New Skete Monasteries News

By Brother David Scope of This Article A lot has been written on prayer, and much of that has been written on Contemplative Prayer.   Many of these books and articles cite a number of Church Fathers, mystics, and experts on the subject.   This is not that kind of series.   This is basic: bricks and mortar basic.   This is neither “Towards a Theology of Contemplation” nor is it “28 Days to Theosis (Divinization).”   What I want to do is take you, the reader, with me through a journey in prayer.   Some of this will be Sunday School basic, and some will be utterly idiosyncratic (after all, it’s my journey that I’m drawing on).   My suspicion is that most of what I write will be either already known or really obvious on reflection.   So while there may be new things for some, I do not regard these articles as instruction per se but rather as an invitation to prayer.   Or perhaps even as an invitation back to prayer. The way I learn...

by Sister Rebecca    The earliest depictions of the Nativity show the infant Jesus alone, bound in cloths, lying on a bed of straw in a feeding-trough for animals.   Most of these images were carved in blocks of stone or stone coffins, called sarcophagi.               Not until the fourth century did Christians began to show increased interest in the events at Bethlehem.   This change was connected with the new theological controversies and the subsequent introduction of Christmas, the feast of the Nativity of Jesus. Stone relief. late 4th or early 5th century in the Byzantine Museum in Athens              The Nativity scene reproduced here does not indicate any particular location. It is meant to show that the mystery, “Christ is born,” takes place in all places and at all times. It is not only a historical event but also a reality in each bel...