Dead to Sin

Thoughts on Teaching and the Creation of a Teaching Order Recently, I have shared my plans and thoughts on advocating for and creating a monastic teaching order for a new Anglican boarding school " St. Dunstan's Academy. " I will express my culminated thoughts related to this in a few words. There have been several influences for me reflecting on this. These have been, in short, a renewed interest in the monastic tradition, a changed view on education in light of classical education tradition, the need for quality teaching, my desire to devote my own life to teaching Christian youth, and finally an epiphanic realization of the necessity of something like teaching orders in our very day. For those unaware, a teaching order would be a monastic order of either monks or nuns whose purpose stood primarily serving the church by the education of children. Situating Our View of Education  Some may be familiar with the history of teaching within the Christian West and that schools...

 Gold for the Spiritual Life: An Excerpt from the Enchiridion of Erasmus Recently I have taken up the " Essential Erasmus ." For those who aren't aware, any volume with "essential" next to a historic author usually signifies that the work is a kind of anthology of the author. Thus, the " Essential Erasmus " is a small, but defining, collection of Erasmus' works.  By the recommendation of a friend, I decided to order a used copy of this book, hoping to gain insight into Erasmus and gain wisdom about the spiritual life. Without exaggeration, apart from Holy Scripture and the daily office, nothing has shaped or influenced my spiritual life for the better than this work.  In our Protestant context, Erasmus can be an author we shy away from, even among Roman Catholics then and now, he was seen as an irreverent mocker and extreme critic of the state of things religious in his day. But if we pull back the polemic and satirical layer of this man, we find n...

  The Mother of Sorrows - Reflections on the Blessed Mother " Simeon saith unto Mary, 'A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also. [St. Lk. 2:35] That is, the Passion of the Lord, which was a fall unto many, and in which the secrets of many hearts were revealed since their sentiments respecting the Lord were extorted from them, without doubt, made His own Mother exceeding sorrowful, heavily struck with human bereavement ."  - St. Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms , Ps. 105 Traditional Christians have now passed the triumphal and glorious Easter Sunday after the penitential season of Lent. For many of us, during Lent, we gave up certain habits, foods, leisure, and comforts, to devote ourselves especially to the spiritual life in preparation for Easter Sunday. This time of heightened penitence and devotion (marked formally by Ash Wednesday) leads many to consult different devotional practices and works to adjust and refocus their mind on the spiritual life. One of th...