top of page
_edited.jpg)
Search
Part II: St Paul the Hermit on “The Modern Ascetic in a Secular Age”
A Discourse from the Desert The cave is quiet after the seeker departs. Night gathers over the sands. St Paul sits in prayer for a long time, then slowly opens his eyes, as if perceiving someone unseen before him. His voice becomes both a whisper and a flame, carrying the weight of ancient wisdom into the age to come. St Paul the Hermit Speaks: Children of this age, listen with sobriety, for the path of asceticism has never been more necessary, nor more obscured, than it is i
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 205 min read
The Fathers on Wealth, Delusion, and Lost Wisdom in Light of Psalm 49
“In his riches, man lacks wisdom: he is like the beasts that are destroyed.” The final line of Psalm 49 strikes with the force of a hammer. It does not flatter. It does not comfort. It does not leave room for excuses. The Fathers of the desert would have received it as a judgment on the human heart and as a summons to return to the remembrance of God. For them, this verse reveals something essential: when a person places trust in wealth or abundance, whether material or inter
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 193 min read
Urban Asceticism: Finding the Desert Within - Chapter Six
Chapter Six: "The Ache Beneath the Ache" There is a deeper ache beneath the ache we usually name. At first it hides itself under the surface disturbances of life. Weariness. Uncertainty. The heaviness of daily labors. The confusion of living between two worlds. The loneliness of a vocation stretched thin. These are real, but they are not the deepest thing. They are only the surface where something far more primal presses upward, something ancient and wordless, a longing that
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 184 min read
From Gollum to Grace: Seeing Ourselves in the Light of the Saints
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
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 183 min read
Urban Asceticism: Finding the Desert Within - Chapter Five
Chapter Five The Slow Emptying: Learning to Descend There comes a moment in the city, often when the night has settled like a thin veil over the streets, when the soul feels a quiet pressure drawing it inward. It is not dramatic. It does not arrive with clarity or consolation. It comes almost imperceptibly, like a hand resting on the back of the neck, guiding you into a darkness that is not hostile but unbearably honest. Most turn away from it because the world is too full of
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 174 min read
What Does a Blind Beggar See?
A Personal Reflection on Silence and the Fear of Teaching There is a part of me that longs for silence with a kind of desperation, as if only silence can keep me from unraveling. Not silence as escape or convenience, but the silence that strips everything away, the silence that teaches me who I am without role or title or task. A silence where I no longer speak with authority about anything because I know so little. A silence where the only voice worth heeding is the voice of
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 143 min read
Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Evergetinos Hypotheses XXXVIII Sections C-D
Freedom from Anger, Desire for Vengeance, and Trust in Divine Providence The Evergetinos continues to unveil through the lives of the saints the beauty and power of a heart freed from anger and the desire for vengeance. In the story of Saint Spyridon and the deceitful shipowner we see how divine simplicity disarms deceit. The Saint entrusted his gold to another with pure confidence and without suspicion, and when that trust was betrayed he did not rage or demand justice. Inst
Father Charbel Abernethy
Nov 32 min read
Tags
bottom of page