Category: Sermons
St Isaac the Syrian

Meister Eckhart and the Ways
Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1328) said that “Whoever is seeking God by ways is finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden. But whoever seeks for God without ways will […]
Read more
The Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation (“the Apocalypse”) is itself so astounding, almost miraculous a book, that one could fairly evoke it as a itself confirming us in the rationality of our […]
Read more
A Syriac Meditation on Hosanna Sunday
“Hosanna Sunday” (Syriac, Had b-šabo dooša3ne), is one of the great feasts of the Syriac Christian calendar. It is not as important as Easter, but it is more than just […]
Read more
Fasting
I: The Preparation for Great Lent The word “lent” comes from a root which means “discipline”, so that “Lent” is the Season of Self-Discipline. Its imagery is marked, above all, […]
Read more
At the Book Launch
This is my speech at the book launch for An Introduction to the Maronite Faith, Parliament House, NSW, 13 February 2018. It took place in the decorous Jubilee Room (pictured). The […]
Read more
Knowing of God
The Issues How do we know of God? By God, I mean the creator of the universe and all which is in it, including ourselves. What do we know of […]
Read more
The Practice of Unceasing Prayer
Introduction In an earlier posting, I mentioned that, in 1954, Kadloubovsky and Palmer had published a second volume of extracts from the Philokalia. Its full title is Early Fathers from […]
Read more
The Feast of the Shoonoyo (Assumption)
In the Maronite tradition, which is a Syriac tradition, we celebrate on 15 August each year, what in that language is called 3eedo shoonoyo. This is known in English as […]
Read more