Douglas Knight

The texts for all his future sermons—which God knows were not many—were constantly taken out of the gospel for the day; and he did as constantly declare why the Church did appoint that portion of scripture to be that day read; and in what manner the collect for every Sunday does refer to the gospel, [...]

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Today we celebrate Saint Irenaeus

‘So also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been reintroduced, shall cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead…so did he who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling him to gather up Adam (into himself) from Mary.’ (3.21.10)
‘Luke [...]

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God could have granted no greater gift to human beings than to cause his Word, through whom he created all things, to be their head, and to fit them to him as his members. He was thus to be both Son of God and Son of Man, one God with the Father, one human with [...]

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All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, this circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the [...]

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The monumental achievement of Thomas Aquinas was to marry the wisdom of a millennium of Christian philosophy and theology to the new philosophy of Aristotle that had been rediscovered in Europe (largely through the mediation of Arabic philosophers) in the early thirteenth century. This intellectual marriage yielded a rich, complex, and (to use the precisely [...]

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In the disintegration of Western thought the Church has been treated as sociological entity; its human, visible aspects have become separated in idea from its mystical and divine aspects. This dichotomy lies at the root of all our Western divisions, and this appears to be reproduced in them all. Thus the conception of a single [...]

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According to Maximus it was not, properly speaking, Christ who was transfigured when he was seen in glory; it was the disciples, who were momentarily enabled to see him as he truly is. “They passed over from flesh to spirit before they had put aside this fleshly life, by the change in their powers of [...]

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The doctrine of the life shared in Christ is brought into relation to the doctrine of the Body of Christ. The life shared is embodied. The Church is related to Christ as his mystical complement in the one organism of the new creation.
Today men desire the integration of life upon a new basis. But [...]

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In such a person the apostolic word is fulfilled. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28). For whoever does not violate the logos of his own existence that pre-existed in God is in God through diligence; and he moves in God according to the logos of his well-being that pre-existed [...]

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There can be no doubt that the one Word of God is the substance of virtue in each person. For our Lord Jesus Christ himself is the substance of all the virtues, as it is written: This one God made our wisdom, our justice, our sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1.30). These things of [...]

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… and come before his presence with a song (Psalm 100)
In the house of the Lord, slavery is free. It is free because it serves not out of necessity, but out of charity… Charity should make you a servant, just as truth has made you free… you are at once both a servant and free: [...]

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And what is the ideal of theology in the spiritual tradition of which St. Maximos is such a leading light? In that tradition, the patristic Orthodox tradition, the word ‘theology’, as Orthodox theologian Alexander Golitsin points out in another context, is used in at least five different levels of meaning—not five different meanings, but hierarchically, [...]

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Here is a wonderful response to the ‘By grace and participation’ post (below) from Vincent Rossi:
As a student of St. Maximos the Confessor for 20 years, and particularly of the Mystagogia, I would say that it is precisely the first paragraph quoted of Chapter 24, which you say is “hard to take”, that is absolutely [...]

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Thank God for friends. They are always trying to get my education started again, particularly Alan, who mailed yesterday:
‘Have you read Maximus’ Mystagogia (ET in Berthold’s Classics of
Western Spirituality edn.) – absolutely superb, esp. ch 24 which is
the ecclesiastical exterminator of all Thomist-Aristotelian
understandings of communion.’
When he comes I will ask Alan what [...]

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