The Irish Catholic Hermit

  Come and See: An Ascetical Confession of the Incarnate Lord I confess You, Lord Jesus Christ, not as an idea grasped by the mind, but as the Word who became flesh and was seen. My faith begins with the Incarnation and stands or falls with it. You did not remain invisible or inaccessible. You entered the limits of creation, took a true body from the Virgin, and lived among men. When Philip said to Nathanael, “Come and see,” he testified that You could be encountered in reality, not imagined or reasoned toward. B ecause You became man, I submit my whole life to this truth. I do not seek You apart from the flesh You assumed, nor do I attempt to rise to You by intellect alone. I renounce spiritual fantasies and private visions, for You have already given Yourself openly in history. I guard my mind from abstractions that separate spirit from body, because You united them in Yourself without confusion and without division. I accept discipline of the body because You sanctified the...

  Blessed Are the Persecuted A h, sure, there’s a way of livin’ that only the truest hearts can understand. It’s a way of walkin’ the earth where the measure of your soul isn’t by the comforts you’ve gathered or the praise you’ve earned, but by how much you align yourself with the Word of God. And when our Lord says, “Blessed are ye when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake,” (Matthew 5:11), well, He’s tellin’ us somethin’ mighty deep. The persecutions we face aren’t random or for nothin’, but because we’ve dared to stand with Him, to hold His words close and let them shape the very core of our lives. T his isn’t just the way of the everyday folk, you see. No, this way belongs to the ones who’ve fallen madly in love with God. Those who’ve chosen to make Him the center of it all. The ones who’ve made up their minds that their will will be crucified and that God's will will rule the day. They’re the ones who’d rather suffer in His...

  The Holy Turnabout of the Soul. T here’s a quare story told among the old desert lads, and there’s more truth in it than in a yard of newspapers. Abba John the Dwarf goes to Abba Poemen, all soft-eyed and settled, and says to him he’s after reachin’ such a grand peace of soul that there’s no temptations left knockin’ at his door. Not a whisper, not a tug, not a bother. And Poemen, the old fox, looks at him and says, near gentle but sharp as a scythe: “Pray to God, brother, that the battle comes back to you, the broken heart, the lowliness you had before. ’Tis only in the fight the soul puts on flesh.” A nd there you have it, the great riddle of the spiritual life, turned upside-down like a creel on the strand. What the world curses as misery and shame, the soul that’s half-awake knows as blessing. What the world runs from, the saints lean into, slow and steady, like a man walkin’ into a headwind he knows will make him strong. T he world has its own crooked wisdom, God help us. It...

  S geul na Slí , A Tale of the Road A h now, gather in close, a chairde, for I’ll spin ye a yarn, soft as turf-smoke and sharp as the wind off Carrauntoohil. ’Tis a tale of a soul’s wandering, a story of a man who set his face toward the Ever-Living Christ, and found that every footstep of his life, whether on stony boreen or soft meadow, was bend for bend a journey toward Himself. S ure wasn’t it known to him, as clear as a winter star, that long ago our first folk strayed from the good road, and all the misery of the world came spilling after them like sheep through a broken hedge? And so, says he, we’re free people, we can take the crooked tracks of our own stubbornness, fall flat on our faces, and carry the ache of our foolishness. Or we can turn, slow or sudden, and follow the Christ-path, the only one that leads us home. N ow this wise man spent many a dawn and dusk with the Gospel open before him, testing each thought against the living memory of the Church and the hard-won...

  The Sacred Gift of a Moment with God. Oh, if only poor creatures knew the immeasurable grace contained in a single moment of true audience with God! How blind we are to the treasure that lies hidden in prayer, that simple, sacred act by which eternity bends down to listen to time. When the soul kneels in the secret chamber of the heart and speaks with her Creator, a veil is lifted between the seen and the unseen, between the fleeting and the eternal. Prayer is not merely the utterance of words; it is the mysterious exchange between the finite and the Infinite. In that sacred silence where the soul finds herself alone with God, the world begins to fade like mist before the morning sun. The noise of life grows distant, its anxieties lose their hold, and every earthly care is swallowed up in the great stillness of divine presence. Then creatures no longer weigh upon us with their judgments or attachments, for we perceive that our true home is not here. The burdens of mortality grow ...

T he Holy Fire of Madness and Mercy. A h, sure, they’ll be callin’ it madness, won’t they? The world’ll scratch its head and whisper about it behind closed doors, but the man in the habit, he’ll be callin’ it clear-mindedness. They’ve a name for it too, the Fathers, they say it’s “sober drunkenness,” the kind of drunkenness that don’t come from the bottle, but from the heart. When the soul tastes the sweetness of God’s love, it’s like being caught in a whirlwind of contradiction. What the world would call daft, grace turns on its head and calls wise. What folks see as a loss, the monk will find, is the very gain of his life. W hen he steps into his cell, don’t go thinkin’ it’s just some tiny, quiet room. Oh no, it’s a place where the heart is squeezed tighter than a grape in the press, till it bursts open, and out pours the sweet wine of repentance and love divine. The door closes, and that’s when the storm begins. He’ll cry, and sure, it’s not just a few tears. It’s like the sea itsel...

  Gregory of Nyssa on Prayer This quote speaks for itself. It is from Gregory of Nyssa's first Homily on the Lord's Prayer We must learn first of all that we ought to pray and not to faint. For the effect of prayer is union with God, and if someone is with God, he is separated from the enemy. Through prayer we guard our chastity, control our temper, and rid ourselves of vanity; it makes us forget injuries, overcomes envy, defeats injustice, and makes amends for sin. Through prayer we obtain physical well-being, a happy home, and a strong, well-ordered society. Prayer will make our nation powerful, will give us victory in war and security in peace; it reconciles enemies and preserves allies. Prayer is the seal of virginity and a pledge of faithfulness in marriage; it shields the wayfarer, protects the sleeper, and gives courage to those who keep vigil. It obtains a good harvest for the farmer and a safe port for the sailor. Prayer is your advocate in lawsuits. If you are in pris...

                                            Taming the Beast: How a Bit o’ Humility and a Lot o’ Gumption Can Muzzle the Wildness of the Soul. Now, let me tell ye, battling them wild notions of the flesh with nothin’ but pure sweat and aching limbs is like trying to tie up a wild bull with baling twine—sure, it’ll hold for a minute, but give it a snort and a kick, and he’s off again, mad as ever. There’s many a fella gone down that road thinking they could wrestle themselves into sainthood with a cold floor and no supper, only to find the rogue inside just waitin’ for a soft bed and a bit o’ stew to come roaring back. But there’s a craftier way to go about it, boyo. You see, when a man takes up the arms of temperance—keeps himself sharp, watches the twilight, and doesn't let the candle burn for idleness—that's when the rogue gets yoked like a young ox in spring. It’s not about s...

Stillness, Saints, and the Holy Balancing Act: A Bit of Gospel Wisdom with a Twist of Tea. Ah, now gather in close, pull up a chair by the fire, and let me spin you a tale that’s equal parts confusion, contemplation, and divine craic. You see, once upon a prayerful moment, I stumbled upon a holy homily that gave me such a spiritual whack across the brow, I had to sit down and take a proper think. It’s from none other than the venerable St. Isaac the Syrian—a man who thought silence was golden and neighbours were, well… perhaps better appreciated from a respectful distance. And sure, while I’m no stranger to the occasional raised brow for following Christ, this bit of spiritual wisdom from St. Isaac had me twisting and turning like a sheepdog in a field full of rabbits. So let’s unpack it together, in five full hearty servings, with a generous side of Irish sense and a dollop of humour for good measure. The Fool’s Honour Now, don’t get me wrong—I’ve no bone to pick with being called a f...

  The Incarnate Mystery: Flesh and Spirit Wedded in Divine Union The most grievous foe of our holy faith, from its first dawning till this hour, hath ever been the attempt to sever Christ from the flesh. This dark deception, sown by the spirit of antichrist, would make void the glory of the Incarnation. St. John hath declared, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." Herein lies the great battle: whether Christ shall be worshipped as God in the flesh, or whether the flesh shall be scorned as a hindrance to the spiritual life. Christianity is no ethereal vision, hovering in the clouds, detached from the earth below. Nay, it is the marriage of heaven and earth, the Eternal Word made flesh. To divorce the spiritual from the physical is not only error but heresy most vile. For the same God who breathed life into Adam hath condescended to take flesh of a woman, making the human body a temple of the Divine Presence. The apocalyptic vi...

  The Grandness of Being Small: The Humble Road to Holiness Now listen here, lad or lassie, if there's one thing to be getting into that thick skull of yours, it's this – humility is the very heart and soul of Christ Himself. ‘The Lord is clothed with majesty,’ they say, but sure, would you believe, His majesty is His very humility! The Prophet Isaiah had it spot on when he painted the picture of Our Lord as a wee lamb, led to the slaughter, not a word out of Him. That’s the kind of humility a true monk chases after like a man lost in the bog seeking solid ground. He knows well that if he can get even a taste of it, the Lord’s own grace will come pouring down over him like rain on a parched field. Now, you’d think humility would be a handy thing to have, but let me tell you, it’s no easy road. Saint Sophrony, the wise old lad, put it plain as day—pride is the root of all our trouble, and by God, it runs deep, right into the very bones of us. From the minute Adam and Eve went ta...

The Three Gifts and the Wisdom of the Magi Ah, my friends, sure it’s no accident at all that the Christ Child was greeted with three gifts at the manger. Not two, not four, but three—a tidy number, isn’t it? Now, could it be a nod to the Holy Trinity itself? Or maybe it’s a sign of Christ’s own mission: prophet, priest, and king? Sure, perhaps it even speaks to ourselves—spirit, soul, and body, the very essence of being human. I’ll leave the unravelling of that grand mystery to your own musings over a strong cup of tea. But for now, let’s cast our eyes eastward to those Magi, those clever lads who set out under a star to bring their treasures. These fellas, well, they didn’t just represent themselves; no, they stood in for all of us. And the gifts they brought—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—well, those gifts aren’t just shiny trinkets for the mantelpiece. They’ve meaning, they do! Gold, you see, is for the material—what we earn with the sweat of our brows and the calluses on our hands...