 01:13:11 Myles Davidson: Replying to "Sounds like doomscro..." I was just thinking that first paragraph describes much of social media 01:13:35 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "I was just thinking …" with 👌 01:15:12 Anthony: Is there a different standard for public figures, or for something like "I wouldn't go to that place" or "I wouldn't give to that organization" or "I don't think such a figure is being honest with the public " I definitely get the danger to our imagination. But we are people who live in a dangerous and manipulating society. 01:17:07 Jason Fischer NY: I do not watch the "news". I find it is not news. 01:20:14 Maureen Cunningham: Jer.  Ch 7 v 28 01:20:48 Jason Fischer NY: … and I believe it separates us from God. 01:21:47 Danny Moulton (Lakeside, Ohio): It supplements the earlier reading. Let our yes be yes and our no be no.... but most often let our "I don't know" be "I don't know" 01:22:09 Robert Iaropoli: Reacted to "It supplements the..." with 👍 01:23:30 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "… and I believe it s…" with ❤️ 01:24:03 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "It supplements the e…" with 👌 01:24:16 Joan Chakonas: Reacted to "I do not watch the "…" with ❤️ 01:25:41 Angela Bellamy: It's hard to take that stance for habit of self protection. 01:28:25 Angela Bellamy: I love how you said that because that's it right there, the love of Jesus is for us all. 😊 01:29:17 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You Blessings 01:29:39 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:29:41 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:29:42 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you, Father!! 01:30:03 Robert Iaropoli: Thank you Father

The Dismantling of the Religious Self Four Lenten Reflections on Delusion, Abandonment, and the Life That Remains in God “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 Second Reflection The Violence We Call Righteousness On the Ego That Survives Inside Virtue “They being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” Romans 10:3 When the man sees that fulfillment cannot be found in religious life itself, he turns toward righteousness. He disciplines himself. He purifies his conduct. He restrains his passions. He orders his thoughts. He seeks purity. Outwardly, transformation occurs. Inwardly, something remains untouched. The ego survives. It survives inside virtue. St. John Climacus writes that vainglory completes every virtue the man performs. It attaches itself to fasting. It attaches itself to prayer. It attaches itself to obedience.
 It whispers: This is yours. Virtue becomes possession. The man begins to live from righteousness. He experiences himself as stable because he is righteous. He trusts his righteousness. This trust separates him from God. Because union with God requires the loss of trust in oneself as source of life. The Pharisee stands before God and speaks truth. He fasts. He obeys. He lives faithfully. And remains separate. Because he still exists as the center of his own existence. The tax collector possesses nothing. He cannot lift his eyes. He does not trust himself. Christ says he goes home justified. Because justification belongs to the man who has nothing left to preserve. St. Isaac says that until the soul despairs of itself, it cannot rest in God. Not emotional despair. Ontological despair. The knowledge that one does not possess life. Righteousness that preserves the ego prevents union. Because union requires death. Not moral improvement. Death. The man must lose the self that lives apart from God. Virtue cannot substitute for this death. Virtue can conceal it. The ego can survive indefinitely inside righteousness. And remain alone. ⸻ This is the most dangerous stage of the spiritual life. Because sin is obvious. But righteousness can conceal separation. The sinful man knows he is sick. The righteous man believes he is alive. Christ said to the church of Laodicea, “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:17 This is not addressed to pagans. This is addressed to believers. To those who have acquired religious identity. To those who possess righteousness and draw life from it. They do not feel their need. They do not cry out. They do not seek life because they believe they possess it. This is why Christ says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:32 Not because the righteous do not need Him. But because those who believe themselves righteous cannot receive Him. They are full. And God only fills the empty. St. Sophrony writes that the greatest tragedy is when man begins to live from himself rather than from God. Even if this life is clothed in virtue, it remains separation. It remains death. Virtue can purify behavior without destroying autonomy. It can cleanse the exterior while leaving the center untouched. Christ speaks with terrifying clarity about this. “You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence.” Matthew 23:25 The outside can be purified. The inside can remain intact. The ego does not resist virtue. It feeds on virtue. It incorporates virtue into itself. It expands through virtue. It becomes righteous. And this righteousness becomes its shield against God. Because God does not come to improve the ego. He comes to crucify it. St. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Galatians 2:20 This is not metaphor. This is the destruction of the autonomous center of existence. As long as the man lives from himself, even virtuously, he remains separate. Because life belongs only to God. St. Silouan the Athonite saw this with terrible clarity. He had labored greatly. He had prayed. He had struggled. He had purified himself. And yet the Lord allowed him to descend into hell. Not because he was sinful. But because righteousness had not yet been shattered. And Christ said to him, “Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not.” Not because hell was his destination. But because only in the destruction of self trust could union be born. As long as the man stands on his own righteousness, he stands alone. Only when this ground collapses does he begin to stand in God. Archimandrite Zacharias writes that God allows even the virtuous man to see his utter poverty so that he may cease drawing life from himself. This is the blessed despair that gives birth to true life. This despair is not psychological collapse. It is ontological revelation. The revelation that without God, one does not exist. Christ says, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 Not less. Nothing. Not even righteousness. When this is seen, virtue loses its power as identity. It remains. But it no longer belongs to the man. It becomes the life of Christ within him. Before this death, virtue belongs to the ego. After this death, virtue belongs to God. This is why the saints do not trust their righteousness. They fear it. They flee from it. Abba Poemen said, “A man may appear to be silent while his heart condemns others. Such a man is talking constantly.” Outward virtue. Inward autonomy. Separation remains. Another elder said that even if a man raises the dead but trusts himself, he has lost everything. Because union is not achieved by virtue. It is achieved by death. This is why the saints see themselves as sinners even when they are purified. Not because they deny reality. But because they do not live from themselves. They live from God. St. Isaac writes that the man who has truly seen himself is greater than the man who raises the dead. Because he has seen the truth. He has seen that he does not possess life. He has seen that all righteousness belongs to God. This vision destroys the ego at its root. And only when the ego dies can God become life. Until then, righteousness remains violence. Violence against truth. Violence against union. Violence against love. Because it preserves the illusion of existence apart from God. The elder Sophrony says that as long as man attributes righteousness to himself, he remains enclosed within the prison of his own being. He cannot escape. He cannot breathe. He cannot live. Only when righteousness is lost as possession does it become life. Only when the man ceases to exist as source does God become his existence. This is why Christ says, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25 Not improves it. Finds it. Because it did not belong to him before. This is the second dismantling. Not the destruction of sinful identity. The destruction of righteous identity. Not the loss of vice. The loss of ownership of virtue. The loss of oneself as the one who lives. Until this death occurs, the ego survives. It survives inside prayer. It survives inside obedience. It survives inside humility itself. It survives inside righteousness. And remains forever alone. --- Text of chat during the group: 01:28:35 Danny Moulton (Lakeside, Ohio): I’m wondering how fear and ego interplay in producing unhealthy religiosity. It seems to me ego and fear are two sides of the same coin. Ego is fed when we think we are righteous and doing religion right, but fear calls the shots when we think we are unrighteous and doing religion wrong. It seems both can lead to obsession with something other than Divine love. The Apostle John says that perfect love drives out fear. I believe this is absolutely true, but fear sure can put up a good fight at times. 01:32:27 Fr Martin, Arizona: What do you think of this? Shortly after arriving at my first parish, I told my spiritual father about all the things I would change. He said, “Check with God. He didn’t give you the football and tell you to run with it. What if God send you there to fail?” 01:33:46 Jaden Abrams: Father, bless! I was really impacted by these last two talks, thank you very much. What change can I make today to die to myself and stop sitting next to the vine. 01:35:31 Kate: When you speak about the death of the ego, is it more like a process of dying rather than something that is accomplished once and for all?  And I find my self asking how, how does the ego die?  Is it a simultaneous process of the dying of the ego and the soul growing in union with Christ? 01:40:29 Una: I was a complulsive A-getter in college, too. Thank you for sharing. 01:41:05 Angela Bellamy: Reacted to "Father, bless! I was..." with ❤️ 01:42:47 Shannon: It feels must bleed out our ego and diappear into the darkness in order for God to turn light.  Not knowing where the next step, but trusting in God.  We disappear into prayer/ looking through window with lamps lite hearts 01:44:16 Fr Martin, Arizona: Today’s retreat convicted me. I’m not sure where to begin poking at my sense of self-identity and autonomy. My anxiety reveals to me that I harbor some delusions about myself. I used to visit a Romanian monk who was imprisoned and tortured by communists. Surprisingly, he never complained about that. Rather he said to me once, “Before I was imprisoned, I knew God in my books. After I was alone in prison, I found God in my heart.” 01:45:02 Jaden Abrams: How do I go about finding a spiritual Father? Am I supposed to choose, discern, let him "come to me", combination of all? I have fallen in love with the east in general and am immersing myself as much as possible please pray for me. 01:47:13 Julie: Reacted to "How do I go about fi…" with 🙏 01:48:13 Jaden Abrams: Replying to "Today’s retreat conv..." Father, bless! Thank you for sharing that. Very powerful. 01:48:49 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "How do I go about ..." with 🙏 01:49:13 mstef: Sounds like passive purgation. 01:49:23 IVAN: Reacted to "How do I go about ..." with 🙏 01:52:24 Eddy: 45 minutes south of HTM and guided by Fr Agapatos from HTM 01:52:51 Julie: Reacted to "45 minutes south of …" with 🙏 01:52:55 Jessica McHale: Finding Philokalia Ministries changed my life--praise God. 01:53:20 Jesssica Imanaka: Replying to "Finding Philokalia M..." Same! 01:53:26 Jaden Abrams: Thank you! 01:53:30 Art: Reacted to "Finding Philokalia M..." with 👌 01:53:33 Danny Moulton (Lakeside, Ohio): Ditto! 01:53:43 Julie: Reacted to "Finding Philokalia M…" with 👌 01:53:45 Jaden Abrams: Reacted to "{BAA35089-E138-45DD-AC25-095FB0D603EF}.png" with ❤️ 01:53:49 Jaden Abrams: Reacted to "45 minutes south of ..." with ❤️ 01:54:04 Joan Chakonas: Yes hearing you read is everything. 01:54:09 Fr Martin, Arizona: Replying to "Today’s retreat conv..." Thanks 01:54:11 Kevin Burke: Reacted to "Finding Philokalia M…" with 👌 01:54:32 Art: Thank you Father! 01:56:08 Kevin Burke: Thank you Father, this has really awakened my soul! 01:56:42 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You Father Thank You everyone. This is so important  We get to step out of World  And be with Christ, so we can grow into disciples 01:56:48 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:56:51 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:56:53 Bob Čihák, AZ: Bless you and thank you, Father!! 01:57:10 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:57:14 Janine: Thank you Father…great beautiful retreat! 01:57:16 Lorraine Green: Thank you 01:57:57 Jessica McHale: Amen! Thank you! Many prayers for you (and your mother)! 01:58:01 Kevin Burke: 🙏 01:58:04 Elizabeth Richards: Blessings- thank you for sharing your heart

The Dismantling of the Religious Self Four Lenten Reflections on Delusion, Abandonment, and the Life That Remains in God “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 The fathers speak very little about religious success. They speak constantly about religious delusion. Not because religion is false, but because the ego can survive inside it indefinitely. It can pray. It can fast. It can obey. It can sacrifice. It can appear humble. It can appear faithful. It can appear entirely given to God. And yet never cease to exist as the center of its own life. The religious self is the final refuge of autonomy. It is the last structure to collapse. Christ did not come merely to forgive sin. He came to destroy the self that lives apart from Him and to raise the person into a life that is no longer his own. This destruction does not occur all at once. It occurs in stages. First, the destruction of false fulfillment. Then, the destruction of false righteousness. Then, the destruction of the self that believed it belonged to God. And finally, the revelation of the life that remains when the self that lived has died. This is not metaphor. It is the path. First Reflection The False Light That Feeds on Devotion On Seeking Fulfillment in Religious Things Instead of God “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” Psalm 41:3 (42:2) Evagrios of Pontus returns again and again to the command of the Lord because he knows the tragedy of the human heart. The command is heard. It is repeated. It is admired. But it is not yet obeyed. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Matthew 6:33 This is not because the man refuses God. It is because he does not yet know how to live from Him. The soul seeks life with a desperation deeper than thought. It cannot endure emptiness. It cannot endure groundlessness. It must drink from something. And until it drinks from God Himself, it will drink from what surrounds Him. This is the beginning of the spiritual life for nearly every man. He turns away from obvious sin. He enters the life of prayer. He begins to fast. He reads the Scriptures. He studies the Fathers. He orders his days toward obedience and repentance. He removes himself from the chaos of the world and places himself among holy things. Everything outwardly moves toward God. But inwardly, something subtle and terrible begins to form. The man begins to live not from God, but from religious life itself. He begins to draw life from proximity. From belonging to the Church. From serving others. From participating in sacred rhythms. From being known as faithful. From being recognized as someone who has given his life to God. These things give him structure. They give him identity. They give him continuity. They give him the sense that his life has weight and meaning. And this feels like life. But it is not yet life in God. Christ did not say blessed are those who surround themselves with religious things. He said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.” John 15:4 The branch may rest against the vine. It may touch the vine. It may appear connected to the vine. But unless the life of the vine flows into it, it remains dead. St. Isaac the Syrian speaks with terrifying clarity about this condition. He writes that the soul seeks rest relentlessly, but until it rests in God, it will rest in created things. Even in holy things. Even in prayer itself. Because prayer can become a place where the ego hides. St. John Climacus warns of this when he writes that vainglory attaches itself to every virtue like a parasite. It feeds on fasting. It feeds on prayer. It feeds on silence. It feeds on obedience. It feeds on tears. It feeds on devotion itself. It is possible to pray constantly and remain centered in oneself. It is possible to serve constantly and remain untouched by God. It is possible to build an entire life around God and never yet have surrendered one’s life to Him. Christ speaks of this with devastating simplicity. “Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.” Matthew 7:22–23 He does not deny their works. He denies their communion. They lived around Him. They acted in His name. They built their lives in His presence. But they did not live from Him. This is the great danger of religious life. It offers proximity without union. The ego adapts itself to religious structure because religious structure can sustain its existence indefinitely. The ego does not resist religion. It colonizes it. Abba Macarius the Great said, “The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and lions are there, and poisonous beasts are there, and all the treasures of wickedness are there. But there too is God.” Both realities coexist for a long time. The man prays, and the ego remains. The man fasts, and the ego remains. The man serves, and the ego remains. The ego does not fear religious activity. It fears death. Because Christ did not come merely to improve the ego. He came to crucify it. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20 This is not metaphor. It is ontological violence. The ego can survive prayer. It cannot survive crucifixion. This is why the ego draws life from religious participation rather than from God Himself. Because participation strengthens its continuity. Communion destroys its autonomy. Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou writes that God allows the man to labor in the life of the Church for years while this hidden foundation remains intact. Not because God is absent, but because the man is not yet capable of bearing the loss of himself. So God permits him to live from secondary things. From belonging. From service. From stability. From identity. These things are not evil. They are merciful accommodations to weakness. But they cannot give life. The prophet Jeremiah speaks with words that cut through every illusion. “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13 The tragedy is not that the cisterns are wicked. It is that they cannot sustain life. They leak. They empty. They must constantly be refilled. The man must constantly reaffirm himself. He must remain useful. He must remain faithful. He must remain visible. He must remain necessary. Because his life depends on these conditions. But life in God does not depend on conditions. Life in God survives abandonment. It survives obscurity. It survives uselessness. It survives the loss of identity itself. This is why God begins, at a certain point, to remove the cisterns. Not as punishment. As mercy. He allows the man to lose what sustained his sense of himself. He allows him to lose position. He allows him to lose recognition. He allows him to lose certainty. He allows him to lose the emotional consolations that once accompanied prayer. Prayer becomes dry. Service becomes empty. The structures that once gave life now give nothing. This is the beginning of truth. St. Silouan the Athonite describes this moment as the withdrawal of grace that reveals to the man the true poverty of his soul. He writes that when grace withdraws, the soul sees its own weakness and learns that it cannot live without God. Not without religious life. Without God. The distinction becomes absolute. The man discovers that he does not yet know how to live from God Himself. He only knows how to live from what surrounds Him. This revelation feels like death. Because something is dying. The false center. The imagined continuity. The self that lived from participation instead of communion. Christ spoke of this death when He said, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25 This loss is not symbolic. It is experiential. It is terrifying. Because the ego experiences the loss of its foundations as annihilation. Abba Moses said, “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” What does the cell teach? It teaches the man that he does not yet live from God. It removes distraction. It removes affirmation. It removes reinforcement. And what remains is his poverty. His inability to give himself life. His inability to sustain himself. His inability to exist without drinking from God. This is the beginning of real prayer. Not prayer that expresses devotion. Prayer that expresses need. Not prayer that affirms identity. Prayer that arises from groundlessness. The publican understood this when he stood at a distance and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Luke 18:13 He had nothing left to sustain himself. And Christ says he went home justified. Because justification begins when illusion ends. God does not remove the false light to harm the man. He removes it to save him. Because whatever the man cannot lose without losing himself has become his god. God removes every false god. Even the religious ones. Until only God remains. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that the man who has learned to live from God alone becomes free from all fear. He can lose everything and remain alive. Because his life no longer depends on created things. It depends on the uncreated God. This is the passage from religious life into real life. The passage from devotion into communion. The passage from illusion into truth. It begins in loss. It ends in God.

“Death in battle for God’s sake is better than a shameful and sluggish life.” There is always a lion for the man who does not want to begin. Always a reason. Always a danger. Always a wiser moment to wait for. And so he remains on the road his entire life. Careful. Thoughtful. Unbloodied. Unchanged. St. Isaac is merciless here. Much wisdom can damn a soul. Not the wisdom that fears God, but the kind that calculates and delays obedience. The man who watches the winds never sows. The man who weighs every risk never enters the fight. The simple man jumps into the water. He does not negotiate with fear. He does not preserve his body. He burns with first ardor and moves. This is what we lack. Not knowledge. Fire. The way is filled with blood. Blood means loss. Blood means humiliation. Blood means the death of the life you hoped to keep. If you wish to begin, hold your death in your mind. Remember the day after your burial. Let eternity crush your attachment to this present age. Hope in this life weakens the soul. Do not begin with a divided heart. Divided labor exhausts and yields nothing. God does not give grace in proportion to our techniques but according to the ardor of love and the boldness of faith. “As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Some beat their heads in repentance. Some drown in prostrations. Some burn in psalmody. Some are seized into silence. There are many forms. But all give themselves without reserve. Then comes the ruin. One tastes and turns back. One tastes a little and grows proud. One is enslaved by ambition. One by vainglory. One by greed. One by habit. One begins well and does not endure. These are the lions. Not in the street. In the heart. The one who stands firm does not turn back until he receives the pearl. He begins again and again. He refuses slackness. He does not wait for ideal conditions. He does not demand guarantees. Always begin. If the heart is pure from passion and doubt, God Himself raises the soul. Not because it was clever. Not because it was impressive. But because it believed and stepped onto the blood-stained road without bargaining. Begin. Or die still talking about the journey. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:07:55 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Anthologion 00:08:15 Jesssica Imanaka: https://ignatius.cc/products/anthologion-modern-english 00:08:28 Una’s iPhone: What about The Agpeya? Coptic 00:08:43 Jessica McHale: I use the Publicans Prayer Book. Sophia Press. It's a Small Horologion. 00:09:14 Anthony: Reacted to I use the Publicans ... with "❤️" 00:09:24 Una’s iPhone: What book is Gather talking about? 00:10:49 David Swiderski, WI: Reacted to "I use the Publicans ..." with 👍 00:11:05 Julie: Hi all🙏🏼 00:11:55 Myles Davidson: Reacted to "Hi all🙏🏼" with 👋 00:12:41 Elizabeth Richards: From who? 00:12:50 Kate: Replying to "Hi all🙏🏼" Hi Julie! 00:13:07 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 179, # 29, first paragraph 00:13:54 Eleana Urrego: I love the retreat class, I was sad and happy. Thank you 00:16:24 Anthony: Hope is what sloth & despair (in the Lenten prayer of St Ephraim) want to strangle. 00:17:35 Julie: Or over analysis it 00:28:01 Tracey Fredman: what will come if I surrender? everything that is difficult for me - everyday almost seems "bad" and yet it's "very good" because I can't hide but most face what is most difficult for me. Much grace has enabled me to do what is being asked of me. thankful for the Jesus Prayer when things become so intense as they have been for me this past 5 weeks 00:29:34 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "what will come if ..." with ❤️ 00:38:35 Wayne: need to leave early tonight 00:38:58 Angela Bellamy: I had been taught for so long to rely on myself that trusting in God has been a learning curve, even fearful. Trust is difficult to develope but it seems as though every leap of faith I make, the reward is more faith; and trust grows through His grace. It's much like the tree which grows from a mustard seed. Just the smallest leap of faith grows the greatest trust. 00:44:59 Jessica McHale: What about when you have a choice to make--go this way or that way, and they are both good adn lead to God, but you are unsure which the Lord wants you to do. For example, move to another state to give in community with others of the same mindset or stay near aging family who don't practice the faith but migth need your help in the future? It's tough to know what God migth want, even if you trust Him. 00:46:53 Kevin Burke: Reacted to "What about when you …" with 👌 00:51:55 Joan Chakonas: I find it helpful to ask God to make it obvious to me His will- my thinking is so pointless, His guidance with His invisible hand never fails me 00:52:22 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "I find it helpful to..." with ❤️ 00:52:28 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "I find it helpful ..." with ❤️ 00:54:17 Elizabeth Richards: Memento mori 00:55:24 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "Memento mori" with 😞 00:59:10 Eleana Urrego: We are in a lot instant gratification that "everything is anxiety" 00:59:56 Angela Bellamy: ...be anxious for nothing, but pray about everything... That was my mantra for a little while at first. I don't remember it all now but it's a kindness. 01:08:30 Angela Bellamy: Can these examples of religious furver of the ego? How does one know the difference? 01:11:00 Ben: Anna: Tell me Father, is it possible for one that is ill and weak to follow Christ?  I mean it seems to me that the answer must be yes, but I see this example again and again in spiritual writing that sickness makes one... weak? fall off? not persevere? 01:18:39 David Swiderski, WI: IT is easy to demonstrate love and devotion when everything goes well but it can only be known when there is suffering, sacrifice and the last thread of pride is stripped away. 01:19:31 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "IT is easy to demons..." with 👍🏼 01:20:00 Janine: Wow….great class..thank you Father! 01:20:11 Jesssica Imanaka: Reacted to "Wow….great class..th..." with ❤️ 01:20:45 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "Wow….great class...." with ❤️ 01:21:31 Angela Bellamy: Thank you, Father. 🙏 01:22:10 Jessica McHale: Thank you so much, Father. Your words are in so many ways helpful to me. Blessings and grace of God in all you do---many, many, prayers for you and your mother. 01:22:12 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you father! May God bless you, your mother and this group. 01:22:13 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:22:18 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father! 01:22:19 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you and bless you, Father!! 01:22:36 Jesssica Imanaka: Reacted to "Thank you so much, F..." with ❤️ 01:22:48 Lorraine Green: Thank you!

As we come to the end of this hypothesis, the Fathers leave us with something painfully ordinary. They do not give us visions of heaven or heights of contemplation. They speak about the tongue. About when to speak. About when to remain silent. About lowering the eyes. About saying only what is necessary. It feels almost too simple. Yet they place it before us as a matter of life and death. They tell us that God is always watching. Not watching in suspicion, but watching as One who longs to dwell within us. And yet how quickly the door of the mouth is thrown open and everything inside spills out. Opinions. Explanations. Justifications. Pious thoughts. Clever remarks. Even good words spoken at the wrong time. We imagine that because something is true or orthodox or well intentioned it must be spoken. But the Fathers are ruthless here. They tell us that even good speech can disperse the soul. Saint Diadochus says that when the doors of the baths are left open, the heat escapes. So too with the soul. We labor for years to gather the mind, to kindle even a small flame of prayer, and then in a few careless conversations it dissipates. We leave a gathering inwardly empty. Not because we sinned gravely, but because we spoke much. The tragedy is not only that we lose recollection. It is that we begin to live outwardly. We become performers of thoughts. We interrupt. We insert ourselves. We fear being unnoticed. Saint Maximos unmasks this disease with precision. He says the one who interrupts reveals his love of glory. How often do we speak not from charity but from hunger. Hunger to be seen. To be affirmed. To be needed. Even in spiritual settings. Especially there. Isaiah the Anchorite brings it to the ground level. If you must speak, do so quietly. With humility. With reverence. As one ignorant. As one unworthy. Lower the face. Say little. Return quickly to silence. This is not theatrical piety. It is an interior stance. The tongue restrained becomes a sign that the passions are not ruling the heart. The Gerontikon cuts even deeper. Abba Joseph says he cannot control his tongue. The elder asks him one question. Do you find peace when you talk. No. Then why talk. There is something almost brutal in that simplicity. We speak and we lose peace. Yet we keep speaking. Abba Sisoes, a great ascetic, confesses that for thirty years he has prayed to be delivered from sins of the tongue and still he falls daily. This should sober us. If such a man trembles over his speech, what of us who speak constantly and without fear. And yet the Fathers do not romanticize silence. Abba Isaac exposes the counterfeit. There is a silence born of pride, of wanting the glory of being perceived as spiritual. A brooding silence that hides malice. A calculated silence that manipulates. This is not holiness. This is ego dressed in restraint. True silence either springs from zeal for virtue or from inward conversation with God. If it is not one of these, it will decay into self admiration. The stakes are high. If you guard your tongue, Isaac says, God will give you compunction. Compunction. The gift of seeing your own soul. The light of the mind. The joy of the Spirit. Silence becomes not emptiness but revelation. But if the tongue conquers you, you will never escape darkness. We are accustomed to thinking that sanctification comes through great works. Through ministries. Through projects. Through visible sacrifices. The Fathers insist that it may begin with something as small and humiliating as closing the mouth. Not as repression. Not as fear. But as reverence. To speak only when there is good reason. To speak because it is God’s will and not because it soothes our anxiety. To listen more than we talk. To accept being unknown. To resist the need to untie every thought that wanders into the stable of the mind. This teaching must be internalized or it will remain quaint desert wisdom. It must confront us in the car after a conversation that left us agitated. It must confront us before we send the message, before we correct someone, before we offer unsolicited counsel, before we share a clever insight. It must question us. Is this necessary. Is this born of love. Will this preserve peace. Or am I simply opening the door and letting the heat escape. All things must be touched by grace. Speech can console, heal, illumine, and reconcile. Speech can also scatter, inflame, and darken. The same tongue that blesses can wound. The same mouth that proclaims Christ can betray Him. If we do not yet have a pure heart, the Fathers say, at least have a pure mouth. It is a beginning. A humiliating beginning. A door set firmly in place. And behind that door, if we are faithful, the slow birth of compunction. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:04:48 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 356 Section E 00:09:58 Catherine Opie: I have not attended for a couple of weeks. Where are we in the text now? 00:10:21 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-lenten-retreat-2026 00:10:51 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 356, E 00:10:59 Catherine Opie: P356 Section E 00:12:54 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-lenten-retreat-2026 00:13:03 John ‘Jack’: Hello Father 00:13:28 Vanessa: I found the Saturday link in my junk email. I just happened to see it there. 00:13:40 Jessica McHale: Replying to "I found the Saturd..." me too 00:14:12 Rebecca Thérèse: I registered twice and only got one 00:14:40 Vanessa: If you use Gmail, sometimes it goes into the "Promotions" folder. 00:14:54 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/philokalia-ministries-lenten-retreat-2026 00:15:06 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 356, E 00:16:00 kristy: is there a way to watch the recording from saturday? 00:16:13 Beth Callaway: The Evergetinos Volumes 1 - 4: The Full Text By Nun Christina 00:16:23 Beth Callaway: Is this an appropriate text? 00:16:25 Angela Bellamy: It was mentioned there was trouble with the website and so I thought it could creat an error for the registration. 00:17:27 iPad (2)Janine: Beth..that is different translation….close but not same text. 00:23:00 Andrew Adams: Replying to "Is this an appropria..." This is the translation that we are using: https://ctosonline.org/product/the-evergetinos-a-complete-text/ 00:23:56 Myles Davidson: Arrived late. Where are we? 00:24:57 Julie: But in fairness some of the time was in the introduction so, 2 hours was great 00:25:04 maureencunningham: Wait till we get to heaven ! We will be talking  for eternity 00:25:11 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 356, E 00:25:16 Myles Davidson: Reacted to "P. 356, E" with 🙏 00:25:21 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "P. 356, E" with 👍 00:25:27 Mark South: Fr read 1sr paragragh  in E p356 00:36:21 Wayne Mackenzie: Replying to "I found the Saturday..." What was the heading in the email? 00:37:07 Angela Bellamy: Sometimes I feel exuberant to attempt silence and I feel quite remorseful when I didn't succeed in a great way, but I do my best to keep heart because James says that if you are able to control your tongue then you can control your whole body. So I know this is no small feat to accomplish and with His grace and mercy will it be achieved.  00:38:03 Forrest: Replying to "I found the Saturday..." Wayne, it came to me as "Link + PDF for Session One: The 2026 Philokalia Ministries Lenten Retreat" 00:40:22 Nypaver Clan: Father,  What do you think of the “sign of peace” during the Novus Ordo? I don’t appreciate all that socializing just before reception of Holy Communion. Some people are really put off that I don’t participate.  I don’t want to be uncharitable….. 00:41:19 Myles Davidson: Reacted to "Father,  What do you..." with 👍 00:41:29 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "Father,  What do y..." with 👍 00:44:59 Myles Davidson: The chapel I attend, there is no talking before, during or after the Liturgy. It’s beautiful! 00:45:57 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "The chapel I attend,..." with ❤️ 00:45:59 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "The chapel I atten..." with ❤️ 01:02:19 Beth Callaway: Is that what you mean by right ordering of a virtue? 01:02:40 Wayne Mackenzie: Replying to "I found the Saturday..." Thanks will go through my emails 01:05:24 Lawrence Ruggiero: Replying to "The chapel I atten..." thinking of what to say is in it self a distraction to me. 01:07:46 Forrest: The Greek makes it clear that the elder made this comment in the form of a parable: a teaching in few words. 01:08:37 Anthony: Reacted to The Greek makes it c... with "👍" 01:17:12 Angela Bellamy: Do you have to have control of the mouth to achieve inner stillness or are they in tandem? Growing together? 01:18:55 maureencunningham: Blessing I think it Wonderfull it is always a  Blessing. 01:19:37 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️ 01:19:43 Catherine Opie: God bless FR. thank you again for your time and consideration🙏🏻