Freedom!

Abbot Christopher Jamison writes:

The first Christian monks and nuns were inspired by the example of St Antony. They lived in the deserts of the Middle East in the fourth and fifthccenturies and became known as the desert fathers and mothers, living in loose associations and gradually founding more structured monasteries. The wisest of them acquired the title abba for men and amma for women, meaning father and mother respectively, which later become abbot and abbess… They did not use the language of freedom, a language that has come to dominate modern discourse. Their central concern was purity of heart, which we might describe as freedom of spirit…

The desert fathers compared purity of heart to the target that a javelin thrower aimed at in the ancient games; a small target may be difficult to hit but it can be done and the effort required draws out the best from the thrower. So purity of heart describes the condition of human beings at their best, when the human capacity for love finds complete expression devoid of any selfish thought. To arrive at this state of being is demanding because human beings are continually tempted to behave selfishly, but the example of many saints shows that it can be done.

Finding Happiness: A monk’s guide to life, Christopher Jamison

So freedom of spirit is found in freedom from identifying with the thoughts of the self – in laying down the self as the centre of experience. Heidegger’s sense of “releasement” (Gelassenheit) from our manipulative human wilfulness then leads to contemplative openness to the mystery of Being (Sein).

But so much of the time we do identify with our self-centred patterns of thought – with the “self” on which our thought is centred – and become entangled once again. We miss the target…

Now, in the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” that last word gives pause to many who see it, in the context of too many clumsy sermons, in a narrowly moralistic light. But the Greek – the Jesus Prayer developed among those early desert monastics of whom Abbot Christopher writes, and was first written down and disseminated in Greek – word is αμαρτωλόν (harmartolón), and αμαρτωλόν carries the sense of “to forfeit by missing the mark”. For the Desert Mothers and Fathers, sin was just that, missing the target of purity of heart, of freedom of spirit; it is not in any direct sense somehow “transgressing a list of naughty-things-to-be-avoided”.

We slip so easily into self-identifying thoughts; freedom of spirit consists in freedom from this self-identification. Note, though, that it is not freedom from thoughts themselves. We can do little about those – they seem to be often no more than artifacts that the brain throws off in its everyday functioning – but we can learn not to identify with them, And that is what practice is for.

Deserts, Silence, Solitudes

It seems strange to say, but what can help modern man find the answers to his own mystery,and the mystery of him in whose image he is created, is silence and solitude - in a word, the desert. Modern man needs these things more than the hermits of old...

Deserts, silence, solitude are not necessarily places, but states of mind and heart. These deserts can be found in the midst of the city, and in the every day of our lives. We need only to look for them and realise our tremendous need for them. They will be small solitudes, little deserts, tiny pools of silence, but the experience they will bring, if we are disposed to enter them, may be as exultant and as holy as the one God himself entered. For it is God who makes solitude, deserts and silences holy.

Catherine Doherty, Poustinia

Eve Baker, too, writes:

The desert to which the solitary is called is not a place, but something that must be there below the surface of ordinary human existence. It is nowhere, a place of thirst after God…

The disciplines of solitude will be different for everyone. Maintaining an inner cell of quiet will be a greater struggle for the person with family obligations or for those whose life involves working closely with other people… It is like having a compass in one’s hand, pointing to the true north. The busyness of life will swing the needle, but it will return again to the same direction.

Prayer is not so much a matter of specific occasions, forms, words, but a constant orientation towards God which becomes habitual. This is the hidden life which goes on inside the external one which differs little from any other human life except for the hidden search for solitude, silence and simplicity...

Once again I find myself in the position of coming to realise, painfully, that for me there has to be a pattern of a very interior asceticism. As Baker says, "Dramatic gestures are easy, simple faithfulness requires more effort." External commitments, too, however tempting it may be to make a positive, practical contribution to a community that makes room for me in its heart, are actually a danger to this interiority of prayer, and to my own hidden life within it.

Doherty again:

The presence of  a person who is in love with God is enough… nothing else is needed…

When you are hanging on a cross you can't do anything, because you are crucified. That is the essence of a poustinik's contribution… The poustinik’s loneliness is of salvific and cosmic proportions… By hanging on the cross of his loneliness, his healing rays, like the rays of the sun, will penetrate the earth…

The world is cold. Someone must be on fire so that people can come and put their cold hands and feet against that fire...

The poustinik's whole reason for going into loneliness - into solitude - his whole reason for exposing himself to temptation, is always for others. It is always in identification with… Christ, with his whole life, with his crucifixion. It is then the way to our resurrection and that of others.

Pope Paul VI's 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes this passage: "To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ's passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland."

This is hard. For so much of the life we have grown up to expect to live is based on the approval of others, their companionship and encouragement on a path towards a shared objective, that actually to set out into this desert of the heart is in many ways as lonely and difficult as it must have been for the women and men setting out into the solitary places of Egypt and Syria back in the 3rd century AD. But like their journey, it is not done alone. Like them, we must each of us be part of a community of faith; in the deepest and truest sense, a Eucharistic community, where we may live among our sisters and brothers, supported, if not always by their absolute understanding, at least always by their love.

Calling out the devil

Returning from Walsingham after five days' parish pilgrimage, I realise that I have been given an extraordinary blessing. I don't know if you are familiar with the popular psychological concept of the inner critic. It's that voice in your head that tells you continually that you're not good enough, not intelligent enough, learned enough, good looking enough, strong enough, brave enough - you complete the list. It's the motor of the impostor syndrome.

As I have grown older I have come mostly to be free of the ministrations of the inner critic in these outward, conventional areas of life, and when they do come, I am generally able to recognise them for what they are and shut them down. However, outward and conventional does not cover the spiritual life, and here I have been increasingly defenceless against being undermined, disabled by a voice that identifies with absolute precision what is required for maximum effect.

The problem is that this voice, this accuser has access to our personal data like no one else, not even Mark Zuckerberg, and he is not bound at all by GDPR. Whatever blessing God has given me over the years - and he has given me far more than I could ever deserve or imagine - the accuser has found something in my past, or in my present thoughts, to counter it; to allow me accept, for example, its general applicability to humankind, but not to me. And I have fallen for it. Until this week, I simply have not made the identification of what I gullibly assumed to be compunction, or self-knowledge, with what the desert fathers and mothers referred to as temptation from demons, or indeed from the devil himself.

Casting about, since getting back, for a way to explain the last few days, I have found that the Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber identifies this, exactly as I have been shown, as the "accuser of our comrades" (Revelation 12.10). She says,

No matter if you believe the devil is an actual being or the human forces of evil or just the shadow side of our own beings, we all know the voice of the accuser. The voice of shame in our heads - that's the accuser, the accusing voice that tells me that I am what I've done, or that who I am is wrong... But the truth is, no one has ever become their ideal self. It's a moving target, a mirage of water on a desert road. The more we struggle to reach it, the thirstier we become, and yet we come no closer to actual water.

The writer, retreat presenter and communications director of Our Lady of Calvary Retreat Center, Connecticut, Sheri Dursin puts it like this:

[W]hat’s so harmful about an Inner Critic? Doesn’t it keep us from being arrogant or overconfident? Doesn’t it challenge us to be better or try harder? In truth, the Inner Critic does no such thing! It leads you to feel worthless, undeserving and small.

All that is necessary, living in the grace and sacraments of the Church, is to know the accuser for what he is. With that gift, the one I have received this week from God through the prayer and counsel of those who love him, it seems that one can come at last, even in one's own weakness, into the victory won in Christ these long years past:

Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God
    and the authority of his Messiah,
for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,
    who accuses them day and night before our God.
But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. 

(Revelation 12.10-11)

Dying in a time of greed

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the desert fathers and mothers saw solitude as a way to replace martyrdom. In his introduction to the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers, John Chryssavgis writes, "The voice of the desert's heart replaced the voice of the martyr's blood, and the Desert Fathers and Mothers became witnesses of another way, another Kingdom. There was no surer way than solitude to strip away what they depended on in place of God... This was a kind of "death" for them, which led to new life. 

Ed Cyzewski, Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians

We seem to be living at the end of an era when we could describe ourselves as inhabitants of Christendom. Our world in many ways seems to be dominated by attitudes and values so far from those of our Lord that our situation more resembles that of the very earliest Christians living under the authority of a pagan Roman state than it does that of the desert monastics in the 3rd and 4th century AD; but while the blood of the martyrs is by no means a thing foreign to our own time, nonetheless there is for an increasing number of people a sense of an urgent need to withdraw from much that consumer society sees as integral to its health and growth.

The recent popularity of lifestyle minimalism ("simple living"), and a rising awareness the significance of sensory processing sensitivity ("Highly Sensitive People"), the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Enneagram, and other strands of personality psychology, underline a growing unease with consumerism as cultural ideology. These largely secular echoes of past teachings on the simple life dating back at least as far as Lao Tzu and Gautama Buddha, and flourishing in the Christian Middle Ages in the Benedictine, Franciscan and other traditions, are an often plangent criticism of our spiritual, environmental and economic dead end, but all too often they lead at best to an outward turning away from an unwelcome lifestyle, but not towards anything in particular.

My prayer is that the increasing anxiety, even dread, about the future that characterises the recognition of the Anthropocene may lead, through these already encouraging beginnings to the rediscovery of the inner life, not so much as to escape from our troubled times, or even as a resource and compass for us who walk among them, but to the death of the self that is referred to by the phrase "self-centred" - the self that our consumer culture feeds so well. Where this may eventually lead I have no idea, just as of course the desert mothers and fathers had no idea of the great flowering of medieval monasticism and its literature for which they were sowing the seeds when they sold up and moved out into the caves and sketes of Egypt at the dawn of the 4th century AD.

A rediscovery, in our frail and conditional time, of life of the desert of the heart may lead to places we haven't dreamed of yet. This will be, I suspect, profoundly unlike the all too often romantic impulse to a kind of renewal of monasticism itself, whether in the Anglican religious restorations of the last 150 years, or in the various attempts at reconstituting Celtic Christianity and its communities. If something is growing, or at any rate getting somewhere near germination, it seems more likely to be a discipline that takes very seriously Jesus' words in Matthew 6:6, about going into one's room and closing the door, and praying to one's Father who sees what is done in secret. This is surely the beginning, if it is the beginning of anything, of a true inward spirituality of hiddenness - of fading out, in fact: "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3 NIV); "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20 NIV)

Consider which of the ways...

Consider which of the ways to happiness offered by society are truly fulfilling and which are potentially corrupting and destructive. Be discriminating when choosing means of entertainment and information. Resist the desire to acquire possessions or income through unethical investment, speculation or games of chance.

Quaker Faith & Practice 1. Advices and Queries:39

We find ourselves living in a society which seems to place more value on “means of entertainment and information” than any other. Actually it has probably always been so, from the taverns of ancient Rome, through the gossip and broadsheets of the 18th century, to the newsreels and gossip columns of the 1950s and 60s.

For years, now, I have had an instinctive aversion to some streams of “entertainment and information”, fictional as well as factual. I don’t mean a narrow-minded disapproval here, so much as a genuine and at times extreme discomfort with things as various as Eastenders, most television news programmes, crime documentaries, contests, reality shows, and so on.

Trying to work out what was going on, especially in company when not joining in with these things could seem eccentric or priggish, I gradually came to realise that what I was so averse to was having my emotions manipulated by outside forces, whether authorial, editorial or societal. If I am confronted with genuine pain or distress, then by God’s grace I shall have a genuine emotional response, which can lead to a genuine and perhaps useful action on my part - but there is not usually any useful response possible to the distress of someone publicly embarrassed on a singing contest.

Part of this is probably due to what is sometimes pejoratively called hypersensitivity; part to the result of long prayer, which tends to peel away the hardened layers from the heart. Part is due no doubt to a simple instinct for self-preservation. It is terribly easy - and in this the Internet is complicit! - to open oneself to things that, while not obviously wrong or corrupt, readily damage the membranes of the soul; if I would avoid inhaling chlorine, shouldn’t I try and avoid them?

Isaac of Nineveh wrote:

Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others.
Be crucified, but do not crucify others.
Be slandered, but do not slander others.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep: such is the sign of purity.
Suffer with the sick.
Be afflicted with sinners.
Exult with those who repent.
Be the friend of all, but in your spirit remain alone.
Be a partaker of the sufferings of all, but keep your body distant from all.
Rebuke no one, revile no one, not even those who live very wickedly.
Spread your cloak over those who fall into sin, each and every one, and shield them.
And if you cannot take the fault on yourself and accept punishment in their place,
do not destroy their character.

The cell of one’s heart…

A brother in Scetis went to ask for a word from Abba Moses and the old man said to him, ‘Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.’

From the Catholic Information Network subsite, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers.

---

I keep wondering what for us are our cells, if, like so many people of prayer in this century, we are called to a more contemplative life, and yet are not members of a formal religious community, nor vowed to a formal solitary life. I wrote about this earlier, and yet I am no more clear on the matter. I find I need increasingly to look for ways to ‘be on retreat in the midst of a crowd’ as someone memorably remarked in a Facebook comment on a friend’s post.

The formal practice of the Jesus Prayer, sitting for a period quietly repeating the Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…’ often using a Latin rosary or a prayer rope, tends to lead, after a time, to the habit or practice of praying the Prayer – often it feels more like the Prayer praying itself – when one is engaged in other things: walking, perhaps, or some repetitive task. I wonder if allowing this to become more conscious may not be a door into the cell of one’s heart – a place of solitude not so dependent on external conditions as most kinds of contemplative prayer.

Gentleness and mercy…

While Abba Macarius was praying in his cave in the desert, a hyena suddenly appeared and began to lick his feet and taking him gently by the hem of his tunic, she drew him towards her own cave. He followed her, saying, ‘I wonder what this animal wants me to do?’ When she had led him to her cave, she went in and brought her cubs which had been born blind. He prayed over them and returned them to the hyena with their sight healed. She in turn, by way of thank offering, brought the man the huge skin of a ram and laid it at his feet. He smiled at her as if at a kind person and taking the skin spread it under him…

One of the beloved of Christ who had the gift of mercy used to say, ‘The one who is filled with mercy ought to offer it in the same manner in which he has received it, for such is the mercy of God.’

From the Catholic Information Network subsite, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers.

---

As I have tried, very falteringly, to follow Jesus these last 30-odd years, it has gradually been borne in upon me how much of the Christian life is, or should be, simply a matter of gentleness and mercy. However much we may study, meet in fellowship, write, discuss and even pray, unless we grow in gentleness we are not growing more like our Saviour.

I have so very far to go: I am still so prone to anger and to judgement, to defensiveness and assertiveness. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Faith, works, and grace…

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof – no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

---

Slowly, I have begun to understand the truth of this: the old conflict, so dear to those who are grateful that they are not Catholics, between faith and works, is so neatly subverted here. Of course there is no conflict – and grace is the means by which any appearance of conflict is resolved:

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… (Ephesians 2.5-8)

I dunno…

Once some of the old men came to Abba Anthony and Abba Joseph was among them. Abba Anthony wanted to test them, and so he began to talk about the Holy Scriptures. He began asking the younger monks the meaning of one text after another and each replied as best he could. But he said to each of them, ‘You have not found the meaning of it yet.’ Then he said to Abba Joseph, ‘What do you say this text means?’ and he answered, ‘I do not know.’ Abba Anthony said, ‘Indeed, only Abba Joseph has found the true way, when he said he did not know.’

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

---

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
   my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
   too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
   from this time on and for evermore.

(Psalm 131)

Avoiding responsibility?

One of the elders said: A monk ought not to inquire how this one acts, or how that one lives. Questions like this take away from prayer, and draw us on to backbiting and chatter. There is nothing better than to keep silent…

One of the elders said: Pray attentively and you will soon straighten out your thoughts.

from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1960

---

How true this is – increasingly, this Lent, I find I’m being drawn to silence, to stillness, to withdrawing from the busyness of so much of church life. I am fortunate, in having only recently moved to this town, to be relatively free of the kind of commitments I too easily make, and so I’m able to do this without causing too much inconvenience to others. But it is hard, sometimes, because one is inevitably misunderstood, even in the kindest of ways, and it is hard to avoid hurting good people by one’s seeming rejection of things that are, in themselves, perfectly good and useful.

---

‘Time after time, the old men brought [Abba Theodore of Pherme] back to Scetis saying, “Do not abandon your role as a deacon.” Abba Theodore said to them, “Let me pray to God so that he may tell me for sure whether I ought to function publicly as a deacon in the liturgy.” This is how he prayed to God: “If it is your will that I should stand in this place, make me sure of it.” A pillar of fire appeared to him, stretching from earth of heaven, and a voice said, “If you can become like this pillar of fire, go and be a deacon.” So he decided against it. He went to church, and the brothers bowed to him and said, “If you don’t want to be a deacon, at least administer the chalice.” But he refused and said, “If you do not leave me alone, I shall leave here for good.” So they left him in peace.’

The instant temptation is to say that figures like this were avoiding responsibility, or setting impossibly high standards to justify their refusal of office… The issue is not about whether or not someone should assume their ‘proper’ responsibilities in the church (or society for that matter); the primary responsibility in the desert is… responsibility for your own and each other’s growth and truthfulness before God.

from Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes, Medio Media / Lion Books, 2003

The warfare of Lent…

When a man walks in the fear of God he knows no fear, even if he
were to be surrounded by wicked men. He has the fear of God within
him and wears the invincible armour of faith. This makes him strong
and able to take on anything, even things which seem difficult or
impossible to most people. Such a man is like a giant surrounded
by monkeys, or a roaring lion among dogs and foxes. He goes
forward trusting in the Lord and the constancy of his will to
strike and paralyze his foes. He wields the blazing club of the
Word in wisdom.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Practical and Theological
Chapters, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

---

Let us charge into the good fight with joy and love without being
afraid of our enemies. Though unseen themselves, they can look at
the face of our soul, and if they see it altered by fear, they
take up arms against us all the more fiercely. For the cunning
creatures have observed that we are scared. So let us take up arms
against them courageously. No one will fight with a resolute
fighter.

St. John Climacus, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

---

I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that "all that I am," I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God…

Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall…

St. Patrick

Saving sinners…

God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated or the illiterate, of the healthy or the sick, of the young or of the very old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.

Abba Pambo said, “If you have a heart you can be saved.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

---

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now;and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8.18-27)

---

The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1.15-17)

---

Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me…” (John 12.44-50)

Scaring off the demons…

There was an anchorite who was able to banish the demons; and he asked them, “What makes you go away? Is it fasting?”

They replied, “We do not eat or drink.”

“Is it vigils?”

They replied, “We do not sleep.”

“Is it separation from the world?”

“We live in the deserts.”

“What power sends you away then?”

They said, “Nothing can overcome us, but only humility.”

Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?

Amma Theodora

After praying that God would take away his passions that he might become free from care, Abba John the Dwarf went and told an old man; “I find myself in peace, without an enemy.”

The old man said to him, “Go beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have, for it is by warfare that the soul makes progress.”

So he sought God and when warfare came, he no longer prayed that it might be taken away, but said “Lord, give me the strength for the fight.”

Abba Poeman

(Quotes with thanks to The Ecumenical Benedictines of Heartsong Hermitage)

I wonder if this has not something to do with the difficulty I find myself in when I am blessed by God? I pray God will teach me how to live truly in Christ’s own humility this Lent – for it is only so that I will be able to serve him as I am called to do, of that much I am sure!

Fish on dry land…

Abbot Anthony said: Just as fish die if they remain on dry land so monks, remaining away from their cells, or dwelling with men of the world, lose their determination to persevere in solitary prayer. Therefore, just as fish should go back to the sea, so we must return to our cells, lest remaining outside we forget to watch over ourselves interiorly.

from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1960

It seems to me that we who do not live in monastic communities, or as formal solitaries, and yet are called to the contemplative life, need to consider very carefully – and Lent is as good a time as any for this exercise – just what constitutes for us our cell, and what constitutes “dwelling with men of the world.” I’m sure that for most of us, “dwelling with men of the world” is something far more subtle than loose living or luxury. It may even be a church community that is for us, however good and nourishing it may be for others, antithetical to the contemplative life.

I expect we shall sometimes be misunderstood – though I am equally certain that we shall meet with love and understanding from often unexpected quarters – but we need to persist, gently, in obedience to God’s call.

It seems that for me at least, this Lent is to be just such a time of discernment. I should be grateful for your prayers as I struggle to make practical sense of God’s increasingly insistent call to draw closer to Christ in prayer and silence.

On not abusing grace...

A brother asked Abba Poemen, “If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?” The old man replied, “Whenever we cover our brother's sin, God will cover ours; whenever we tell people about our brother's guilt, God will do the same about ours.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

I often think we  abuse the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are trying to follow him, how is it that we think we can withhold from others the grace which he has freely given us, and at such terrible cost?

The acquisition of Christian books…

Epiphanius the Bishop said, “The acquisition of Christian books is necessary for those who can use them; for the very sight of them renders us less inclined to sin, and incites us to believe more firmly in righteousness.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

At last! The excuse for which I’ve been searching all these years!

But seriously, experience teaches that this is true: even unopened, godly books we have read before stand like silent confessors on our shelves, and turn our hearts again to Christ...

Ash Wednesday

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future.

Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, SPCK, r.e. 2006

In God's reign, everything belongs. Even the broken and poor parts; the imperial systems of culture, however, demand 'in' people and 'out' people, victors and victims. Until we have utterly faced this battle in our own soul, we will usually perpetrate it in the outer world of politics and class. Dualistic thinking begins in the soul and moves to the mind and eventually moves to the street. True prayer nips the lie in the bud. It is usually experienced as tears, surrender or forgiveness.

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, Crossroad Publishing, 2nd r.e. 2003

The holy Syncletica said, “I think that for those living in community obedience is a greater virtue than chastity, however perfect. Chastity carries within it the danger of pride, but obedience has within it the promise of humility.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

Living into a new way of thinking…

The second point I would like to make about the desert fathers and mothers is that they did not see Christianity as a set of propositions to be agreed upon, because there were no propositions yet—just the Scriptures.  Most were not even aware of the soon to come “Creeds” of the church, even less the “seven” sacraments, which would be centuries in the making.  By today’s criteria, one wonders how they could even be saved!

For them, Christianity was not something that was taught nearly as much as it was “caught”—by lifestyle itself!  This continued as the “Catholic” form of evangelization for centuries to come.  Not preachers on street corners as much as going into a new area and building a loving community that shared, lived “beautifully” on the land, and did not seek wealth or status.  Eventually, that whole area of Austria, or Italy, or Belgium would be Christian!  This can be historically proven.

The desert period knew that you did not think yourself into a new way of living, but you lived yourself into a new way of thinking.  Let’s allow ourselves this Lent to seek new life settings for ourselves, much more than new ideas to discuss and shelve.

Richard Rohr, February 2011
Adapted from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (1975),
with permission of Cistercian Publications, and
The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton (1970),
with permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Tomorrow I shall, God willing, start to post material from the actual Desert Mothers’ and Fathers’ writings – but this from Richard Rohr was just too good to pass up. I have myself actually found that the only way I have actually managed to change for the better – rare though that may be! – has been by allowing God to change me, through obedience and suffering, rather than by thinking how I ought to change myself.

A Prayer from the Desert

Lord Jesus Christ, whose will all things obey: pardon what I have done and grant that I, a sinner, may sin no more. Lord, I believe that though I do not deserve it, you can cleanse me from all my sins. Lord, I know that man looks upon the face, but you see the heart. Send your Spirit into my inmost being, to take possession of my soul and body. Without you I cannot be saved; with you to protect me, I long for your salvation. And now I ask you for wisdom, deign of your great goodness to help and defend me. Guide my heart, almighty God, that I may remember your presence day and night.

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988. (Now out of print, but you can usually find second-hand copies on Amazon for around £5)

The Way of the Desert

The spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers is a very early form of Christianity which largely refers to the gatherings of very dedicated Christians that took place after 313 AD, when the church allowed itself to be more than a bit co-opted by the Edict of Constantine.  Great numbers of the deeply faithful moved off into Egypt, Syria, Cappadocia (Turkey), and Palestine during this period.  St. Anthony of Egypt, who died around 369, is called the father of monks.  He was a layman and a Coptic Christian.

In 313 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine, perhaps thinking he was doing us a favour, made Christianity into the imperial religion of the Roman Empire; and a whole lot of things changed, frankly because our viewpoint changed—from the bottom looking up, to the top looking down.  The next Councils of the Church were even convened (controlled?) by emperors and not by bishops or Popes.

So as we draw close to Lent, let’s go back to some of this primitive Christianity before systematic theology and highly centralized/Romanized Christianity had made both its good and bad marks.  The desert fathers and mothers were able to see and know some things that we can not so easily see anymore.  Maybe we need some of their spirit now. 

Richard Rohr, February 2011,
adapted from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (1975),
with permission of Cistercian Publications, and
The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton (1970),
with permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Starting here, I think I’ll try and follow Rohr’s lead by posting snippets from the Desert Fathers and Mothers throughout Lent – as well as I can manage to keep it up!