Resurrecting, Refreshing, and Rebranding

 Changes Coming to the Master Beadsman

Wow...

It's been far too long since I've written anything. I don't know if anyone is reading this blog any more, but if you are, thank you for sticking with me.

I wanted to let you know that, in an effort to resurrect and rebrand this blog, there are going to be some changes to "The Master Beadsman" over the coming weeks.

You may have noticed one of these changes already: rebranding. I've changed the name of the blog from "The Master Beadsman" to "That Eastern Catholic Guy," and given "The Master Beadsman" it's own page within the blog.

Why am I doing this?

Over the years that I haven't been writing, I've been reading and researching extensively, and listening in on various online and offline conversations. I've discovered there are many Catholics (and non-Catholics) out there who don't really have even an introductory knowledge of Eastern Catholicism and what we're all about. So, in addition to continuing to writing about Eastern Catholic spirituality (better "spiritualities"), I wanted to start writing general topics within Eastern Catholicism.

We'll get there eventually, but first...

Coming in 2021...

Beginning in January of 2021 I'll be creating a new series on this blog. The series is called A Year with the Desert Fathers.

2020 has been a difficult year for all of us, I know. What's affected me the most has been all the bad news: pandemics, the elections (always a stressful time regardless of an election's outcome), riots, scandal in the Church at the highest levels... You name it. Several times throughout the year I've had to remove myself from staying up-to-date on my various news sources because I found it wasn't good for my spiritual health.

During my first extended "news fast" toward the beginning of 2020, I read extensively in the Desert Fathers.

About five or six years ago my parish priest asked me to teach a class in our parish about Eastern Christian spirituality. I enthusiastically said "yes," but told him I needed to research further into a more Maronite approach to spirituality (as with Western Catholic spirituality, Eastern Catholics spirituality isn't homogenous, but quite diverse). Knowing that we Maronites claim the Desert tradition as our spiritual roots, that led me to the Desert Fathers.

I've been consistently reading the lives and sayings of the Desert Fathers ever since.

What I've found is that, once you sift through the more obscure sayings and the sayings that only apply to the monastic life, they have a great deal of wisdom to share with those of us living in the world - whether you're a single lay person, married with children, or a parish priest busy tending to the needs of your community.

A Year with the Desert Fathers

So what is this going to be all about?

Apart from reading the Scriptures and the Catechism, I decided that I want to spend 2021 just reading the Desert Fathers for my spiritual reading, spending a whole year immersing myself in their wisdom and sharing that wisdom with others.

This new series is simply a way for me to share what I learn.

Once a week I'll write a new post sharing my reflections on what I've learned and how I think it can apply to our lives in the modern world.

As the year goes on, I may refine the series a bit, but that's going to be the gist of it.

What sources am I going to use?

The first source I'll be working through is a two-volume series called The Paradise of the Holy Fathers. Translated from Syriac by E. A. Wallace Budge, this series is actually a collections of multiple works: The Life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius, the Lausiac Histories by Palladius, A History of the Monks of Egypt, and various collections of sayings and other works.

Supposedly Coptic monks used to say that the only spiritual reading a monk needed to have with him to grow on the path of salvation was the Bible and The Paradise of the Holy Fathers.

Since I've already read The Paradise a couple of times, I thought that would be the best place to start.

From there I have a number of other collections of sayings, as well as the homilies of (pseudo)Macarius that I thought we could tap into. And I'd like to close out 2021 with a series of reflections on the Mystic Treatises of St. Isaac (the Syrian) of Nineveh.

I'm really excited to kick off this new series, and I hope you'll join me in reflecting on the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, especially in these turbulent times.

Peace and Blessings!