Truly, when I consider our fathers of old, I feel like one who has never known God. Is it not a marvel that our fathers the Patriarchs Abraham, our father Isaac, our father Jacob married wives, raised children, took...
As was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, the suffering required for spiritual martyrdom may arise from exterior agents, or from natural evils, or from the evil spirits. It may also arise from the practice of one...
The blessed virgin S. Agnes was much wise, and well taught, as S. Ambrose witnesses, and wrote her passion. She was fair in countenance, but much fairer in the Christian faith, she was young of age, in the thirteenth...
My task begins favorably, that since today is the birthday of a virgin, I have to speak of virgins, and the treatise has its beginning from this discourse. It is the birthday of a martyr, let us offer the...
Enacted assimilation of the text, points us beyond the mind and heart to consider another dimension of monastic prayer, the use of the body. We know from all of the monastic literary sources that bodily postures and gestures were...
“If prayer is fulfilled together with its outward forms, then this is the fulfilment, not only of psalmody, but also of all the virtues.”
- St. Isaac the Syrian
As part of my duties in the monastery is taking care of the...
The Coptic Church, in its humble and meek spirit, teaches her children three types of prostration, or metanias (bowing). These are: prostrations of worship, repentance, and honor.
1. Prostrations of Worship
These are the prostrations offered to God during our individual...
I would say that the desert deserves to be called a temple of our God without walls. Since it is clear that God dwells in silence, we must believe that he loves the solitary expanses of the desert. Very...
A young man desired to renounce and abandon the world, and many times set off to fulfil his desire. However, as soon as he would get outside the city to leave for the monastery, his decision would be overturned...
Spirituality in the desert or on the mountain, differs in its manner from spirituality in the city. One of the most troublesome factors for a worshipper in the city is being enclosed within four walls. I have experienced this...
