PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

Faith in a Fallen World There comes a moment when the mind can no longer carry what the heart is being asked to bear. The news of the world presses in from every side, violence without meaning, corruption without shame, suffering that seems to multiply rather than heal. Even prayer can begin to feel unreal, like speaking a language that no longer touches the ground of lived experience. The soul asks quietly, sometimes with fear, sometimes with anger, Is any of this real? Is G

Lord, I tremble when I see how quickly my heart shifts like wind over water. One moment I burn with love, the next I grow cold. One moment I cling to You, the next I look to myself as if I were enough. This inner instability does not surprise You. You know me. You see the fracture lines within my soul, the way passions tug in opposite directions, the way the memory of Your nearness can coexist with the feeling of abandonment. My heart contradicts itself because it is not yet

“I have sunk into the mud of the deep and there is no foothold.” There are seasons when the inner world loses its compass and the outer world turns to mist. Days when nothing holds still long enough to be named and every direction seems equally unreliable. The Fathers knew these seasons well. Cassian once wrote that the soul can enter a place where “all things seem confused within,” where discernment wavers like a flame in the wind. St Isaac tells us that God sometimes allows

A Personal Reflection in the Shadow of Psalm 73 There are days when Psalm 73 feels like it was written for the soul that has grown tired from too many years of wrestling with God, with men, and with the hidden places of the heart. The psalmist begins with a truth he clings to almost defensively: Truly God is good to the pure of heart.  Yet he immediately confesses the fracture beneath that affirmation. But as for me, my feet came near to stumbling. My steps had almost slipped