Abbeys mark time by worship, not clocks or time cards. We structure our days to carve out space for prayer; we cultivate silence so we can hear God. Our lives oscillate between assembly and solitude, community and contemplation-all of which are good gifts from God.
We can have peace about long-range development on our land, realizing that God will see the work to completion in His time.
Until we believe that God, who possesses perfect wisdom and perfect love, who knows everything about us there is to know and always has our very best interest in mind, whose every command and every invitation is meant to enhance us rather than diminish us, we will continue to suffer fruitless exhaustion.
A spiritual director does not replace the Holy Spirit and does not speak for Jesus. But they can walk with us down to the riverbank, help us put our tired, dusty feet in the water, and remind us what our thirst is for.
Christ’s constraint frees us from the crushing obligation to make choices that will lead to our highest flourishing, which in turn mitigates the anxiety that we may have chosen poorly.
In the podcast, “A Proper Christian Burial,” Mark Bauerlein of First Things magazine interviews Tim Perry on what constitutes a proper Christian burial and why it matters that Christians recover this practice.
