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The Light Given for This Day
A Prayer for an Undivided Heart “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” — Matthew 6:34 O Lord my God, at times the weight of what I do not know becomes heavier than what You have actually placed before me. My mind wanders toward what may come, toward consequences I cannot foresee, toward those whom my response to Your call may affect, toward paths that have not yet opened and sorrows that have not yet been given. Gather me again. Do not allow fear of tomorrow to become a
Father Charbel Abernethy
16 hours ago2 min read
There Is No Other
When the Heart Ceases to Live as Though Anything Existed Apart from God “Let all men know from the rising to the setting of the sun that, apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord: there is no other.” — Isaiah 45:6 There are words in Scripture that console us, words that instruct us, and words that seem to leave nothing standing. This is one of them. “I am the Lord: there is no other.” We can hear such words as a declaration about the uniqueness of God. And certainly they
Father Charbel Abernethy
6 days ago6 min read
When the Shadows No Longer Satisfy
A Dialogue on the Painful Mercy of Learning to See “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” — 1 Corinthians 13:12 The disciple came to the elder late in the afternoon. For a long while he said nothing. Finally the elder asked, “What troubles you?” “I no longer know what is real.” The elder looked at him. “That is not always a bad beginning.” “I thought you would tell me not to doubt.” “Perhaps you are doubting the wrong things.” The disciple lowered his eyes. “F
Father Charbel Abernethy
6 days ago4 min read
The Grammar of the Heart — Reflection VI
When Prayer Becomes a Way of Seeing “The remembrance of Jesus, combined with heartfelt fervor, will destroy all the enchantments of our thoughts.” — St. Hesychios the Priest We usually begin prayer by thinking that prayer is something we do. We set aside time. We say words. We keep a rule. We read the Psalms. We stand before an icon. We invoke the name of Jesus. We become distracted and begin again. All of this is necessary. But after many years another possibility begins to
Father Charbel Abernethy
7 days ago7 min read
The Grammar of the Heart — Reflection V
What the Heart Knows by Suffering “The knowledge of the Cross is concealed in the sufferings of the Cross.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There are things we know only after they have happened to us. Before suffering, we may possess the words. After suffering, we begin to know what they mean. This distinction has become increasingly important to me. For much of our lives we assume that understanding precedes experience. We learn something, comprehend it, and then perhaps apply it. T
Father Charbel Abernethy
7 days ago6 min read
When Christ Becomes the Light by Which We See
The Christian life is not merely learning what is true, but becoming transparent to the Light who is Christ “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” — Psalm 118:105 LXX Saint Maximus tells us something far greater than that Christ gives us light. Christ is the Light. He is the lamp set upon the lampstand, the eternal Word of the Father who has entered our darkness by assuming our humanity. He does not merely explain the path. He becomes the path beneath our fe
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 145 min read
The Ones Whose Names Are Almost Forgotten
The hidden servants by whom the Kingdom is quietly carried “And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities… and many others, who provided for him out of their means.” — Luke 8:1–3 It is easy to pass over these three verses. Saint Luke tells us that Jesus “went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.” The Twelve were with Him. But then the Evangelist turns our attention,
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 134 min read
Sitting at the Feet of Mercy
Rereading St. Isaac and discovering how quietly a vision of God can become the language of the heart “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 I have been rereading Desire and Wonder, and something has surprised me. It is not primarily the arguments that remain with me, nor even the passages I remember laboring over. What I notice now is the tenderness. The
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 125 min read
Where the Spirit Wills
The freedom of God and the surrender of the heart “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” — John 3:8 We would like God to be predictable. We would like the spiritual life to unfold according to recognizable lines: obedience followed by clarity, fidelity followed by stability, sacrifice followed by some visible confirmation that we have understood c
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 113 min read
The Wound Becomes a Door
“Let the wound become a door into the desert, and there learn again that God is enough.” There are wounds that cannot be repaired. No explanation will undo them. No apology may come. No one may ever understand what was taken from you. The desert fathers would not tell us to pretend otherwise. They would tell us to enter the wound. Not to live there in bitterness, but to pass through it. For sometimes the wound becomes the door through which God leads us away from everything w
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 111 min read
The Peace That Does Not Depend on Peace
Christ does not promise us a life without disturbance. He gives us Himself in the midst of it. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” — John 14:27 We often imagine peace as the moment when everything finally settles. The conflict ends. The illness passes. The decision becomes clear. The person we love is safe. The future opens before us again. Then, we tell ourselves, we will have peace. But this is not the peace Christ give
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 112 min read
When the Vineyard Is Not Our Own
St. Gregory the Great and the terrible possibility of doing the work of God while neglecting God “They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept.” — Song of Songs 1:6 There are words of the Fathers that console us. There are others that leave us nowhere to hide. St. Gregory the Great’s words about the priesthood belong to the latter kind. “We accept the duties of office,” he says, “but by our actions we show that we are attentive to other things.” I
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 107 min read
When the Greatest Becomes Small
John the Baptist and the terrible freedom of decreasing “He must increase, but I must decrease.” — John 3:30 There is something almost unbearable about where we find John the Baptist in this Gospel. The man of the wilderness is no longer in the wilderness. The voice that once cried out beside the Jordan is confined behind walls. The crowds are elsewhere now. Another is preaching. Another is healing. Another is gathering disciples. John cannot even go to Jesus himself. He must
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 86 min read
Dig Until You Reach Rock
The terrible mercy of discovering what our lives are actually built upon “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” — Luke 6:46 There are words of Christ that console us. There are others that strip us. This is one of them. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” There is almost something frightening in the simplicity of the question. Christ does not ask whether we believe the correct things about Him. He does not ask whether we admi
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 75 min read
The Courage of Thomas
Faith does not ask us to believe in fantasies. It asks us to remain when certainty has disappeared. “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” — John 11:16 Thomas has been remembered as the doubter. Perhaps we have remembered him wrongly. Long before he placed his hand near the wounds of the risen Christ, Thomas had already revealed something essential about his heart. When Jesus turned toward Judea again, the disciples understood the danger. They reminded Him that the autho
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 64 min read
Will You Say the Name into Darkness?
The Poverty of Prayer When Nothing Answers “Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness, because this knowledge becomes for him the foundation, root, and beginning of all goodness.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There comes a moment in the life of prayer when even tears seem rich. At least tears can be felt. They tell us that something within us is still moving toward God. The heart aches. It longs. It grieves. It reaches through its sorrow toward the One it loves. But there is a
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 45 min read
Do Not Name What God Is Doing Yet
On the Holy Poverty of a Life That Has Not Taken Shape “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.” — Hebrews 11:8 There is a peculiar temptation that comes when a life begins to fall apart. We immediately begin trying to understand what God is building from the ruins. Something has ended, and almost before we have allowed ourselves to grieve it, we ask what is beg
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 48 min read
Ask for the Ancient Paths
The good way may not be another path forward, but the ancient poverty of standing before God without needing to become anything “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” — Jeremiah 6:16 There is something easily overlooked in Jeremiah’s words. Before the walking comes the standing. Stand by the roads, and look. We are often too frightened to do this. When one road ends, we immediately se
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 35 min read
When Discernment Must Become Obedience
There comes a time when asking again is no longer humility “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” — 1 Samuel 3:9 The desert fathers feared self-will. They knew how easily a man could call his desire the will of God. So they taught him to wait. To pray. To seek counsel. To accept contradiction. To distrust the thought that arrived with urgency and demanded immediate obedience. They taught him not to believe himself too quickly. But they also knew another danger. A man can refu
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 23 min read
When No One Answers
The desert begins when even the voices that once sustained us fall silent “O God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good in Your sight, but according to Your goodness, let me now make a beginning.” — Abba Arsenius There comes a loneliness that is not cured by company. It comes when the voices that once steadied us grow quiet. A spiritual father does not answer. A friend does not understand. A community no longer knows what to do with us. Those who once seemed able to rec
Father Charbel Abernethy
Oct 15 min read
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