Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus · The Sophia Society

This is the Way: Contemplative Christianity w/Father Brendan Williams

·1 hr 4 min·4 clips

He says apokatastasis means "all things eventually will come into union with God."

1. Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus centers on Father Brendan Williams and contemplative Christianity. 2. Gary Allen interviews Father Brendan E. Williams, a priest in the Episcopal Church and prior of the Communion of the Mystic Rose, whose background includes ordination as a Buddhist monk. 3. The episode asks what the goal of the spiritual path is and how Christians actually reach it. 4. Williams describes a monastic life that combines solitude with chaplaincy at a retreat center and leadership of a small congregation. 5. He says older periods of his life involved monasteries, roaming alone, and sleeping outside. 6. He explains contemplative formation as work on blockages, attachments, passions, and the cultivation of compassion. 7. He says Western monastic contexts have lost many of the meditative practices needed for that formation. 8. Williams frames hesychia as the stillness of the heart and the fundament of being. 9. He argues that monastic formation should help a person learn to relax into depth rather than grasp for spiritual status. 10. He uses the image of climbing the mountain before being strong enough to "jump off" it. 11. Williams quotes St. Evagrius of Pontus: "True prayer is the laying aside of thought." 12. He contrasts that line with common Western prayer as asking for things through the discursive mind. 13. He says the interior monologue should be seen as ephemeral, like images on a screen. 14. He reads Matthew's instruction to pray in secret as a metaphor for the heart. 15. He reads Mary at Jesus' feet and Martha in the kitchen as a contrast between anxiety and the "better part." 16. He says "silence is the language of God," citing St. Isaac of Syria. 17. Williams traces Alexandrian Christianity through Alexandria, the Library of Alexandria, Hermetic traditions, Platonism, and Buddhism. 18. He says apokatastasis, metempsychosis, and theosis point to eventual union with God. 19. The conversation is reflective, historically dense, and shaped by Gary Allen's questions about church wounds and spiritual searching. 20. Listeners interested in monastic practice, mysticism, and early Christian diversity will get the most from it.

As heard by us

A quiet, thoughtful case for listening before speaking.

The episode frames contemplative Christianity as a discipline of attention, moving through Mary and Martha, stillness, silence, and the habit of noticing what is needful.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want Christianity explored through silence, stillness, and divine wisdom.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus