Mount Athos
An unprecedented documentary of life on the Holy Mountain, a place rarely seen, where prayer has been offered every day for more than a thousand years. I have had the blessing of being there.
An unprecedented documentary of life on the Holy Mountain, a place rarely seen, where prayer has been offered every day for more than a thousand years. I have had the blessing of being there.
I was in the congregation at a parish Eucharist recently – not a huge congregation, maybe around a hundred. There was a good age range. Young people were having fun leading music with a ukulele group. A sister from the Community of the Sacred name was towards the back. A Franciscan brother was preaching. There
renewing religious life? Read More »
Justin Duckworth, it has just been announced today, will be the next Anglican Bishop of Wellington. Some, in reporting this news, are focusing the surprise on his looks: he sports dreadlocks and normally wears shorts and is bare-footed. The surprise, more deeply, is half a dozen years ago Justin was not ordained, not an Anglican.
Wellington bishop-elect Justin Duckworth Read More »
Regulars here will realise that I regularly look at the Christian tradition through Benedictine lenses. I realise that there have been some who have questioned the existence of St Benedict, but now I come across the work of British scholar Francis Clark The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues (Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 37) (here is
Did St Benedict exist? Read More »
Last week I was at a talk given by Rev Jono Ryan who works half time with the mission work of Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor. This is a kiwi movement with New Monastic movement approaches. They have 5 principles (incarnation, community, wholism, servanthood, simplicity) and 5 values (grace, celebration, beauty, creativity, rest). We heard
The latest Taonga magazine is out. There’s an article of mine in it on acedia. Especially for those who cannot get hold of the Taonga magazine, this is what I wrote: The sun beats down unremittingly from a cloudless sky bleached ashen. The monk, alone in the desert, finds every minute of the day excruciating.
Acedia – noonday demon Read More »
I first read about the Australian Fr Lazarus, living in the cave of St Anthony, in the book Desert Father: In the Desert with Saint Anthony. I wasn’t sure if Fr Lazarus actually was a useful literary construct rather than an actual person until I watched the BBC series of Fr Peter Owen-Jones Extreme Pilgrim
St Anthony’s monastery Read More »
Wednesday’s General Audience to 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict called on Christians to learn from monasticism and set aside time every day to meditate on the Bible, “so that the Word of God will be the lamp that illuminates our daily path on earth.” Monastics “were devoted to the Sacred Scriptures and
Pope calls for daily meditation on Bible Read More »