Roman persecution of Christianity ended when the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD. Suddenly, to be Christian was to share the religion of the emperor and his mother, which made it socially respectable, even advantageous. Some saw spiritual danger in this development, worrying that it would lead to a soft Church that made friends too eagerly and easily with the world. In Egypt, some Christians began leaving cities to live in the desert. There, they lived as hermits, spending their days in solitude, engaged in the disciplines of prayer and fasting, and in combat with the demons. We refer to these Egyptian hermits as the Desert Fathers, and with them began the movement of Christian monasticism. Countless Christians over the centuries have ruminated on the spiritual wisdom contained in their sayings, compiled in books such as The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks. These sayings offer deep but practical spiritual insights gleaned from prolonged meditation on the Word of God and mortification of the flesh. They often come to us as little stories about young monks who seek council from more experienced monks. Here are a few examples:
Abbot Pambo questioned Abbot Anthony, saying: “What ought I to do?” The Elder replied: “Have no confidence in your own virtuousness. Do not worry about a thing once it has been done. Control your tongue and your belly.”
A brother came to Abbot Pastor and said, “Many distracting thoughts come into my mind, and I am in danger because of them.” Then the elder thrust him out into the open air and said, “Open up the garments about your chest and catch the wind in them.” But he replied, “This I cannot do.” So the elder said to him, “If you cannot catch the wind, neither can you prevent distracting thoughts from coming into your head. Your job is to say No to them.”
I recently came across a story in this tradition that was shared by a Byzantine Catholic Priest from Pittsburgh named Fr. David Abernethy: The devil appeared to three monks and said to them, “If I gave you power to change something from the past, what would you change?” The first of them, with great apostolic fervor, replied, “I would prevent you from making Adam and Eve fall into sin so that humanity could not turn away from God.” The second, a man full of mercy, said to him, “I would prevent you from God and you will condemn yourself eternally.” The third of them was the simplest and, instead of responding to the tempter, he got on his knees, made the sign of the cross and prayed, saying, “Lord, free me from the temptation of what could be and was not.” The devil, giving a raucous cry and shuddering with pain, vanished. Surprised, the other two said to him, “Brother, why have you responded like this?” He replied, “First, we must never dialogue with the devil. Second, nobody in the world has the power to change the past. Third, Satan’s interest was not to prove our virtue but to trap us in the past so that we neglect the present, the only time God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with Him to fulfill His will.” Of all the demons, the one that catches the most men and prevents them from being happy is that of “What could have been and was not.” The past is left to the mercy of God and the future to His Providence. Only the present is in our hands. We must live in the moment.
Our world is one in which technology provides us with power beyond the wildest dreams of the ancient emperors. The temptation is to use it to distance ourselves from or do away with all limitations that lead to hardship or struggle. But the Desert Fathers’ sayings show us that human nature is unchanging. By recognizing and embracing the reality of our limitations through the practice of prayer and self-denial, we can discover the wisdom of God.
posted 11/4/23
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 