Religion

"Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it." John Chrysostom.

Lent Welcome to Lent 2012. I enter the season with high expectations, more so than usual. I can't identify the source of my optimism, but maybe the letters of Seneca are wearing on me well. Then again, Seneca counseled against hope, though, in his letter on groundless fears

"Gregory of Sinai is insisting on an essential aspect of the Orthodox mystical tradition: the most dangerous enemy to union with God is imagination in any shape or form, voluntary or involuntary. There is a curious likeness between this Eastern spiritual doctrine and Simone Weil's concept of

“Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.” Mother Teresa

On Zen In the seventh century, Hung Jen, the fifth patriarch of Chinese Zen Buddhism, neared death. In order to choose a successor, he asked each monk to compose a verse that testified to the monk's Zen insight and post it on the wall. Shen Hsiu, the illustrious

Hui-Neng wrote that, once everyone recognized the beautiful as beautiful, ugliness arose. It's a clever thought. In order to understand the paradox, you must focus on "as beautiful." Hui-Neng isn't saying there isn't beauty. He is saying that we shouldn't

"The Christian maxim, Deny thyself, is far better than the Epicurean maxim, Enjoy thyself, for there is no real enjoyment without self-denial." Orestes Brownson

"Let us rid ourselves of any suggestion of discouragement. Neither external difficulties nor our personal wretchedness can do anything to quell the joy of the Christmas which is approaching." Francis Fernandez

"An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer." Escriva.