Love that Terence quote. Thank you for sharing. It, and Macarius himself, remind me of something Jung talked about, which is we need to understand darkness to understand light. We need to understand our shadow side in order to get to our spiritual side. And we must understand and accept that both sides are in is. Jung calls this the tension of the opposites. Without the experience of both, there is no experience of wholeness.
I love Macarius! What would be some resources you would recommend to a new reader of the Desert mothers and fathers? Perhaps a biography or collection?
Macarius is awesome. That Theopemptus story is one of my favorites, how it shows us the way to the heart is communion, not instruction. Regarding the books, good question! I'd recommend starting with two publications: The Way Of The Heart: The Spirituality Of The Desert Fathers And Mothers by Henri Nouwen; and Desert Fathers And Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings, edited by Christine Valters Paintner.
I really enjoyed this one. I especially loved this:
“No one, including him, was good or bad; everyone was good and bad. Each heart contained everything.”
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Terence:
“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”: I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.
Love that Terence quote. Thank you for sharing. It, and Macarius himself, remind me of something Jung talked about, which is we need to understand darkness to understand light. We need to understand our shadow side in order to get to our spiritual side. And we must understand and accept that both sides are in is. Jung calls this the tension of the opposites. Without the experience of both, there is no experience of wholeness.
I love Macarius! What would be some resources you would recommend to a new reader of the Desert mothers and fathers? Perhaps a biography or collection?
Macarius is awesome. That Theopemptus story is one of my favorites, how it shows us the way to the heart is communion, not instruction. Regarding the books, good question! I'd recommend starting with two publications: The Way Of The Heart: The Spirituality Of The Desert Fathers And Mothers by Henri Nouwen; and Desert Fathers And Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings, edited by Christine Valters Paintner.