Discovering the presence of God in the world is like a person finding treasure buried in a field. Having discovered it they cover it...

Compunction is much more than simply feeling sorry. It also carries with it an integrated sense that something more truthful has come to...

A brother received the garb of a monk. Upon doing so he returned to his cell telling others. I am now a monk. But when the Fathers...

There are two aspects to engaging with the world as a Christian. The first is personal openness to the actual experience of God who is...

Become not a lawgiver unto thyself. - The Paradise of the Desert Fathers A beginner is by definition inexperienced...the emphasis here...

Behaviourally speaking there is a strong analogy here between the early eremitical insights and insistence of staying in one's cell and...

Wandering thoughts come down to this. It is like a female donkey with a nursing colt. As long as she is tied up her foal will return to...

You should never read anything about the direct experience of God unless you are overwhelmingly convinced that God has been revealed to...

A certain brother went to Abba Moses in Scete and asked him to speak a word and the old man said: Go back and sit in your cell and your...

It is only in solitude that our egos can be discovered to be illusions. In this realization we come to see that our self-will is not...

...every decision, every aspect of one's mode of life is to be considered in light of the manner in which it draws out one's purity of...

A brother asked a word from an elder: How might I best begin to turn to God? The Abba replied: Begin with your complete renunciation of...

There is absolutely no point of even trying to live even remotely as a 'Christian' while harbouring either aggressive or hostile...

In the early church men and women migrated to deserted places in these early efforts to remove the distractions that stood between...

Quies - L. - third declension noun - rest, repose, quiet, calm, lull, peace, and the cessation from labor ----- For Cassian the goal of...

...is self-explanatory in the religious life. The rest and purity of heart that is derived from liberation from the common, trivial...

Writing in his First Conference John Cassian draws together numerous areas that define the whole purpose of the contemplative life. But...

The core of the contemplative life is the laying aside of the concerns of a life that is devoted to the assertion of a social ego and the...

It was this lay movement of people who experienced God directly in solitude in the 10th to 12th centuries that provided the backdrop for...