Wisdom for the Desert of our Time
Episode 4:
A Strength to Others
In today's passage from Athanasius's Life of Antony, Bishop Varden reflects on an encounter Antony had with a monk who came to visit him. The monk would often come, but never had anything to say. When pressed, the monk said: "It is enough for me to see you, Father."
Episode 3:
Become Who You Are
Asceticism is for love. Far from being motivated by a distaste for our bodily nature, the life of self-sacrifice is about ever deeper conformity of our very selves to image of God. Holiness, therefore, is the completion of our nature and transforms us into the men and women God created us to be.
Episode 2:
Facing Antony’s Temptations
The enemy is displeased with our efforts to embrace the life of holiness and will actively seek to get in our way… he “hates what is good” as Saint Athanasius reminds us. We must respond as Antony did with courage and an open heart, knowing that temptation will come, but knowing also that the power of Christ and his cross is more powerful than the evil one and all his works.
Episode 1:
Changed by the Life of Antony
Modern life is like a desert, parched for the life-giving water that Jesus promised to woman at the well. The Desert Fathers offer timeless insights for our growth in self-knowledge, charity, and holiness.
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Wisdom for the Desert of our Time
Modern life is like a desert, parched for the life-giving water that Jesus promised to woman at the well. The Desert Fathers offer timeless insights for our growth in self-knowledge, charity, and holiness.
Meet Bishop Varden
Erik Varden is a Cistercian monk and the Bishop of Trondheim in Norway.
He has become a leading Catholic voice through his writings that engage our secular culture using the language of beauty to point us to the centrality of our search for God, even when we look in the wrong places.
A Catholic convert during his studies at Cambridge, he discovered the monastic tradition and the Desert Fathers, inspiring his own vocation at Mount St. Bernard's Abbey in England where he eventually became abbot.
He guides us through the insights won in the spiritual combat of the ancient desert which direct us to what we need most today: the love of Christ that conquers all obstacles.
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