Apse of St John’s Lateran, my pic

The fourth-century mystic, Evagrius Ponticus, proclaims in his controversial Kephalaia Gnostica that the highest end of the Christian life is contemplation of the Holy Trinity.

Which is all well and good for, you know, monks who live in the Egyptian desert, like Evagrius.

But what about the rest of us? How are we actually supposed to keep our focus on Jesus like the Franciscans/Capuchins in my most recent blog post? Life for all of us has many things that require focus. Driving a car, making dinner, filing taxes.

Or, more broadly and at a higher level, what kind of husband would I be if I did not focus on my wife? What kind of a father would my brother be if he never focussed on my nieces and nephew? What kind of a regional manager would one of my friends be if he…