Greetings Glen Mar, While many of us struggle with being quiet, the Desert Mothers and Fathers believed that silence was a discipline that makes space for God to be present. Abba Poemen once said, “The victory over all the afflictions that befall you is to keep silence.” He also said, “If you keep silent, you will have peace wherever you…

Greetings Glen Mar, While Lent is just beginning, we now enter our second week of the Lectio365 Lenten series, The Desert Mothers and Fathers. This week, we turn to “the Desert as a Place of Spiritual Testing” and how the desert can intensify our hunger for holiness. Consider this saying from the desert monastics: A brother who was obsessed by…

Happy Friday, Glen Mar! Lent is right around the corner. While the penitential season officially begins next Wednesday on Ash Wednesday, February 18th, we will be starting our Lenten sermon series, The Desert Mothers and Fathers, this coming Sunday. Throughout the series, we will be drawing on resources from Lectio365. You can find more information about the series here. I…

Dear friends, Just a word of appreciation for the folks with whom I am blessed to connect through study. This week, after a week off due to weather, our Disciple classes gathered, and I was wowed by the risky sharing, the profound insights, and the deep desire to live as faithful disciples of Jesus. What a blessing! Disciple II classes…

Greetings Glen Mar, When was the last time you looked at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12? How about the entire “Sermon on the Mount”? As our resident Bible scholars are aware, the Beatitudes kick off Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, which covers chapters five through seven of Matthew’s Gospel. The teachings in these chapters are widely regarded as Jesus’s core…