Trexo isn’t the first gym for your soul.
Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110) called Christians ‘athletes of God’.
The desert monks who withdrew into the wilderness in the 4th century were called ‘athletes of Christ’.
John Cassian (5th century)used detailed breakdowns of ancient Olympic wrestling techniques to train monks to battle their vices.
The origin of the term ‘asceticism’ (spiritual self-discipline) derives from the work askesis - which means rigorous physical exercise.
Three Wednesdays a month (skipping the first), we go live at 3:30 Eastern for ‘Coffee with Coaches’ where we ‘interview’ one of our spiritual trainers.
Gym members get the replay/training email the next day.
This is the Archive of our latest training sessions - for gym members (paid subscribers to Free Range Priest).
Here are some of the Trainers you will meet at Coffee with Coaches:
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) The most influential theologian in Western history — and a man who knew what it meant to struggle.
He was the quintessential ‘bad boy’ of the fourth century - a brilliant rhetorician who lived for a decade in a common-law marriage, fathered a son out of wedlock, and famously spent his early years oscillating between high-society parties and fringe religious cults.His story is not one of easy piety, but of a grueling, intellectual, and moral struggle that eventually led him from the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of the Divine.
quote:
Lord, make me chaste… But not yet!
Basil the Great (330-379 AD) Bishop of Caesarea. One of the architects of the Nicene Creed. Founder of the first hospital. A master of the athletic metaphor who understood that askēsis — spiritual training — was the same word used for a gymnast preparing for a race.
quote:
In order to acquire spiritual muscles, you have to go to the spiritual gym.
Benedict of Nursia (Saint Benedict)
Click below to watch the training/read the notes…
Practice: all of them! Focus on monastic life and becoming an ‘every day’ monastic
Those who are without a shepherd... pen themselves up in their own sheepfolds.
Cyril of Jerusalem
Click below to watch the training/read the notes…
The heart is high when it is with God and low when it is with cares.
Cyril of Jerusalem on 'Hearts up!'
Gorgonia (330s)
Macrina - Sister of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa
Gorgonia - Sister of Gregory of NazianzusThe two ‘Gregs’ + Basil = the Cappadocian Fathers
So Macrina and Gorgonia were the Cappadocian Sisters!
The families were foundational theologians and teachers in their own communities - and throughout Christian history till today. All of them - and especially the women - held authority and power granted not by title or rank, but by the obvious holiness with which they led their lives.
quote:
May every joy and every wound draw you nearer to Him’
John Cassian (360-435 AD) The Bridge Builder The monk who brought the wisdom of the Egyptian desert fathers to the emerging communities of Europe.
The Seven Deadly Sins: Pope Gregory the Great later adapted Cassian’s list of eight vices into the “Seven Deadly Sins” we recognize today.The Rule of St. Benedict: St. Benedict of Nursia was so influenced by Cassian that he explicitly recommended Cassian’s Conferences as daily reading for his monks. Much of the Benedictine lifestyle is a refined version of Cassian’s teachings.
quote:
May God grant you a heart so pure that it becomes a mirror of His glory.
John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) The “Golden Mouth.” Archbishop of Constantinople.
A monk, theologian, and a pivotal figure in Christian mysticism. He is best known for acting as a bridge between the East and the West, bringing the spiritual wisdom of the Egyptian desert fathers to the emerging monastic communities of Europe. He focused on “purity of heart” and provided the practical, bit-by-bit “tips” needed for long-term spiritual formation.
quote:
Fasting of the body is food for the soul.
The Didache (late 1st - early 2nd century) The Voice of the Apostles The oldest surviving Christian training manual. Not one person but a collective voice — the first followers of Jesus showing us the Way of Life that set them apart from the world.
quote:
If you can bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you cannot, do as much as you can.
Hippolytus of Rome
Click below to watch the training/read the notes…
Ignatius of Antioch. Around the year 107, under Emperor Trajan, Ignatius was arrested for his faith and sentenced to execution in Rome. On the long journey there - under guard, in chains - he wrote seven letters to different Christian communities. Those letters are some of our earliest windows into how the first generations after the apostles actually worshiped, organized, and understood the Eucharist.
quote:
Let the Eucharist be your school of courage.
Ignatius of Loyola. a 16th century Spanish soldier, who was injured he was hit by a cannonball. So he had to spend a lot of time in recovery and he only had two books with him - the Bible and the Life of Christ. He spent all of his time reading them and he came to Christ and he became a great spiritual leader and monastic. He eventually founded the Society of Jesus - also known as the Jesuits, which is a Roman Catholic religious order.
He was one of the first people to call spiritual exercise ‘a gym for your soul’.
quote:
The soul, like the body, requires exercise. Not merely thinking or feeling, but doing.
Leo the Great (440-461 AD) The Strategic General The Pope who stood down Attila the Hun and navigated a falling empire. He viewed the Christian life as strategic warfare and the spiritual practices as armor. Fierce. Clear-eyed. Absolutely serious about the stakes.
quote:
No one is so holy that he ought not to be holier, nor so devout that he might not be devouter.
Macrina the Younger (c. 327 – 379 AD) was a pivotal figure in early Christianity, often referred to as the ‘Fourth Cappadocian’. While her brothers - Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus - are the famous trio known as the ‘Cappadocian Fathers’, Macrina was the intellectual and spiritual teacher who shaped their theology.
quote:
Do not imagine that holiness requires a different life than the one you have.
Philemon of Gaza was a 6th century monastic whose role in the community was that of gatekeeper. His life and religious practice was a balance between hospitality - welcoming people in - and silence - spending long hours alone at his post.
Philemon was known for his humility, gentleness, patience, and most of all for his passionate - almost romantic love of God.
quote:
Whether my praying is so very wretched doesn’t after all matter, the important element lies in the love with which an offering is given.
Vibia Perpetua (203 AD)was a 22-year-old noblewoman living in Carthage, North Africa (modern-day Tunisia)
She was educated, well-connected, nursing an infant son - and a brand-new Christian, still preparing for baptism, when she was arrested and publicly executed under the Emperor Septimius Severus’s persecution of the church.
quote:
Every time you come to that table, you are saying yes to Jesus.
Amma Syncletica (4th century) The Captain of the Soul A wealthy noblewoman who gave away everything to live in a desert tomb. One of the Desert Mothers — women whose wisdom was so sought after that people traveled across the known world to find them.
quote:
In the beginning, there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God - but after that, indescribable joy.
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