In Praise of a Brood-less God

It is only we who brood over our sins. God does not brood over them; God dumps them at the bottom of the sea.

                     –Saint Benedict of Nursia









HT: The Anchoress

Dash Them Against Christ

"In his Rule, Saint Benedict of Nursia tells his monks that when evil thoughts arise, they are to “dash them against Christ, immediately.” It is a sound and helpful image, and one I have used to great effect. I imagine the crucifix after Christ’s death, when all has been won, and I see my own hand crashing the harmful thought against the wood of the cross. With a shatter, the thought disappears, and I am released from its hold. My angry or enraged or selfish or irrational thought, having encountered in that moment the constant reality of Christ, is instantly gone.

It all takes place in the mind, yes, but my sin was also forming in the mind, so the thing has been destroyed at the source. This is real-time salvation within the eternal dialogue."

     - Elizabeth Scalia in  Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life., page 33