PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

Why the Desert Fathers Continue to Speak to Every Generation “Wherever there is a renewal of Christian life, there one finds a return to the Desert Fathers.” — Fr. Irénée Hausherr, S.J. Fr. Irénée Hausherr’s observation has remained with me for many years: “Wherever there is a renewal of Christian life, there one finds a return to the Desert Fathers.” The older I become, the more I believe he was describing something far deeper than a historical pattern. He was pointing to a

The Desert Fathers, Spiritual Formation, and the Healing of the Human Person in an Age of Fragmentation “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.” — Matthew 6:22 There is perhaps no greater challenge facing the Church today than recognizing that the crisis before us is far deeper than the decline of religious practice or the abandonment of Christian morality. We are witnessing the gradual unraveling of the very structures t

St. Isaac the Syrian and the Monastic Heart of the Gospel “For these are a monk’s manifest beauties stated in brief, and they bear witness to his dying utterly to the world and his nearness to God.” — St. Isaac the Syrian Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 11 paragraphs 3a and 4 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 sen