PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

“How good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” Psalm 133 is often read with the warm glow of natural friendship, shared work, shared meals, shared life. We imagine a band of brothers, or a monastery living in peace. Yet the deeper one goes into the heart, the more the psalm reveals something far more mysterious and far more demanding. It speaks of a communion that is not born of temperament or affinity, not shaped by shared projects or compatible personalitie

Reading the Evergetinos as a Mirror of Who We Are and Who We Are Meant to Be There are moments when reading the Evergetinos that feel like holding a pure and burning coal in the hand. The stories of the saints shine with such goodness and mercy that they seem almost impossible for us. Not because they are irrational or exaggerated but because they reveal a way of being that exposes the poverty of our own hearts. We glimpse in them what the human person becomes when grace has

How lovely is Your dwelling place, Lord God of hosts. My soul is longing and yearning for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my soul ring out their joy to God, the living God. (Psalm 84:2–3, Grail Translation) In the stillness of this hermitage, where the rhythm of my own breath marks the hours, I have come to know the psalmist’s cry as my own. The dwelling place of the Lord is not somewhere far away but within; the hidden chamber of the heart that grace has hollowed out th