PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

The hand of God is on me, heavy, unyielding. Not cruel, but crushing in its love. He has opened something in me I cannot close. A wound that bleeds longing. A wound that makes every breath ache for Him. I feel my poverty like exposed nerve, raw, throbbing, alive. And in this cracked-open place, when I am soft and trembling before Him, the demons come like dogs to blood. They know where He touched me. They smell grace like a wound. They circle, patient, hungry. I do not fear t

The demons rush upon me again, night and day. They whisper their poison as I rise, mocking the shape my life has taken: “What meaning has this priesthood now? What value is there in your hiddenness, in hands that labor rather than bless?”  They sneer at my silence, at the stillness of my hermitage, at the long hours of manual toil. By evening they return, dark voices circling the edges of thought, murmuring of wasted days and lost identity. And I, like the psalmist, feel myse

Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 5 paragraphs 19-23: God has no need of anything, yet St. Isaac tells us that He rejoices whenever a man comforts His image and honors it for His sake. The divine joy is found not in what is given but in the mercy that reflects His own. When the poor come to us, it is not their need that is the test but our response to the image of God standing before us. To refuse them is to turn away grace i