saints

Of all the Saints of the Church, few have had a bigger role in my how I understand Christianity and the world than St. Gregory Palamas, a fourteenth-century Byzantine theologian who rose to prominence through his defense of a monastic practice known as hesychasm (’stillness’). The debate around hesychasm was complicated, but to make a … Continue reading St. Gregory Palamas and the Way of Light

There are a lot of watershed moments in history, moments that mark a decisive ‘before’ and ‘after’. We might think of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, for example, which precipitated the First World War and everything that happened as a result of it, or the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The … Continue reading St. John XXIII and the Way of Open-Heartedness

There are few symbols more evocative in the Biblical imagination than the desert, or wilderness. Such stories as the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness for forty years, the exile across the barren lands of the Syrian Desert, and Jesus’ forty-day battle of will and wit with Satan have gained an archetypal status in the tradition. … Continue reading St. Anthony the Great and the Way of the Desert: A Reflection on Luke 4:1-13

This year, my Lenten series is looking at the Ways of the Saints, what we might learn and apply from the lives of those who have embodied Christ in a particularly poignant or instructive way. Today will be a bit different, as my thoughts are on the life of a family member who passed away … Continue reading The Way of the ‘Holy Fool’

One of the better known concepts of Christian spirituality today is the idea of the ‘Dark Night of the Soul.’ But juts because It’s well-known doesn't mean it's well understood. It refers to an extended period of spiritual dryness in which no consolation can be found, but which, in hindsight, is paradoxically experienced as a … Continue reading St. John of the Cross and the Way of the Dark Night