There are within all of us innumerable drives and urges that if allowed to rule would destroy us. If we are not consciously and daily engaged in the spiritual combat that calls upon us to act selflessly, then we will be unable to admit the New Man which is Christ, so that he can do [...]
If other Angels have been given different tasks, only God’s Holy Angel, Christ himself, whose divine love can mix, mingle and merge with our weak human love, can enable our self-offerings to be received by God, because they are offered in, with and through him. No other Angel can do this. The Jewish religion began [...]
A culture without public prayer is a culture that no political intervention can preserve. If the life of prayer is a vocation offered to all, then it follows that the practice of prayer must equally be within the reach of all. It is not an esoteric exercise, in other words, for which only the most [...]
The offering of ourselves that we make is a “true” and therefore acceptable offering when it is made with a “pure and humble heart”. When we learn to thank, praise, adore and glorify him for who he is and for what his love has done for us, then we are learning the meaning of true [...]
Endless acts of selfless loving that are practised in prayer gradually develop into a habit, creating an inner disposition of selflessness that makes us at all times porous to the love of God, both inside and outside of prayer. This means that we are not only taken up into the love that prevails within Christ’s [...]
It was God who uttered the first word ever spoken in the language of love. That word was simply "love." It was later called the “Word” by St John because it was the most important word ever spoken. All we need to know, believe, and act upon is the simple truth that our Risen Lord [...]
The love that continually flows out of the Risen Lord to fill us now, is the same love that flowed into him throughout his life on earth. It is the same love that was brought to perfection after his death, and the same love that reunited him with his Father, enabling his Father to send [...]
Who would not get depressed when it seems you are unable to pray anymore, and the Scriptures that meant so much before move you no more, and your moral behaviour seems to be deteriorating with each passing day? It is essential that, at a time when it is so difficult to find a competent spiritual [...]
God’s love is deepest in us, as the very ground of our being. It is here in our deepest self that our desire to love and be loved that will only ultimately be satisfied in God, rises to enter into him. Inspired by and supported with as much of God’s love that our weakness can [...]
The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is an important cultural artifact, whose influence on English language and literature rivals that of the Authorized Version of the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. You will recall Parson Thwackum in Henry Fielding’s classic novel History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Mr. (never, in proper ecclesiastical usage, Reverend) Thwackum [...]
A classic technique in sitcoms and movies is for the story to open at a climactic or bizarre moment, and then to rewind and use first-person narration to explain how the protagonist ended up there. The giveaway is usually a line like: “Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here.” Since I entered the [...]
All must go through purification to attain union with God. In this life it is called the Dark Night of the Soul; in the next life, it is called Purgatory. No one can avoid it. Mystical theology teaches how this purification is brought about in this life. When studying Philosophy, I had a brief flirtation [...]
The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor was a pre-enactment of what would happen to Jesus after the Resurrection, when he was glorified. The event not only pre-enacts what happened to Christ at his glorification, but what will happen to us too when the Holy Spirit penetrates us as Jesus was penetrated by the glory of God. [...]
Something in the path made him stumble, and he caught himself. Before him rose a heavy oak door, set in a tower of granite. It was like the keep of a medieval fortress, the heart of communal life in a bygone age. He grasped the wrought-iron ring with both hands and gave it a turn. [...]