“There is an old saying: ‘Excesses meet.’ Too much fasting and too much eating come to the same end. Keeping too long a vigil brings the same disastrous cost as … sluggishness… Too much self-denial brings weakness and induces the same condition as carelessness. Often I have seen men who would not be snared by […]
Archives for January 2019
The Perils of Moderation
It is a perilous time to be a moderate. Less than a week ago the above comic was published. It well expresses the dilemma of the moderate, but it expresses it even better than I thought when I first read the comic. You see, to my surprise, many of those who read the comic read […]
St. Anthony on praying your own prayers
A brother said to Father Anthony, “Pray for me,” The elder said to him, “I will have no mercy upon you, nor will God have any, if you yourself do not make an effort and if you do not pray to God.” 38 Sayings of Saint Anthony the Great But, Saint Anthony discerned something about […]
St. Anthony on judgment of others
A brother in a monastery was falsely accused of fornication, and he got up and went to Abba Anthony. And the brothers came from the monastery to heal him and take him back, and they started to charge that he did so. But he defended himself that he did no such thing. Now Abba Paphnutius […]
St. Anthony redux
“Abba Anthony said, ‘A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.”‘” The 38 Counsels of St. Anthony the Great The advent of post-modernism various decades ago set us on the path to […]
More from St. Anthony
“A hunter in the desert saw Abba Anthony enjoying himself with the brethren and he was shocked. Wanting to show him that it was necessary sometimes to meet the needs of the brethren, the old man said to him, ‘Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it.’ So he did. The old man then […]
The true price of the shutdown
Counsels of St. Anthony
Love and being older
The image above is so true in so many ways. When we are young we often have rather mistaken ideas of love. When we are very young, in this country, our ideas of love are drawn from our parents and from the stories we hear. Yes, that is indeed the Prince Charming stage of our […]
Whether truth is stronger than either wine, the king or woman. — Thomas Aquinas
Objections: It seems that wine (is stronger than the others) because it affects man the most. Again, (it seems) that the king (is stronger than the others) because he sends man to what is most difficult, namely, to that which exposed himself to mortal danger. Again, (it seems) that woman (is stronger), because she commands […]
