The Illumined Heart

Why are modern Christians so indistinguishable from everyone else?How come Christians who lived in times of bloody persecution were so heroic, while we who live in safety are not?How could the first Christians fast valiantly, but we feel deprived without dessert?How did New Testament believers pray without ceasing?How could the early Christian martyrs actually forgive their torturers?What did the Christians of the first centuries know that we don't?That's what this book is about.From the author:When I look back at the process of writing The Illumined Heart, I'm amazed all over again at how God directed it. I wrote the whole thing in a week, the week before Christmas, in fact, which is so typically congested with last-minute errands, unpredicatable weather, aches and sniffles. For Orthodox Christians, it's also a week that we fast from meat and dairy, adding another ball to the juggling act. Yet somehow I started writing the book on Monday morning and completed it Sunday night, just fou