Instruction 
Instruction on the Rule by noteworthy modern day monastics or oblates
Christ Himself is the Truth
Those who are quickened to a divine life in Christ, by His Spirit, enter into intimate communion with the Truth. They possess the Truth. Truth lives in their entire being and manifests itself in all their activities, body and soul. The “Truth has made them free.” Christ Himself is the Truth. And to achieve this… Read More ›
The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Is it still relevant to us?
Can the Ladder, a work written by a hermit monk who lived 1,400 years ago, say something to us today? Can the existential journey of a man who lived his entire life on Mount Sinai in such a distant time be relevant to us? At first glance it would seem that the answer must be… Read More ›
Spiritual Emancipation
He who is spiritually “born” as a mature identity is liberated from the enclosing womb of myth and prejudice. He learns to think for himself, guided no longer by the dictates of need and by the systems and processes designed to create artificial needs and then “satisfy” them. This emancipation can take two forms: first… Read More ›
Merton: The Value of Self-Knowledge
To live well myself means for me to know and appreciate something of the secret the mystery in myself: that which is incommunicable, which is at once myself and not myself at once in me and above me. From this sanctuary I must seek humbly and patiently to ward off all the intrusions of violence… Read More ›
Enter the Meaning of the Psalms
. . . There is no aspect of the interior life, no kind of religious experience, no spiritual need of the human person that is not depicted and lived out in the Psalms. But we cannot lay hands on these riches unless we are willing to work for them. … We cannot by mere human… Read More ›
The cult of pure illusion
One of the most widespread errors of our time is a superficial “personalism” which identifies the “person” with the external self, the empirical ego, and devotes itself solemnly to the cultivation of this ego. But this is the cult of a pure illusion, the illusion of what is popularly imagined to be “personality” or worse… Read More ›
Spiritual Life Today
Many of the problems and sufferings of the spiritual life today are either fictitious or they should not have to be put up with. But because of our mentality we block the “total response” that is needed for a fully healthy and fruitful spirituality. In fact the very idea of “spirituality” tends to be unhealthy… Read More ›
Introduction to the Psalter
. . .The Psalter appears as a “formulary” of prayers, a collection of 150 Psalms which the Biblical Tradition offers the people of believers so that they become their and our prayer, our way of speaking and of relating to God. This Book expresses the entire human experience with its multiple facets and the whole range… Read More ›
How important is TV?
I have watched TV twice in my life. I am frankly not terribly interested in TV anyway. Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they… Read More ›
Self Fusion and Human Personality
The root of personality is to be sought in the “true Self” which is manifested in the basic unification of consciousness in which subject and object are one. Hence the highest good is “the self’s fusion with the highest reality.”* Human personality is regarded as the force which effects this fusion. The hopes and desires… Read More ›