The Christian Awaits Quietly His Call

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Accepting one’s callings in life is among the most difficult things for a Christian. A man desires a better situation, a pastor desires a different congregation, the idealist longs to live in a different time and place. The term ἐπιθυμία (epithumia, “desire”) and its cognates is sometimes used positively in the New Testament, but more often is associated with the corrupted human heart that drives a man to sin. Passages such as Romans 7 and James 1 particularly note the pattern that desire gives birth to sin, and sin to death. The desire for a satisfying life is—because of the inverted heart—actually a longing for death….

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Gaudete 2023

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Life goes through seasons. Some days, or years, it doesn’t feel there’s much to rejoice about. Some people are determined to fight. The Psalm says, “I am for peace, but they are for war.” In this life people often show themselves to be our enemies. We want peace. But there is something in the human spirit, a corruption. This corruption of the heart imitates the Satan. In Hebrew, the satan is the accuser. Enemies are quick to accuse us, sometimes unjustly. Jesus bears it in silence. Do we? No, too often, in turn, we are quick to assume the worst about others. Thus we become their satan, their accuser. Our only rejoicing, then, is at the downfall our enemy. This is not the proper Gaudete, the proper rejoicing….

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Homily for Matins, Teacher Work Week 2023

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Today is the commemoration of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and one of the greatest minds of the western church. It is fitting for us this morning to look to him to guide us on our task of forming minds in the classical Christian tradition.

Augustine teaches us that true education is listening to the Word of God, even—especially—when it tells us what we do not want to hear.

Your best servant is he who looks not so much to hear from you what he wants to hear, but rather to want what he hears from you….

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Jubilate 2023

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The world hates Christians. “They speak against you as evildoers.” It’s tempting to want to argue with them. People don’t get argued into the faith. Arguing just pulls us down into the passions we are called to avoid. God’s Word today tells us not to respond to evil with evil, but to respond only with good deeds….

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Ash Wednesday 2023

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The ashes show us the end. The end of the gods we serve.

The gods of pride, power, pleasure. You serve them with prurience, preening, pouting. You prate and prattle, but do you repent? Do you change? What has your service to the gods of this age really achieved? Where will it get you? Dust and ashes, nothing but….

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