#church fathers

[religious-extremist]

The envious devil has three traps that steal joy and peace from man: regret for the past, anxiety about the future and ingratitude for the present.

+ St. Anthony the Great (4th century)

[thecatholicbozo]

"And pray ye without ceasing on behalf of other men. For there is in them hope of repentance that they may attain to God. See, then, that they be instructed in your works, if in no other way. Be ye meek in response to their wrath, humble in opposition to their boasting: to their blasphemies return your prayers; in contrast to their error, be ye steadfast in the faith; and for their cruelty, manifest your gentleness. While we take care not to imitate their conduct, let us be found their brethren in all true kindness; and let us seek to be followers of the Lord (who ever more unjustly treated, more destitute, more condemned?), that so no plant of the devil may be found in you, but ye may remain in all holiness and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both with respect to the flesh and spirit."

-St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians

[orthodoxadventure]

Not everything within the Church dates from Apostolic times. This does not mean that something has been revealed which was 'unknown' to the Apostles; nor does it mean that which is of a later date is less important and convincing. Everything was given and revealed fully from the beginning. On the day of Pentecost Revelation was completed, and will admit no further completion till the Day of Judgement and its last fulfilment. Revelation has not been widened, and even knowledge has not increased. The Church knows Christ now no more than it knew Him at the time of the Apostles. But it testifies to greater things. In its definitions it always unchangeably describes the same thing, but in the unchanged image ever new features become visible. But it knows the truth not less and not otherwise than it knew it in the time of old. The identity of experience is loyalty to tradition. Loyalty to tradition did not prevent the Fathers of the Church from 'creating new names' (as St Gregory Nazianzen says) when it was necessary for the protection of the unchangeable faith.

--  Archpriest Georges Florovsky

[apesoformythoughts]

“If someone who is born of God does not sin, how is it that we who have been born of water and the Spirit, and thus of God, do in fact commit sins? The answer is that the phrase ‘born of God’ has two different meanings. According to the first of these, God has given the grace of sonship with all power to those who have been born again. According to the second, the God who has thus given birth is working in us to bring us to perfection. By faith we are born again in principle, but God still has to get to work on us in order to refashion us according to his likeness.”

— St. Maximus the Confessor

[catholicmemoirs]

Living a Contemplative life as Mother

I woke up early and went down the rabbit hole of my less than ideal morning routine of grabbing my phone, checking emails and going wherever it may lead me on the internet.

I first found this Sunday sermon from Bishop Barron in my inbox:

Which then led me to find guidance from my Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (San Francisco) and came upon an interesting article of a pharmacist turned Dominican nun. Her story was amazing but her words struck me deeply:

"Cling to the rosary instead of your phone."

This further led me to follow a link to the order she had joined and I watched a video of their order: 

Although cloistered life as a nun is lovely, my calling as a mother is where I am now. Maybe someday when the kids are older, my debts paid and my husband passes, I can consider joining a religious order, but more feasible would be finding a third order that suits me.

The video had comments of someone's recommendation on living a contemplative life as a mother: 

1. Lectio Divina

2. Holy Hour

3. Wake up early for prayer

4. Hidden penances for people: fasting, mortifications, etc.

I thought this was helpful! So I pulled my prayer book from my prayer desk and read morning prayers. All of them. And will work on following these steps to a contemplative life as a mom.

[jurakan]

The Saint Who Met Mythological Creatures

Alright, so! @wolfprincess17! I originally didn’t plan to talk about him this week, but his Feast Day was this week, so Today You Learned about the encounters between Saint Anthony of Egypt and Greek mythological creatures!

Saint Anthony of Egypt, or Saint Anthony the Great, is one of the early saints and a father of the monastic movement. One thing he did was go out into the desert to go be a hermit, much in the same way that Jesus did for forty days in the Gospels. One of the popular bits about his story is that like Jesus, Anthony experienced temptations in the desert, where weird visions and demons and shiz came and bothered him. Weirdly, these stories aren’t something that came hundreds of years later–one of his contemporaries, Saint Athanasius, mentioned them.

Huh.

Anyhow, it’s a popular subject in art– @ms-ninja-crab has a bit from one of those paintings as her icon. Anyway, among the crazy things reported to have happened in his desert wanderings, there are encounters with Greek mythological creatures: a centaur, and a satyr. 

When he was looking for another desert Hermit, Paul of Thebes, Anthony came across a centaur. Anthony asked for directions, at which point the centaur tried speaking to him, but Anthony couldn’t understand the gibberish coming out of the creature’s mouth. The centaur pointed in the direction of Paul, and then ran off.

[Jacopo Palma il Giovane’s image of the event.]

Later on, he runs into a half-man, half-goat creature, and this one does speak Anthony’s language. The creature says he’s a satyr, and a mortal creature, of a race mistakenly worshiped by humans mistaking them for a god. The satyr asks Anthony to pray for him and his people, because he heard of the Lord Jesus saved the world. Anthony then takes some time to criticize the people of Alexandria, Egypt, because so many of them worship idols, whereas this nonhuman creature in the desert honors the Lord God. 

Then the satyr also runs off.

What the heck do we make of these stories?

The common explanation is: they’re demons sent to confuse or scare Saint Anthony. Satyrs/fauns were often seen as demons of the wild places by the Jewish people when they were introduced to them in the Hellenistic and Roman world (because, y’know, lustful goat people hanging out in the wilderness just sounds demonic). Except… these creatures don’t act like demons. The centaur seems a surprise, but Saint Anthony isn’t tempted or scared by him; the guy seems weirdly helpful considering the language barrier. And the satyr praises Jesus, which is not something you’d expect from a demon.

A kind of metaphor, then? But for what? And it’s also worth noting that Saint Jerome didn’t see this as a metaphor–in recounting the story in The Life of Paul the First Hermit, Jerome makes a point to assure readers that satyrs are totally real, guys–one showed up in Alexandria one day, and the body’s still around! You can see it! Or something.

I don’t know what to tell you, guys. I’d like to believe that it’s a way to say that even nonhuman beings are welcome to be saved and welcomed into the Christian religion, because that’s an interesting idea. At the same time, it’s so odd and out there, that people are still arguing what this story’s supposed to mean. Most people don’t take it as a literal recounting of events, I think, which is, y’know, fair. 

But it’s fricking weird.

[seekingtheosis]

Understanding Formal Creed Statements: Its Need in Early Christianity

Explore the need for formal creed statements in early Christianity, addressing false teachings like Gnosticism, Docetism, and Arianism to preserve the true faith of the Church.

In the name of God the Father, Christ Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus In the previous blog, where we introduced the topic of the Statement of Faith, we learned how the early Christian statement of faith, encapsulated in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, played a pivotal role in defining and uniting Christian belief across…

[musingongoodness]

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Burnout as Christian is really important topic!

[orthodoxydaily]

Sunday, July 30, 2023: the orthodox Church celebrated the Church's Fathers who, guided by the Holy Spirit, preserved and defined the "right worship" of one God in the Trinity. Which is now called the Christian Orthodox faith

[whats-in-a-sentence]

All Englishwomen lived in a society that accepted without question the judgement of the ancient Greeks and the wisdom of the church fathers: that women were 'naturally' inferior to men, physically, mentally and spiritually.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[ephphathax]

There are lots of misconceptions about the Catholic Church, but reading the Church Fathers, reading the Catechism, looking at how the Catholic Church goes back to the time of Christ and learning about the lives of the saints help us understand the true Catholic Church and its unique deposit of the Faith better.

[thecatholicbozo]

"A Christian has not power over himself, but must always be ready for the service of God. Now, this work is both God's and yours, when ye shall have completed it to His glory. For I trust that, through grace, ye are prepared for every good work pertaining to God."

-St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Polycarp

[orthodoxadventure]

The Fathers

The definitions of the Councils must be studied in the wider context of the Fathers. but as with Local Councils, so with the Fathers, the judgement of the Church is selective: individual writers have at times fallen into error and at times contradict one another. Patristic wheat needs to be distinguished from Patristic chaff. An Orthodox must not simply know and quote the Fathers, he must enter into the spirit of the Fathers and acquire a 'Patristic mind'. He must treat the Fathers not merely as relics from the past, but as living witnesses and contemporaries.

The Orthodox Church has never attempted to define exactly who the Fathers are, still less to classify them in order of importance. But it has a particular reverence for the writers of the fourth century, and especially for those whom it terms 'the Three Great Hierarchs', Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom. In the eyes of Orthodoxy the 'Age of the Fathers' did not come to an end in the fifth century, for many later writers are also 'Fathers' - Maximus, John of Damascus, Theodore of Studium, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, Mark of Ephesus. Indeed, it is dangerous to look on 'the Fathers' as a closed cycle of writings belonging wholly to the past, for might not our own age produce a new Basil or Athansius? To say that there can be no more Fathers is to suggest that the Holy Spirit has deserted the Church.

-- Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church

[modestcatholiclife]

Introduction/Catholicism in the Outback

Welcome to my blog! To introduce myself: I'm a 21 year old Australian woman about to start catechism in the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church. I'll primarily be using this blog as an account of my journey in the spiritual life and with my other self-improvement endeavours. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Now to start my first blog post in media res.

At this time, I'm visiting my grandparents on their farm alongside my fiance, mother, and two younger brothers (18 & 10). This is our fourth day here. It's lovely being out in nature, waking up to kangaroos outside my window.

My fiance and I have been treating this as a spiritual retreat of sorts, seeking to restore our prayer life which has been falling to the wayside as of late. The two of us are staying in the cottage that sits behind my grandparents' house. I've been praying my usual minor hours of the Chasoslov (Horologion) and we've been doing a matins and vespers of sorts together, using the morning and evening prayers from our Orthodox Study Bibles. We've been using my fiance's Psalter instead of the single Psalm those prayers ask for. I'm really enjoying this style of prayer and am greatly considering adding it to my own prayer life. In addition, we've been reading through St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Lectures together in order to prepare me for my own upcoming catechism. I still don't feel even remotely prepared but it's been a big help to my understanding of the faith.

Of course, we can't spend all of our time alone in our cabin in prayer. This is a family trip and a chance for my fiance to meet his future grandparents-in-law. This was also when we were able to tell my grandparents of our engagement, as I didn't want to tell them over the phone. This news has been passed on to my aunty who we are hoping to visit this year. She and my uncle live in Melbourne; just an hour away by plane. I've never been on a plane, or out of state, and there is a lovely Ukrainian Catholic Church in Melbourne that my fiance and I would love to see. However, the two we've spent more of our time with on this trip have been my grandparents' two dogs: Owwie the kelpie and Chanel the poodle. Owwie is very friendly and Chanel is too, though she can be rather skittish.

Though it was hot when we came up here, averaging at about 30° (that's Celsius) on our first three days, the weather has turned on us now. It's not overly cold, but it keeps raining. My fiance and I did use the pool the other day but have spent more of our time cleaning up the cottage. The last people to stay here were my aunty and uncle from Melbourne two years ago so there was a lot of grime stuck to the floors. It took us a good few hours but was well worth it. I've also gotten a start on using my self-care planner, gifted to my by a friend on my last birthday. I've written in the twelve major feasts (looking forward to the Holy Theophany tomorrow), along with all the birthdays and appointments I could remember. I plan to buy a packet of highlighters to distinguish the liturgical seasons on the year-at-a-glance section of my planner. I've also filled out a lot of my Glow Up doc, where I write out all of my goals for the year. I have one that I share with friends, a habit we started back in high school, but this is the first time where I've created one by myself. I've added additional headings (with friends the headings were: Fitness, Hobbies/Interests, Hot Girl Summer - whose most common goal was always "get a haircut", Money, School - now known as Education, Social, and Tomfoolery & Shenanigans), and gone into more detailed and personal goals. Hopefully that makes sense. It's extensive, and will become more so when I get back home to my laptop.

I haven't been doing as much independent reading I would like, only having read a few chapters of The Little Book of Skin Care by Charlotte Cho and my fiance and I have continued to slack on our exercise regime, but we still have three more days here.

And that's the end of my first blog post, the only other major thing we plan to do today is book in a time for both of us to take our driver knowledge test.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

[sovereignsowers]

"Many build churches nowadays; their walls and pillars of glowing marble, their ceilings glittering with gold, their altars studded with jewels. Yet to the choice of Christ's ministers no heed is paid."

- Jerome

[jurakan]

Got a fun fact today?

I ALWAYS have Fun Facts, Em!

…aw fudge, I’m looking at the notes I made during the day, and I’m realizing you probably know a lot of these things I was thinking of doing for today, like the relationship between Smilodon and modern cats, so, uh, let’s talk Church Fathers.

Today You Learned that there is an academic debate on whether Origen of Alexandria (c.185 - c.253) cut off his own junk.

Note: this image was made in the 1500’s and probably not what he actually looked like.

So very famously, Jesus said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” And then there’s Matthew 19:12, which says “there are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven.” Origen wrote that anyone who takes this literally is a foolish fool and he never mentions anything on the subject in the writings of his that we have today.

But.

Fourth Century Christian scholar Eusebius, who thought Origen was THE SHIZ, wrote in his Church History that when he was young Origen decided to either chop off his own junk, or have someone do it for him. This would let him A) follow the words of Jesus, and B) be a teacher of the Word of God to young men and women and no one would ever be able to claim that he was doing any hanky panky with any of his students.

[That sounds weird, but keep in mind that in antiquity it wasn’t unheard of for teachers to be involved with their students like that. There are sources that claim Socrates and his student Alcibiades were lovers, for instance. And it happened well into the Christian era too! Abelard and Heloise, anyone?]

So did he castrate himself or not? [shrugs] We don’t know. Eusebius was a long time after Origen, so it’s not like he was there. But where did he get the story from? It’s likely that female students wouldn’t have been left alone with him given standards of the day, so that reason might not hold any water. It sounds like the kind of thing that would be gossip passed down by his enemies, but again, Eusebius thought Origen was awesome so it’s weird if he decided to tell people a thing that made him sound bad. Because, to reiterate, Origen said he thought it was a dumb thing to do. But does he say that out of experience?

I don’t know! But it’s insane! Because here is a commonly-cited theologian, who some consider to be a Church Father, who may or may not have lopped off his junk!

Is that crazy or what.