Category: Sermons

The Issues  How do we know of God? By God, I mean the creator of the universe and all which is in it, including ourselves. What do we know of […]

Introduction  In an earlier posting, I mentioned that, in 1954, Kadloubovsky and Palmer had published a second volume of extracts from the Philokalia. Its full title is Early Fathers from […]

In the Maronite tradition, which is a Syriac tradition, we celebrate on 15 August each year, what in that language is called 3eedo shoonoyo. This is known in English as […]

On 1 August, our Maronite Church celebrates the feast of St Shmuni and her seven sons. Their story is told in the Second Book of Maccabees, which I extract in […]

The feast of St Assya, also known as St Pantaleon, is celebrated on 27 July. I set out, in three parts, the account of his life, and then some reflections […]

The last post considered the Prayer of the Heart and the shorter version of it known as the Jesus Prayer. I said that, as I saw it, there were nine […]

The roots of the “Jesus Prayer” reach back, of course, to Our Lord Himself. The usual words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” are […]

An essay of mine, “The Virgin Mary in Ancient Christian Tradition,” has been published in the book Mariology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium. The book, edited by Kevin […]

I am very pleased that Pope Francis has canonised Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the seers of Fatima. After the apparitions of 1917, both died of influenza: Francisco on […]