PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

John Henry Newman and the Terrible Intimacy of Truth “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.” — St. John Henry Newman There is a loneliness that comes not from being unloved, but from seeing what one can no longer deny. This was the loneliness of St. John Henry Newman. Not the loneliness of temperament alone, though Newman possessed a profoundly inward nature. Nor merely the loneliness of intellectual brilliance, though his mind often moved beyond those around him. Dee

On the Difference Between the Loss of Self and the Loss of Illusion “I sat alone because Thou hadst filled me with indignation.” — Book of Jeremiah 15:17 There is a way of speaking about “disappearing” that is dangerous, because it easily collapses into something else entirely. One imagines silence, withdrawal, the refusal to assert oneself, and assumes this is the same as vanishing. But the Fathers, and even the deeper currents of psychoanalytic thought, would resist such a

St. Paul of Thebes and a Disciple “There comes a time when the servant of God no longer lives by what he does, but by what he is willing to lose.” — saying attributed to the desert tradition surrounding Paul of Thebes (Feast Jan.15) Disciple: Father Paul, the years feel heavy in my bones. What once burned with clarity now feels stripped bare. I have served at the altar for decades, yet I feel as though my name is being taken from me. Not through scandal. Not through failure.