This is profoundly helpful to me. Our church staff is taking the year to go through the Sermon on the Mount via memorization and teaching. I’ve been tasked with putting together the teaching elements over the course of 2025. Your work is influencing my thoughts and even the structure of my teaching to better understand the implications of this for our lives as believers. Thank you for your work!
Hi Erick, thanks so much for saying that. Glad it’s helpful to you. What a great way to spend a year as a church. Almost nothing if rather spend a year meditating on. Let me know if you ever want to talk through anything.
I hadn't read this one because I only joined Substack a few months ago, but this is the stuff man. This is so good and what I would want every Bible teacher / pastor / elder to be reading and thinking about.
Thank you. Edifying and uplifting for a Sunday morning read.
I dont think you get st francis right here. Ive studied his life, he took the sermon as law as simple command. In the catholic sense , yes law is freedom. But he starts the 3rd order so all christians can conform.
Huh. Interesting. I could believe this. My own impression comes from Chesterton’s biography on him. I don’t know much besides. Anything in particular I should read on this? Thanks for the comment!
Chesterton is good but you get a lot of Chesterton, always a good thing in my opinion, yet his worry at the outset is that no one can write a biography of st francis who isnt a saint. so the legends of St Francis are really a catechism unto themselves. i fioretti or the little flowers of st Francis is the most popular gathering of legends about him over the centuries. There are other larger collections of legends about him that are also astounding. St Bonaventures bio on him is also quite good. https://www.ecatholic2000.com/bonaventure/assisi/francis.shtml
Hello! I am a young Catholic woman who found your Substack in a friend’s reads. I loved this post and your other writing, but I had to contend with the “radical saints of the past who treated their own property as God’s” bit because people are still doing this! Some of the most joyful and authentic people I have met have been Catholic nuns, who remind me of what is possible in the life of faith. They are living lives overflowing with joy and holiness not by “divine zap” but by showing up to pray the psalms with their Sisters, spending silent time with Jesus, and going to, as Catholics think of it, “renew the covenant” at Mass daily. The sisters I have met live lives of incredible sacrifice, but they are so humble, because they know that anything they have, they receive from their Bridegroom. I think the danger for Catholics comes, and historically has come, in thinking that this type of holiness and relationship are reserved for priests, nuns, and monks, when in reality, God gives each of us a call to the way of living that will help US draw near to him. Husbands and wives should live lives of total self-gift through being in covenant with God just as people living a religious life live total self-gift to the Church as spiritual mothers and fathers. Sorry if this was a little rambling, but all that to say that I think the wonderful nuns I have met are the best example of reaching the perfection that we are called to--humble spiritual maturation, placing complete trust in the Lord to help us in each step, in each breath of each day.
Hi Kate, thank you so much reading and for your wonderful comment. You are right, of course. My wording was perhaps poorly chosen. There are saints *now* living among us. And just as you said, we should be more like them. Even in our ordinary (non-priest/monk/nun) lives, we share the same call to give our lives to the Lord fully. It may look different for us, but we are destined for the same marriage to the bridegroom as they, so we might as well get used to it and learn by their example. Well said. And again, thank you for taking the time to read and write this.
This is profoundly helpful to me. Our church staff is taking the year to go through the Sermon on the Mount via memorization and teaching. I’ve been tasked with putting together the teaching elements over the course of 2025. Your work is influencing my thoughts and even the structure of my teaching to better understand the implications of this for our lives as believers. Thank you for your work!
Hi Erick, thanks so much for saying that. Glad it’s helpful to you. What a great way to spend a year as a church. Almost nothing if rather spend a year meditating on. Let me know if you ever want to talk through anything.
I would love that!
This feels wholesome….like a dislocated joint has been put back in its place.
Wow. Best compliment ever. Thank you, Nathanael.
I hadn't read this one because I only joined Substack a few months ago, but this is the stuff man. This is so good and what I would want every Bible teacher / pastor / elder to be reading and thinking about.
Thank you. Edifying and uplifting for a Sunday morning read.
Aw thanks man. That's hugely encouraging. Really. Thank you.
I dont think you get st francis right here. Ive studied his life, he took the sermon as law as simple command. In the catholic sense , yes law is freedom. But he starts the 3rd order so all christians can conform.
Huh. Interesting. I could believe this. My own impression comes from Chesterton’s biography on him. I don’t know much besides. Anything in particular I should read on this? Thanks for the comment!
Chesterton is good but you get a lot of Chesterton, always a good thing in my opinion, yet his worry at the outset is that no one can write a biography of st francis who isnt a saint. so the legends of St Francis are really a catechism unto themselves. i fioretti or the little flowers of st Francis is the most popular gathering of legends about him over the centuries. There are other larger collections of legends about him that are also astounding. St Bonaventures bio on him is also quite good. https://www.ecatholic2000.com/bonaventure/assisi/francis.shtml
Thanks this is really helpful. I appreciate it!
Hello! I am a young Catholic woman who found your Substack in a friend’s reads. I loved this post and your other writing, but I had to contend with the “radical saints of the past who treated their own property as God’s” bit because people are still doing this! Some of the most joyful and authentic people I have met have been Catholic nuns, who remind me of what is possible in the life of faith. They are living lives overflowing with joy and holiness not by “divine zap” but by showing up to pray the psalms with their Sisters, spending silent time with Jesus, and going to, as Catholics think of it, “renew the covenant” at Mass daily. The sisters I have met live lives of incredible sacrifice, but they are so humble, because they know that anything they have, they receive from their Bridegroom. I think the danger for Catholics comes, and historically has come, in thinking that this type of holiness and relationship are reserved for priests, nuns, and monks, when in reality, God gives each of us a call to the way of living that will help US draw near to him. Husbands and wives should live lives of total self-gift through being in covenant with God just as people living a religious life live total self-gift to the Church as spiritual mothers and fathers. Sorry if this was a little rambling, but all that to say that I think the wonderful nuns I have met are the best example of reaching the perfection that we are called to--humble spiritual maturation, placing complete trust in the Lord to help us in each step, in each breath of each day.
Hi Kate, thank you so much reading and for your wonderful comment. You are right, of course. My wording was perhaps poorly chosen. There are saints *now* living among us. And just as you said, we should be more like them. Even in our ordinary (non-priest/monk/nun) lives, we share the same call to give our lives to the Lord fully. It may look different for us, but we are destined for the same marriage to the bridegroom as they, so we might as well get used to it and learn by their example. Well said. And again, thank you for taking the time to read and write this.
We might as well get used to it indeed! Thanks for the reply :)