If it seems to us difficult, because the practice of virtue is hard, and still more because of the insidious counsel of the adversary, behold, He is pitiful and longsuffering, waiting for our conversion; and when we sin, He holds His hand, in expectation of our repentance; and when we fall, He is not ashamed to take us back, as the prophet says, Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return? Only let us be on the watch, making sure of a good intention, and let us be converted straight and fair, seeking help from Him, and He is ready to save us. He is looking for our will to turn to Him with a fervent impulse, to the best of our power, and for faith and zeal that springs from a good purpose; the whole success of the endeavour is His own work in us. Let us then endeavour, beloved, like children of God, putting away all preoccupation, and carelessness, and sloth, to be courageous and ready to follow after Him. Let us not put off from day to day, without observing how sin is injuring us. We do not know when we are to depart out of the flesh. The promises made to Christians are great and unspeakable, so great, that all the glory and beauty of sky and earth, and all the other adornment and variety, the wealth and comeliness and delight, of things visible, bear no proportion to the faith and wealth of a single soul.

~ St. Macarius the Egyptian, Fifty Spiritual Homilies, 5.17

I know it’s been a while, but I haven’t forgotten about this blog. I’ve just been busy promoting my new book, The Kingdom of God and the Common Good. Readers of this blog will be happy to know that, in a way, the whole book is about everyday asceticism, focused especially on questions of wealth, poverty, and society today.

Here is a Christmas-y excerpt:

Given that many more of us today enjoy the comforts of relative wealth, we all ought to ask with the disciples, “Who then can be saved?” (Matt. 19:25). But unlike the rich young ruler who despaired for his soul, we should also take comfort in the Lord’s response: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (19:26). God becomes man. A Virgin gives birth. The blind see. Death is put to death. Those born once can be “born again” (John 3:3). Even we rich can be saved if we see our true poverty before God and prudently use our resources for mercy.

The epigraph from St. Marcarius the Egyptian makes a similar point. Don’t despair over your sin. Hopelessness is “the insidious counsel of the adversary.” Christ, on the other hand, makes the impossibly good, possible. Indeed, the other passage in the Gospel in which we are told “with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37) is the Annunciation to the Theotokos by the Archangel Gabriel that she, a Virgin, will give birth to the promised Christ.

This Christmas I need the wise counsel of St. Macarius for my soul. But I also need it for the hope of doing things that feel impossible to me. With the blessing of my bishop, I’ve been working to found an Orthodox research institute: the St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute for Orthodoxy & Liberty. Everything is still in the beginning phases, but I have been amazed how, all year, what has seemed impossible and unimaginable has again and again become possible before my eyes.

The purpose of the institute is to continue what I began with my new book, except tapping into a network of Orthodox scholars from a wide range of disciplines, for the purpose of better equipping Orthodox clergy and laity to live faithful (and ascetic) lives in our very strange modern world.

I’ll try to keep posting here, but between promoting the new book and founding this institute, posts will continue to be infrequent. If you’d like to follow my broader work, check out some of the hyperlinks above.

Lastly, if I may be so bold, I’d like to request some asceticism from you: Please pray for me as I continue this impossible journey, that by God’s grace I would not lose hope, which, after all, is point of it all in the first place.

Christ is born! Let us glorify him!