Wisdom

Lord, Help Me Be Decisive

Monahia Siluana Vlad, Mother Siluana Vladby Chris Banescu –

How can we become decisive, to know what we need to do?

We should ask God what to do and ask Him for decisiveness. There is no other way. Otherwise, we will be resolute one month, and after one month, we can fall worse than before. This is the work of the enemy [the devil] when we start working without God. Without the Lord we can do nothing. Nothing!

We must start from where we are, from our helplessness, not from the height of our desires. A true Christian makes the sign of the Cross all day long, in every place and in all work. Why? So he can start with God and His power, and not rely solely on our helplessness.

We wonder why we can’t do something. This is a sign of faithlessness. [Read more…]

Without a Sense of Moral Order Man Cannot Attain Any Order

Without a Sense of Moral Order Man Cannot Attain Any Orderby Chris Banescu –

The enduring and Christ-centered wisdom of Malcolm Muggeridge reminds us why the world around us is such a big mess, especially in the West. The main source of our troubles is the loss of our moral order — anchored in and supported by God — without which no other order can be attained.

“It’s good and evil after all that provide the theme of the drama of our mortal existence. In this sense you might capture them [enlighten them] with the positive and negative points that generate an electric current. Transpose the points and the current fails, the lights go out, darkness falls and all is confusion.

What I wish to put to you here is that the darkness falling on our civilization is likewise due to a transposition of good and evil. In other words, that we are suffering not from an energy crisis or an over-population crisis or an unemployment crisis – from none of these ills that are commonly specified. The root cause of trouble is that we have lost our sense of moral order in the universe without which no order whatsoever, economic, social, political is attainable. [Read more…]

A Proper Education Orders the Soul Towards Truth and Beauty and Instills Virtue

Proper Education Orders the Soul Towards Truth and Beauty and Instills Virtueby Chris Banescu –

In an article titled “Let us arise and go home” conservative author and English professor Anthony Esolen eloquently expressed what the ultimate aims of a proper education should be. He writes: “An education that does not order the soul towards truth and beauty, that does not instill the intellectual virtue of seeking the truth, and the practical virtue of putting moral truths in action, is no education at all. It is not fit for a human being. It may be fit for a robot, or a beast, or a devil.” His truthful insights explain a great deal about what has gone wrong without education in the West and especially in America in the last several decades.

So how can we reinforce these timeless and essential principles in the education of a child. “How do you build up the soul of a child?”, asks Esolen. It’s quite simple. Everyone has access to great literature. “That is what great literature and the arts are for. They are for everyone. You can judge a school by its syllabi, or the books in the library, or the poems and the songs the students know and love. Every child should go down to Mordor with Frodo and Sam, or sit atop the mizzen with Jim Hawkins, or float down the river with the worthy Mole and Rat, or ride with Paul Revere, [Read more…]

Mental Breakdown Precedes the Moral Breakdown

G. K. Chesterton The Apostle of Common Senseby Chris Banescu –
G. K. Chesterton was one of the deepest and clearest thinkers of the 20th century. He was also a strong defender of the Christian faith, a modern day apologist in the truest sense of the word. As Dale Ahlquist points out in his book, Chesterton was indeed The Apostle of Common Sense who fearlessly challenged the lies and falsehoods of his time. His insights and logic are as relevant today as they were then.

Chesterton foresaw the coming moral breakdowns that we’re currently experiencing. He understood that the corruption and misuse of language in order to obfuscate the truth were symptoms of a mental breakdown that will inevitably lead to moral corruption. He was right.[Read more…]

The Beginning of the Day Belongs to Jesus Christ

Christ Pantocrator, The Light of the Worldby Chris Banescu –
In Life Together, the book that highlights the importance of Christian fellowship and community life centered on Christ, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that the beginning of the day belongs to God.

“At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it,” he writes. Bonhoeffer exhorts us to silence all empty talk and distractions when we rise each day and instead let our first thoughts and words be offered to Jesus Christ, “to whom our whole life belongs.”

The Gospels bear witness that Jesus Christ himself started each day with prayer. “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35).

For Christians, the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day’s work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and His wakening Word. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before Him. [Read more…]

The Compass vs. The Clock, Put First Things First

The Compass vs. The Clock, Put First Things Firstby Chris Banescu –
The realization that something is not right with our lives can manifest itself in various ways. A feeling of emptiness, a bothersome disquiet, or a strange pain, like a deep sadness or a heartache, gradually or suddenly begins to trouble our souls. We feel guilty, anxious, unsatisfied, stressed, or sad even in moments when we ought to be at peace and carefree; when we should be relaxing or enjoying ourselves. For some this pain is only a vague discomfort. For others, including yours truly, the pain can often be intense and unrelenting; sometimes lasting for long stretches of time.

I discovered the reason for this mysterious affliction in the book First Things First, written by Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill. They describe this particular grief as the “pain of the gap,” the gap we sense between the compass and the clock in our lives. Every time we don’t put first things first, when we fail to follow our calling and vocation and focus on the most important things in life, our conscience warns us that something’s not right and corrective measures and proactive actions are required. [Read more…]