Interrupting the Silence

Tag: Religion and Spirituality

  • Judging and Sentencing

    One day, Abba Isaac the Theban went to a monastic community and he saw a brother doing wrong, and he condemned him. As he returned to the desert, an angel of the Lord came and stood in front of the door of his cell and said: “I will not let you in.”  He asked: “What’s the Read more

  • Make Way for the Image of God!

    A noisy crowd surrounds each one of us. Wherever we go this crowd goes with us. We are never alone. The voices of the crowd never go silent. No matter how loud we speak their voices are louder. Who is this noisy crowd? The angels of God. “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: ‘A procession of Read more

  • Christ is the Fruit of the Faithful

    “You see that Mary did not doubt but believed and therefore obtained the fruit of faith. ‘Blessed … are you who have believed.’ But you also are blessed who have heard and believed. For a soul that has believed has both conceived and bears the Word of God and declares his works. Let the soul Read more

  • If You Want a Spiritual Life

    If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire. To unify your life unify Read more

  • Becoming an Icon of Divine Blessedness

    If you seek after God with all your heart and all your strength, then the virtues of your soul and body will turn you into a mirror of the image of God within. You will be so merged in God, and God so merged in you, that each will endlessly repose in the other. Such Read more

  • Of Saints and Horses

    A young man once came to a great rabbi and asked him to make him a rabbi. It was winter time then. The rabbi stood at the window looking out upon the yard while the rabbinical candidate was droning into his ears a glowing account of his piety and learning. The young man said, “You Read more

  • The Seat of Arrogance or the Heart’s Desire?

    James and John are looking for the best seat in the house. They want to sit next to Jesus, in his glory, one on his right and one on his left. That seat, however, is only for those for whom it has been prepared. James and John sound a bit arrogant and self-seeking; interested in Read more

  • Urgent Need Makes A Real Meditation

    “Habitual self-complacency is almost always a sign of spiritual stagnation. The complacent no longer feel in themselves any real indigence, an urgent need for God. Their meditations are comfortable, reassuring and inconclusive. Their mental prayer quickly degenerates into day-dreaming, distractions or plain undisguised sleep. For this reason trials and temptations can prove to be a Read more

  • Room Enough, A Place for Everyone

    The collect and readings for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20B, may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 9:30-37. “They had argued with one another who was the greatest.” We shouldn’t be too surprised. We’ve probably been a part of such arguments. From sibling rivalry to be mom and dad’s Read more