Oblates of St. Benedict » Church Fathers

Take a survey of your abilities, and consult God

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:50:38 +0000

It is the opinion of St. Gregory the Great that the world is to some persons so full of ambushes and snares, or dangerous occasions of sin, that they cannot be saved but by choosing a safe retreat. Yet there are some who find the greatest dangers in solitude itself; so that it is necessary for every one to sound his own heart, take a survey of his own forces and abilities, and consult God, that he may best be able to learn the designs of his providence with regard to his soul; in doing which, a great purity of intention is the first requisite. Ease and enjoyment must not be the end of Christian retirement, but penance, labour, and assiduous contemplation; without great fervour and constancy in which, close solitude is the road to perdition. If greater safety, or an unfitness for a public station, or a life of much business (in which several are only public nuisances), may be just motives to some for embracing a life of retirement, the means of more easily attaining to perfect virtue may be such to many. Nor do true contemplatives bury their talents, or cease either to be members of the republic of mankind, or to throw in their mite towards its welfare.

Surmounting Temptation

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:40:26 +0000

What does it mean to surmount temptations, and what is the cure for them? The answer is this: you must never grow weary but pray to God with your whole heart, praising him and being patient in all circumstances; and then the temptation will leave you. Thus was Abraham tested, and he emerged victorious from the struggle. That is why Scripture says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but from them all the Lord delivers them. Again, James says in his letter, If anyone among you is sad, let him pray. You see then how all the righteous, on falling into temptation, have cried to God. It also stands written: God is faithful, and he does not allow you to be tried beyond your strength. So now God is at work in you because of the integrity of your hearts. If he did not love you, he would not bring temptations upon you; Scripture tells us that God disciplines those he loves, and chastises the children he accepts. Accordingly the faithful need temptations, for those who have not been through them are not of the elect. They wear a habit indeed, but fail to show the fortitude it demands. Our father Antony used to say to us, Without trials a person cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, and blessed Peter too wrote in his letter: Rejoice now, though you seem to be saddened by various temptations, that your faith may be tested and proved excellent, more so than gold which passes through fire.

St. Ammonas the Hermit
Epist. 9.2-5 (PO 10:590-593); Word in Season VIII

The Sign of God Working in Souls

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:44:24 +0000

With this in mind, then, you understand how it is in the spiritual life that the first fruits of the Holy Spirit give joy to those whose hearts he sees to be pure, and yet after bestowing this joy and sweetness on them the Spirit holds aloof and forsakes them. The explanation is this: he deals thus with those that seek him and fear God, withdrawing to a distance and leaving them to themselves until he knows whether they will seek him or not. There are some people who after he has abandoned them and gone away sit down overwhelmed by disgust, and remain immovably fixed in it. They do not pray to God, asking him to remove the disgust from them and cause the joy and sweetness they knew earlier to return, but through carelessness and self-will they become strangers to God's sweetness. If, however, they become aware of this disgust, so unaccustomed and alien to their former joy, they ought to pray to God with tears and fasting. Then he of his graciousness, seeing their heartfelt sincerity and knowing that they are praying to him with all their hearts and entirely renouncing their own will, would give them joy greater than they had before and make them even stronger. This is a sign of God’s work in any soul that seeks him.

St Ammonas the Hermit
Epist. 9.2-5 (PO 10:590-593); Word in Season VIII.

The noxious weed: the love of money

admin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:55:01 +0000

Now nothing is more effective against the devil’s wiles, dearly beloved, than tender compassion and unselfish love; by these every sin can be either avoided or conquered. But such a degree of virtue cannot be attained until its contrary is overcome; and there is surely nothing so hostile to mercy and works of charity as the love of money, from the root of which all evil springs up. Unless this noxious weed is starved to death, it is inevitable that the heart in which it has taken root will bring forth the thorns and briars of vice rather than any flower of true virtue. Therefore, my beloved, let us resist this most pestilent of evils and make charity our aim, for no virtue can flourish without it; and then by the same path of love which Christ trod when he came down to us, we shall be able to ascend to him, to whom, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, belong honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

St Leo the Great,
Sermon 74, 5 (CCL 138A:459-461); Word in Season III, 1^st ed.

St. Augustine: There is no doubt the dead are aided by our prayers

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:45:17 +0000

There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. It is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended. But by the prayers of the Holy Church, and by the salvific sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided, that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. The whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death.

St. Augustine of Hippo
Sermons c. 411 A.D.