Author: fatherneo

‘I can think of no more conformist message in liberal [democratic] societies than the idea that students should learn to think for themselves.  What must be said is that most students in our society do not have minds well enough trained to think.  A central pedagogical task is to tell students that their problem is […]

As Christians and Muslims continue to interact and we struggle to find ways to communicate the faith, listen to the words of missionary Frank Laubach from the early 20th century.   Laubach was a missionary to Muslim Moros people on the Island of Mindanao. What right then have I or any other person to come […]

‘The workshop where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks is the enclosure of the monastery and stability of the community.’—Rule of Benedict 4:78. ‘[A monk] should not annoy his brothers.  If any brother happens to make an unreasonable demand of him, he should not reject him with disdain and cause him distress, […]

  Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of […]

    France has mandated by law the Muslim Burqa offensive to French culture.  It is now illegal for a woman to don the traditional Muslim dress in France.  If they are caught they must pay a fine and take a ‘cultural awareness’ class.  We all know the uproar over the Mosque and cultural center […]

On Possessions: The vice of personal ownership must by all means be cut out in the monastery by the very root…let no one all or take to himself anything as his own (cf. Acts 4:32).  Rule of Benedict Ch. XXXIII We have been brainwashed to believe that bigger houses…more luxurious gadgets, are worthy goals in […]

There was nothing perfect about Thomas Merton. He is a man with flaws and misgivings. The center of his life though, I believe, was his passionate relationship with Jesus. It was Christ that called him in his rebellious times, it was Christ that made him a monk and priest, it was Christ that gave him […]

  For the early Christians, training for baptism often involved looking at two different pieces of Scripture.  The first was the Sermon on the Mount, the other was the Exodus.  The Lectionary readings for Lent often follow this ancient pattern, and today is a good example.  We have the call of Moses prior to the […]

   “Catechumens will hear the word for three years.” So says Hippolytus, Presbyter in Rome in the 3rd Century.   As time and circumstances evolved (Constantine being the major one), this training of the Catechumens was transferred to the whole of the Church in preparation for Easter (Pascha).  Lent is a time for us to diagnose the things in […]

I have always been moved by the writings of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk whose consecration name was ‘Mary Louis.’  As his autobiography the Seven Story Mountain depicts, he struggled through the death of his parents and grandparents, as well as through years of rebellion and sin before he was called by God to the the Gethsemani […]