top of page
_edited.jpg)
Search
And He Passed By
When the Heart Is Too Small to Recognize the Humility of God “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” — Matthew 13:55 There is a terrible sorrow hidden in this Gospel. God comes home, and they cannot receive Him. Not because He has concealed Himself entirely. They hear the wisdom. They see enough of the works to be astonished. Something has broken into their familiar world that cannot easily be explained. But then they look at Him. Is not this the carpenter’s son? They know His mot
Father Charbel Abernethy
2 days ago4 min read
A God Who Will Not Fit Within Our Boundaries
The frightening freedom of divine love “Do not forbid him; for he that is not against you is for you.” — Luke 9:50 There is something almost painfully human about the disciples in this Gospel. They have discovered a man casting out demons in the name of Jesus, and immediately they are troubled. Not because the demons remain. Not because the man is deceiving anyone. Not because the name of Jesus is being dishonored. Their complaint is much simpler: “He does not follow with us.
Father Charbel Abernethy
3 days ago5 min read
The Grammar of the Heart - Reflection I
When Mercy Becomes the Way We See The heart is changed when mercy ceases to be something we believe about God and becomes the light by which we see everything. “As a grain of sand cannot counterbalance a great quantity of gold, so in comparison God’s use of justice cannot counterbalance His mercy.” — St. Isaac the Syrian ______ The Grammar of the Heart is a nine-part series exploring how prayer, repentance, suffering, and the ascetical tradition gradually form not only what w
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 157 min read
The Grammar of the Heart - Introduction
How Prayer, Repentance, and Grace Teach Us to See “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” — Matthew 5:8 The Grammar of the Heart is a nine-part series exploring how prayer, repentance, suffering, and the ascetical tradition gradually form not only what we believe about God, but the way the heart learns to see Him. This is the Introduction. _______ There comes a point in the spiritual life when the question is no longer simply what we believe. The question bec
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 159 min read
We Do Not Always Know What the Net Is For
The obedience of casting the net when we no longer understand what God intends to gather “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” — Luke 5:5 There is something almost painfully human in Peter’s words. We toiled all night and took nothing. He is not refusing Christ. He is tired. He has already done what he knows how to do. He has worked through the darkness. He has cast the nets where fishermen cast them, at the hour fishermen
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 265 min read
When Peace No Longer Depends Upon What Happens
Courage is born when the heart ceases to demand that the world make God trustworthy “The essence of Christ’s peace lies in his perfect knowledge of the Father.” — St. Sophrony of Essex, His Life Is Mine There comes a point in the spiritual life when peace can no longer mean that things have been resolved. Perhaps this is one of the most difficult truths we ever learn. For much of our lives, we imagine peace as the fruit of circumstances finally coming into order. A door opens
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 255 min read
The Place Beneath All Answers
A Dialogue for the Feast of Saint Silouan the Athonite “My soul yearns after the Lord, and I seek Him in tears.” — Saint Silouan the Athonite The disciple came to the elder before dawn. He had not slept. For many months he had prayed that God would make the path clear. Instead, one door after another had closed. Things that once seemed certain had become uncertain. Names by which he had known himself no longer seemed able to hold him. Even good desires had become painful beca
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 245 min read
Rest in the Will of God
When circumstances give us no peace, the heart must learn to receive peace from somewhere deeper. “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for Thou alone, O Lord, makest me dwell in safety.” — Psalm 4:8 There comes a point in the spiritual life when we grow tired even of waiting. We have prayed. We have tried to act honestly. We have surrendered what we thought God was asking us to surrender. We have allowed identities to be stripped away, plans to collapse, certainties to d
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 235 min read
The World After You Have Died to It
Phronema and the Recovery of Wonder “What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There is a way of leaving the world that is really an attempt to escape it. And there is another way of leaving the world that finally allows us to see it. The Fathers went into the desert not because they despised creation. They went because they understood how difficult it is to see anything clearly while we are trying to possess it. The pa
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 215 min read
The Grammar of the Heart
How God Teaches the Soul the Language of Prayer “We have the mind of Christ.” — 1 Corinthians 2:16 There is a language that cannot be learned from books. Books may awaken us to it. The Scriptures give us its words. The Fathers teach us its grammar. The liturgy allows us to hear its cadences. The lives of the saints show us what it sounds like when spoken fluently. But eventually God Himself must teach it to the heart. This is perhaps one way of understanding phronema. We ofte
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 176 min read
When Desire Becomes Prayer
The Heart’s Long Return to Wonder “Love is sweeter than life.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There are desires that disappear when they are satisfied. And there are desires that become deeper. We spend much of our lives learning the difference. At first we imagine that desire is a kind of emptiness. Something is absent, and so the heart reaches toward it. We desire recognition, security, belonging, understanding. We desire a place in the world where our life will finally make sense.
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 104 min read
When the Heart Has Learned Another Language
Phronema, Purity of Heart, and the Cost of an Undivided Life “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” — Matthew 5:8 There comes a time when the question is no longer what one believes about the spiritual life, but what one has become through living it. For many years I thought of the Eastern Fathers as teachers whom Providence had placed along my path. They gave words to things I had somehow already begun to recognize: compunction, watchfulness, stillness, pur
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 88 min read
The Peace That Comes When We Cease to Arrange the World
Purity of heart is not having found the way forward, but having ceased to need any way except the will of God. “Those who love your law shall enjoy abundant peace; for them it is no stumbling block.” — Saint Leo the Great There is a peace that comes because circumstances have settled themselves, and there is another peace that comes because the heart has ceased demanding that they be settled. We often confuse the two. We imagine that peace will arrive when the uncertainty is
Father Charbel Abernethy
Sep 77 min read
The Broken Cisterns
How We Lose God While Still Believing We Are Seeking Him “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” — Jeremiah 2:13 There is something terrifying about the second chapter of Jeremiah because it is addressed not to those who never knew God, but to those who did. “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the
Father Charbel Abernethy
Aug 267 min read
When the Night Becomes Desire
Vigil, Wonder, and the Refusal to Leave the Beloved “His mind will be quick to take flight as it were on wings, and rise up toward God with delight.” — St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 20 There are passages in St. Isaac that can sound almost impossible to modern ears. His words on vigil are among them. “Do not imagine,” he tells us, “that among all the works of monastics there is any practice greater than night vigil.” We hear such words and immediately think of sleep deprivation
Father Charbel Abernethy
Aug 197 min read
The Heart Where the Church Is Born
Why the Renewal We Seek Must Begin Where Christ Has Always Waited “My son, give me your heart.” — Proverbs 23:26 There is a temptation in every age to believe that the Church’s deepest crisis lies somewhere outside herself. We point to a secular culture that has forgotten God, to the fragmentation of family life, to confusion within the Church, to failed leadership, declining numbers, or the relentless noise that leaves little room for silence. All of these are real. All dese
Father Charbel Abernethy
Aug 44 min read
When the Eye of the Heart Grows Dark
The Desert Fathers, Spiritual Formation, and the Healing of the Human Person in an Age of Fragmentation “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.” — Matthew 6:22 There is perhaps no greater challenge facing the Church today than recognizing that the crisis before us is far deeper than the decline of religious practice or the abandonment of Christian morality. We are witnessing the gradual unraveling of the very structures t
Father Charbel Abernethy
Aug 26 min read
The Heart Becomes Luminous
Asceticism as the Healing of Sight and the Revelation of Christ Within “If you keep these observances… your soul will see the light of Christ in herself, and will never be darkened unto all eternity.” — St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 17 Synopsis of Tonight's Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 17 paragraphs 7-9 There is a temptation when reading the closing section of Homily 17 to see it as little more than a long list of prohibitions. Do not quarrel.
Father Charbel Abernethy
Jul 223 min read
The Desert Beneath the Streets
St. Philip Neri and the Expansion of the Heart “The Kingdom of God is within you.” — Luke 17:21 The desert is not first a place. It is a heart emptied of everything that cannot receive the love of God. This is why the Fathers fled into the wilderness. They were not escaping the world so much as seeking that hidden place where the heart might once again become spacious enough to welcome the living God. Their battle was not against cities but against distraction, self-love, and
Father Charbel Abernethy
Jul 224 min read
Hidden with Christ
The Secret Life from Which All True Holiness Grows “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” — Colossians 3:3 There is a hiddenness that the world fears because it resembles loss. There is another hiddenness that the saints cherish because it is the birthplace of life. St. Paul is speaking of the second. The Christian life does not begin by becoming more visible, more successful, or more influential. It begins with a kind of disappearance. Something wit
Father Charbel Abernethy
Jul 223 min read
Tags
bottom of page