PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

Chapter Four — The Work of the Hands and the Work of the Heart The ascetical life is never lived only in the mind. Grace does not descend upon disembodied thoughts. It saturates flesh and bone. It settles into the rhythms of the body. The desert fathers understood this instinctively. They wove prayer into labor the way breath moves through the lungs. They worked with their hands so their hearts could remain free. In the city and the suburbs, this truth remains the same. There