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To Become Fire and Person
On the End of the Religious Self and the Birth of the Hypostatic Man “Our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29 There is a vision of the spiritual life that remains small because it never allows God to be who He is. It reduces everything to measure. To effort. To progress that can be tracked, explained, and secured. It speaks of virtue, but only in ways that preserve the one who practices it. It speaks of God, but only in ways that can be contained by thought. This is the r
Father Charbel Abernethy
Apr 83 min read
The Heart That Becomes a Book of Fire
St. Isaac the Syrian on Asceticism, the Death of the Ego, and the Spirit Who Teaches from Within Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 6: 19-20 Here Isaac is not giving us a technique for moral improvement. He is unveiling an icon. Behind his austere language of toil and Scripture and withdrawal stands a single, luminous vision: the human heart being slowly remade into the dwelling place of God. Asceticism is not a set of behavio
Father Charbel Abernethy
Jan 284 min read
No Longer Ourselves
Mercy and Humility as the Revelation of Who We Have Become in Christ Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian - Homily 6 paragraphs 9-10 St. Isaac is not describing admirable behaviors. He is naming a different kind of human being. Mercy, humility, and almsgiving are not virtues added to an otherwise intact self. They are the outward signs that the old self has already begun to die. What St. Isaac exposes is not how difficult mercy is, but
Father Charbel Abernethy
Jan 73 min read
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