Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: endurance

Fortitude/ Endurance

I wasn’t sure I could make it up all those steps. I was beginning to feel that this might be thrusting me over the edge of my endurance level. I could turn back, but I kept thinking – the top can’t be too far away. I was so tired I couldn’t look up. I could… Read More ›

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Hold to the Cross as our sail

Abbess Syncletica said, ‘When you have to fast, do not pretend illness. For those who do not fast often fall into real sicknesses. If you have begun to act well, do not turn back through constraint of the enemy, for through your endurance, the enemy is destroyed. Those who put out to sea at first… Read More ›

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Psalm 72 (71): 1-11– Justice shall Flourish

1. The Liturgy of Vespers, on whose psalms and canticles we are systematically commenting, presents in two parts one of the Psalms dearest to Jewish and Christian tradition: Psalm 72[71], a royal hymn on which the Fathers of the Church meditated, reinterpreting it in a Messianic key. We have just heard the first great movement… Read More ›

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The prayer of a man past his prime (me)

As I age Lord my sense of manhood seems to change.   When younger it was about muscles and vigor, endurance and lots of armor, pushups, and handstands, and lifting heavy weights, never admitting weakness, or even knowing of any in any real sense that I had any. I felt whole, strong, and together and foolishly… Read More ›

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To Live Life More Deeply

“I’ve gone to church all my life,” the woman said. “I don’t know why these things keep happening to me.” Her shoulders sagged a bit. “I just don’t know how much longer I can keep going on like this.” I could hear the sense of futility in her voice. But what is there to say… Read More ›

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To wake up

Trust is such a pleasant word.  It rolls off the tongue so gently and effortlessly; an invitation proffered, often said with a sincere smile.  “Trust me”, it can almost be something demanded, but in that demand (if perceived as such), trust dies or diminishes.  Weakened trust, is no trust at all, for fear and trust… Read More ›

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What is evil?

Abba Antony … learned that evil is the scattering of mind and spirit away from God’s presence. When the monk’s focus is deflected away from God he or she becomes subject to the demons. The demonic influences do not drive out God; they mask the awareness of God’s presence and transformative power. Patient endurance in… Read More ›

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Patient endurance

Abba Poemon once said (Patient endurance) is like having a chest full of clothes, if one leaves them in disorder they are spoiled in the course of time. It is the same with thoughts. If we do not do anything about them, in time they are spoiled, that is to say, they disintegrate. . …. Read More ›

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Prayer is Trust in God

(In times of affliction) we do what every human would do, we pray that it may be taken away from us. We owe, however, at least this much in our duty to God: if He does not take it away, we must not imagine that we are forgotten by Him, but, because of our loving… Read More ›

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A Camel Loaded with Bread

An old man said, `If temptation comes upon a person, from all sides afflictions multiply against him in order to discourage him and make him grumble’. And the old man recounted the following story: There was a certain brother at Kellia and temptation came upon him, and if someone saw him, that person wanted neither… Read More ›

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