EMBRACING AFFLICTION

Abba Mark the Greek said, “If we accept the afflictions that come to us with patience and prayer, blaming no one, we discover them to be blessings."

The words of Lent are grim: affliction, fasting, penitence, grief, sorrow—to name just a few. The first step we take into Lent we’re met with these stern words of the Prophet Isaiah: “Is this how you afflict your soul, by putting on sackcloth and covering yourself with ashes? Do you imagine the Lord takes this for the penitence He requires?”

“Affliction” comes from Latin. It means “to beat down.”

The Biblical phrases Christians adopt for Lent call on us to “afflict our souls.” To beat them down. We’re told to weep for our sins, to abstain from pleasures and fast from foods. No wonder Lent isn’t as popular as Christmas.

Let’s consider Christmas—here in the middle of Lent. We know the theological meaning of Christmas: “and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” When we hear those words, we fall to our knees. But Christmas also means fun and frolic: garlands of green and festal carols, gatherings of families and friends to eat, drink and be merry, Yule logs ablaze “to drive cold winter away.” Echoing the Christmas angel we say, “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” We want Christmas to be magical and joyful, but how often it disappoints. It becomes a mad rush of fulfilling obligations, sending cards and gifts to people whose names we vaguely recognize, going places because we’re expected to put in an appearance, straining our budget to keep up our appearance.

We’re forgetting how to Feast. Maybe it’s because we’ve forgotten how to Fast.

I’m not talking about the rules, but the reasons. Why do we feast and fast? Easy: we feast for joy; we fast for sorrow.

I don’t want to “afflict my soul.” “Beating myself down” doesn’t have a lot of attraction for me. But what is it I’m beating down? Is it joy? Happiness? The pleasure of friends and family? No. None of those.

Lent challenges me to beat down my selfishness and arrogance, my viciousness and greed, my hypocrisy and cowardice. These are the things that I’m supposed to afflict. Lent isn’t long faces and hollow groans, but the calisthenics of the soul. I stretch the atrophied muscles of my spirit to bring them back to life. Afflictions are blessings unseen.

A close friend wrote me yesterday. He said, with a terse, wry humor I couldn’t rise to, “My Lenten sacrifice is…shingles.” Its timing, he tells me, fits just within the Lenten framework—it should disappear just about Easter. He didn’t choose it, but having accepted it as a Lenten affliction, he’ll derive the Lenten benefit.

“Accept the afflictions that come with patience and prayer,” Abba Mark says, “and discover God’s blessing.”

I don’t know what blessing will come from the unsought suffering of my friend. I know that bearing it as he is, God will bless him through it. And my friend’s suffering, offered as a Lenten sacrifice, will benefit others, too. He may never know how; that’s not the point. When we offer ourselves to God, giving Him even our pain and sorrow, we become part of His plan of Redemption. “I make up in myself,” St Paul says, “what is lacking in the suffering of Christ.”

Your Lenten sacrifice will blossom into your Easter blessing. Your Fast will become a Feast. If your Lenten offering is paltry—well, you have an idea by now what to expect. “The measure you give,” the Lord Jesus says, “is the measure you get.”

I hope the Lent you’re offering God is proving a hardship. Lent is forty days. Easter is forever.

SOMEONE HATES YOU

Abba John the Short said, “Each time the tempter speaks, the whole world hangs by a thread.”

The devil speaks for one reason: to tempt us. He tempts us for one reason: to ensnare us. He ensnares us for one reason: he hates us. The hatred that old serpent has for you is personal. He hates you, hates who you are, hates why you are. His hatred is personally directed at each of us, and he uses whatever temptations and snares he can to hook us, reel us in, and filet us for his dinner.

The teachings of the fathers and mothers of the desert, passed on to us in a handful of terse phrases, are like scalpels in the hands of a skillful surgeon: they slice through whatever they must to lay bare the disease that festers within our souls. For this reason Christians have cherished their words for almost two thousand years.

Yesterday Abba Anthony’s words warned: until we grasp that we really don’t love God, we can’t really start to love Him. It’s His love we’re each personally created to share.

Abba John’s words today tell us the grim side of that truth: if God loves you personally, and created you personally, you are also personally hated. Satan wants to chop you up into bits like cheap catfish. He’s determined to do it whether you’re too smart or too jaded to believe in him or not. The devil doesn’t need—or even particularly want you—to “believe” in him. His interest in you now is only for the purpose of teaching you, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, to sin at his suggestion. He wants you to continue to weave a web of self-delusion that you’re entitled, deserving of special consideration, that when you sin it’s really not sin but sophistication.

“Each time the tempter speaks,” is like the first time. When the serpent hissed his words to Eve, when he wrapped his coils around Adam, it brought you and me to grief. The Church teaches us that the first man and woman set in motion a cycle that continues today. Left to our own devices, you and I make the same choice they did. What I want over everything. Me over goodness. Me over you. Me over God.

Every time you and I are tempted, regardless whether it’s to spurn the greatest commandment or the least, it’s us in the balance, being weighed, measured and tested. The next time I’m tempted to ignore someone’s suffering, to make light of their sorrow, to know that I’m better than she is, it’s the same old serpent hissing to me the same old thing he’s been hissing all along to each and every one of us. “For you, it’s okay. You’re better. You’re important. God ahead and take a bite; you’ll love it.”

But Abba warns us it’s even more insidious: “the whole world hangs by a thread.”
John Donne, the seventeenth-century poet and priest said it differently, but as truly: “no man is an island.”

We’re bound together, you and I, whether we like it or not. You and I share the sin of Adam and Eve, but I share something of your sin and you of mine. God has made us so that we can’t escape each other. We’re not meant to. “When one suffers,” St Paul said, “we all suffer. When one of us is exalted, we all rejoice.” God has bound us together in suffering and sin, because he means to raise us together in glory.

God has bound us together in the Greatest Mystery of all: the Mystery of Love.

At the core, the center of all that Is, Is God. At His heart, God is Love. Not a feeling or emotion, not even an action, but Love is the Father eternally giving Himself to the Son and the Son eternally giving Himself to the Father. The Love that binds Them and permeates Them is the Holy Ghost.

You and I have been made to enter and find ourselves in that Uncreated Love.

We’re bound together in this Mystery of Love. You were made for this. And the devil, who was too, hates you for it. Because he hates you, he wants to ensnare you. To ensnare you, he tempts you. When he does, remember Abba John’s words. Remember why you were made.

And pray for me, that I remember it, too.

DESERT SIMPLICITY

Abba Pambo asked Abba Anthony, “What ought I to do?" He answered, “Do not trust your own righteousness, and do not worry about the past, control your tongue and your stomach."

God’s request is simple: give Me everything, all you are, all you have, all you hope to be.

It takes us awhile to realize that. Some of us never do. None of us hand ourselves over without a fight.

Those who’ve followed Jesus into the desert go looking for a fight. They want the same things you and I do: family and friends, a sense of place and purpose, food and shelter, security for the future. Those are good, reasonable things to want and work for.

But those who God calls to the desert bury their wants to uncover the Kingdom hidden within. They go to the desert leaving not only the corruptions of “the world, the devil and the flesh,” but every good and normal desire we each have so they can hunt God down.

The various books that have come down to us of their lives and teachings all say the same thing: the fight from beginning and so to the end is with himself. Their desert discovery is the same thing you and I find out still living “in the world”: I love myself, my wants and desires, my pleasures and comforts far more than I love anything else, God included.

When we accept that truth, our spiritual struggle begins in earnest. Until I see that I don’t love God or my neighbor, all my spiritual efforts are, as St Paul says “boxing with the air.”

I can be friendly and good-natured, I can wish people well (“if wishes were fishes…”) and hope, like a beauty-contestant, for “universal peace.” I can follow Dale Carnegie’s doctrine that it’s good business to care about others. But none of this has anything to do with my salvation. Loving God first and my neighbor as myself puts me at war with myself every second of every day. It also means I’m going to lose most of my battles.

Knowing the cost of the soul’s contest, Abba Pambo sought out Abba Anthony in his desert cave. “What am I to do?” he cries.

Abba Anthony’s words apply to every soul, wrestling in the world or striving in the desert: “Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking you’re holy, that you’ve achieved spiritual respectability. From first to last, life is Grace.”

“Don’t worry about the past,” Abba continues. The devil twists our memory against us. Not that we forget, but what we remember. The old serpent reminds us of our failures and sins, playing them before us over and over. Even if we’ve heard the priest’s words of absolution, the gnawing regret, the sense of failure and the shame of self-disappointment linger. The demon whispers, “This is how you are, how you’re always gonna be. Pack it in, pal. C’mon. There’s a party you’re missing.”

The tempter uses an opposite strategy to produce the same result. Calling to mind the pleasures of sin past: the satisfaction we felt when the jerk at the office got fired or when the head cheerleader got pregnant and had to disappear for five months. He tricks us into fresh sins over stale temptations.

“Forget the past,” Abba Anthony says. Don’t cling to it. Give it to God.

“Control your tongue and your stomach,” he concludes.

The tongue praises or condemns, builds others up or tears them down. The stomach is either master or servant. Abba says give it to God.

God gets it all.

When it finally dawned on the Lord Jesus' disciples this is what He expected, they sputtered “What shall WE have, therefore?” If we give God everything, what’s left for us?

Old Abba Anthony knew only when we give God everything do we discover how to use anything. Till then, like grubby misers, we hoard what seems to be ours.

It was all God’s to begin with, including the dust you and I are made of.

When we grasp that, we can sing with St Paul: “All things are yours, the world or life or death or things present or things to come, all things are yours—and you are Christ's—and Christ is God's.”

TEMPTED IN THE DESERT

“Abba Evagrius said, ‘Without temptations no one will be saved.’ "

I like some sins more than others. There are a few I’ve never been tempted to commit, but even some of the more unlikely have flitted before me at one time or other, promising unthought of delights.

I’ve never considered worshiping Ishtar or forsaking the Faith for the enticements promised in the Afterlife by Islam, but before I can safely say I’m immune from temptations to Idolatry, I have to admit I put myself in the place of God all the time. If I’d composed it, the Lord’s Prayer would read “MY will be done on earth as it is…”

I may not be seriously tempted to steal stuff but there are all kinds of things I want I don’t need; I don’t have to think back very far to recall the whispered temptation that I deserve better.

Most of us aren’t tempted to murder anybody, or lie under oath and so take God’s Name in vain. Few of us have coveted our neighbor’s ox, but how many times have I wished somebody would just go away, or told myself that since “everybody” bends the rules now and then, I can decide what rules apply to me and what ones don’t. While I may not want your ox or ass, I have little doubt I’m much more deserving of admiration than you.

Whether I look at my sins from the perspective of the Ten Commandments or the Seven Deadly Sins, after not too-much reflection, I come off guilty.

The pathetic thing about my sin is that as much as I enjoy the temptation, as real as the pleasure of sin promises to be, it’s rare, after the fact, that I don’t feel as if my mouth is full of ashes. Sin doesn’t deliver on its promise. The result of sin is disappointment and regret, even if I don’t stop to notice.

The battle with sin isn’t with sin itself, but with the temptation to sin. The battle isn’t with my bloated and aching stomach on Thanksgiving night, but with the assumption as I go down the Thanksgiving buffet that a three-pound plate of food is what I really need. The danger isn’t the regret I feel after I’ve told somebody off, but the delight I take in fantasizing how great it will be when I finally put that person in their place (and, of course, if the devil plays me just right—and I so want to be played!—I’ll unwittingly sign on to continue in my sin by replaying in my imagination how clever I was when I did it).

“Abba Evagrius said, ‘Without temptations no one will be saved.’ "

Our spiritual lives, most of the time, are about temptation. That’s where we grow in Christ. Immediately after His baptism, the Gospel tells us, “Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” The Lord Christ’s temptations tested His human nature.

He was as much a human being as you and me. His humanity was subject to the same temptations you and I face. He overcame His temptations the same way you and I, if we want to, can overcome ours. He surrendered His humanity to His Father. We can surrender our love of sin to Him.

Abba Evagrius doesn’t tell us to go looking for temptation to face it down and conquer it. It’ll come of its own, without us having to look for it, and it’ll be tailor-made for you. The devil has impeccable credentials for his work. A verse in the Psalms says “He” (meaning God) “knoweth whereof we are made.” The devil has a pretty good idea of how we’re made, too, and he knows how to play us like the proverbial violin he’s reputed to play so well.

We don’t have to be masters of psychology to wrestle with temptation, but practitioners of prayer. Abba Evagrius knows temptation comes to us all; he knows temptation is overcome only by surrender, following the Lord Jesus in His time temptation, placing ourselves in God’s keeping and giving ourselves to prayer.

THE SWORD OF FIRE

“One day Abba Arsenius consulted an old Egyptian monk about his prayers. Someone noticed this and said to him, ‘Abba Arsenius, how is it that you, with such a good Latin and Greek education, seek instruction from this peasant?' He replied, ‘I have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not know even the alphabet this man has to teach.' ”

For the past few days, we’ve considered humility—not as an inoffensive virtue but the very foundation upon which Christian growth depends. Without the firm under-girding of humility, all faith, hope and charity are built on sand.

In the story above, Abba Arsenius, who was reputedly one of the best-educated of all the Fathers of the Desert, puts himself to school under a peasant to learn the basics of prayer. He does this, not in some show of how humble he is, but because he wants to pray better and as a good pupil, he seeks out the one who can best teach him.

Here is the embodiment of humility. Abba doesn’t coyly reply to his questioner, “Well, my education isn’t really all that good.” He replies truthfully. “I’m well-educated in the arts of rhetoric and grammar, of mathematics and philosophy” (that’s what a “Greek and Latin” education in his day meant) “but in the school of prayer, this peasant knows far more than I.” Humility is the disposition of heart which frees us from the illusions of sin. It enables us to see more clearly.

Sin is a lie.

When I sin, I convince myself that something which isn’t true is true. I convince myself that something which belongs to you should rightfully be mine. That the pleasures of the flesh—whether of the table, the bedroom or the inviting couch—will answer the needs of the spirit; that you exist to serve me; that if God would only take my advice, everything would be better; and finally, the first, most basic sin, the sin for which humility is the genuine antidote and only real medicine—my pride: I want to be like God.

Before I can sin, I have to agree to sin, in theological language, I “assent” to sin. For any of my actions to be sinful, they have to be mine. I have to agree to them. If a bandit holds your spouse hostage and demands you lie to the police about whether you’ve seen him or not, your complying words are not sinful, because they’re not really yours. Your words are deceitful and untrue, but your will has been usurped, co-opted by the bandits threat (now if you’re holding your spouse hostage and lie to the police, your words are sinful, but in such a situation that’s probably far down the list of the sins you’re in the process of committing!).

When I sin, I’ve convinced myself that this action, which might be technically sinful, is okay for me. Or that I don’t care whether it’s sinful or not, my desire is more important. I sin because I convince myself that the result of my act will be good for me. It puts me and my wants above anything else. That’s the sin of Pride.

Pride isn’t being pleased I’m from the Great Lone Star State, or thinking the Dallas Cowboys are the Greatest Football Team in the history of all human athletics. When I say I’m proud to be an citizen of the United States, there’s little sin in such a patriotic notion. We use the word “pride” about such things, but this pride isn’t the Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. That first sin, the sin Satan whispered into the ears and went straight into the hearts of Adam and Eve, was “You can be like God.”

It’s the root of every sin you and I commit. I set my wants above everything; “Me” above everything, God included. It’s the ultimate idolatry.

You and I do it every day, multiple times.

To be humble is to have open eyes. Humility enables us to see that the way we think things are—or ought to be—that life is “all about me,” is a lie. When I believe the lie, I sin with easy abandon, all the time thinking I’m making myself happy.

Humility, the quiet teacher of the soul, the warrior of the desert armed with a sword of fire, tells me this false happiness is buying me an eternity of grief. Sin is a lie and its ultimate payoff is unutterable sorrow. Humility says, there is another way: choose me and choose life.

Humility is seeing things as they are.

A TASTE OF HUMILITY

“It is not the one who criticizes himself who reveals his humility (for does not everyone have to put up with himself?), rather it is the man who continues to love the person who criticizes him."—Abba John of the Ladder

Few of us, like the Australian monk depicted in the video to the right of this page, literally follow the Lord Jesus into the desert. During Lent we spend forty days imitating His desert pilgrimage, but our desert wanderings take place in the wilderness of air-conditioned living rooms. We’re not imperiled by scorpions and salamanders but computer crashes.

The challenges and temptations that face us today may take different shapes than those demons swirling in the desert sandstorms of Egypt and Syria, but they are temptations no less real or less challenging. Our world of instantaneous communication and information overload, of immediate physical gratification of any desire or need, of easy fact and shallow knowledge, these perils draw us as far from God as any fleshpot of Egypt.

The battleground of the spirit remains the same now as then. It’s us. Temptations remain the same, though they dress differently; virtues then and now are identical. Humility was the sword used against self-centered pride by Abba Anthony; today our weapons must be as deadly, because the enemy we fight against is the same.

We’ve spent two days considering the central place of humility in the Christian's arsenal. How do we use it?

Abba John’s words push us towards the answer. The person who tells you they’re imperfect doesn’t reveal their humility. It’s not words, but deeds, that are the proof of the pudding. I’ll criticize myself and do so openly enough—it reveals my psychological maturity and a level of self-knowledge. The test comes, not when I criticize myself, but when you criticize me. How do I respond to that?

Abba Anthony tells us we should respond joyfully when we’re poorly thought of; Abba John says criticism, which we normally respond to by various ploys of self-defense, is best answered by a robust love for the person who looks to take us down a peg or two.

In church, especially during this Lenten season, Christians seem to be forever confessing and acknowledging our manifold sins and trespasses. Would I be so heartfelt in my contrition if I heard a person in the pew in front of me criticizing me to someone else? I don’t think my first reaction would be to thank the Lord that someone else sees my sins and they’re willing to talk about them openly.

Yet there is the story of Abba Copres, who while traveling with his disciple to a monastery one day met a group of monks headed to the same place. The two groups came together for the journey. When Abba Copres asked of what they spoke, one of the band said, “Abba Copres lives in the caves of those nearby mountains. While he has a great reputation as a man of fasting, I’m told he eats secretly of all sorts of delicacies.” Abba answered, “I know the man. What you say would not surprise me.” “Further, it is said he prays long hours, rarely allowing himself to sleep, but many suggest that when he is alone in his cell, he sleeps both night and day.” Abba said again, “That Copres would love to do such is quite in keeping with his character.” Finally the monk said, “It is also said that when Copres goes into Alexandria, he frequents taverns and brothels.” Abba Copres replied, “This, too, does not surprise me to hear.” Later Abba Copres’ disciple asked why he spoke thus. Abba said, “I prayed God to grant me humility. As He has kindly answered my prayer, can I now tell Him I dislike its taste?”

Humility, given to most of us in that dose, would probably not go down well. But as with any combat of the spirit, the Lord will give us a taste of humility if we ask Him for it. We may not relish its taste, but alcohol burns as it cleans our wounds.

THE HUMILITY OF THE DESERT

Abba Anthony said, “I saw the snares the enemy spread over the world and I said groaning, ‘What can get me safely through such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying, ‘Humility.' "—from The Sayings of Abba Anthony

Abba Anthony, who we call St Anthony the Great, lived in Egypt seventeen hundred years ago. When he was 34 years old, he heard the Gospel read at Mass: “Jesus said, If you would be perfect, go and sell what you have and give it to the poor. You will have treasure in Heaven: then, come and follow me.” He took the Lord Jesus’ words to heart, gave away everything he owned, and went into the Egyptian desert to follow his Master.

Abba Anthony lived in the desert, facing temptations, living a life of prayer and self-denial, never willing to compromise the demands of the Gospel made on him. His fame as an athlete of the Christian spirit, determined to follow his Lord regardless of the cost, drew many into the desert to follow his example and benefit from his teaching. His sayings were collected and his life was documented by an equally famous fellow-Egyptian, St Athanasius the Great, the Archbishop of Alexandria and hero of the Nicene Council. Anthony died in his 105th year, having followed the Lord Jesus in the desert for more than 71 years.

Yesterday I quoted Aristotle, giving his opinion of the virtue of humility.

“Humility is the virtue of slaves and the low-minded,” he wrote, “to whom it is most appropriate.” In saying this, Aristotle was giving voice to what most people of his day believed; this was the world in which Abba Anthony lived. When he insisted that the athlete of the Christian spirit must live in humility, must struggle with himself to acquire “the virtue of slaves and the low-minded,” he had no illusions this would be popularly received.

Anthony’s long years of spiritual wrestling with himself taught him humility was utterly necessary for the Christian determined to follow the Lord Christ. It wasn’t an optional virtue.

Abba Anthony’s quote at the top of the page reflects this. Seeing sin’s temptations everywhere, he cries, “How can anyone get through all this?” There comes a single word in reply: “Humility.”

Aristotle sees humility as the least of virtues, indeed, as a false one. Abba knows it to be the greatest. How do they come to such different conclusions?

The answer lies in their definition. What is humility? What does it look like? How does it show itself? What does it do?

Remember Dickens’ character Uriah Heep from David Copperfield? Heep embodies all that Aristotle despises about “humility”: a cringing figure, constantly wringing his hands, ever protesting his “…umbleness” to his superiors, all the while plotting their downfall.

Uriah is a creepy caricature, but the power of caricature is its similarity to truth. When we think of someone who’s humble, we often have in mind the person who says he's not as good as most other people, has no real talents or gifts to speak of, a person who presents himself as of no account. He may not be quite so obvious as Uriah but such a person is uncongenial, unlikeable and unpopular. We know he's faking. The person who says “I know I’m not really very handsome,” says it, not because he thinks he’s ugly, but because he wants you to tell him that he is handsome, very handsome indeed!

This doesn't have anything to do with humility.

Aristotle despises the cloying humility of the slave, because he understands it masks the slave’s true thoughts.

The humility of the desert, Christian humility, doesn’t hide, but reveals. It shows us who we really are.

My old confessor, Fr Homer Rogers, used to say the root word of humility, humus, is the Latin word for soil. A humble man, Father Rogers insisted, was “a man whose feet were on the ground.” He knew who he was and he knew who God was, and he didn’t have any illusions about which one was which.

This is the desert humility for which you and I must strive, struggle to achieve and fan to a burning fire within us. Only this fire, which only God can give, is able to burn hot enough within us to cauterize the wounds of our soul-destroying pride.

Take it from me, who knows how much he is in need of God’s consuming flame.

THE FIRE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE HEAT OF THE DESERT

A brother came to Abba Anthony and said, “Tell me what I can do, that I may find life." The Abba replied, “If you can bear to have your words and thoughts treated as of no account, and find joy in this, you will cause the angels to wonder."-The Sayings of Abba Anthony

Traditionally, we list Seven Christian Virtues as opposed to Seven Deadly Sins. The sins we’re familiar with, if not from memory, then by experience: pride, envy, anger, greed, gluttony, lust and sloth. The Virtues corresponding to these sins are: humility, kindness, patience, charity, temperance, chastity and diligence. This means that the “offsetting” virtue to sloth is diligence, of gluttony, temperance, and so on.

The wisdom embodied in these simple lists, and the understanding of human temptation and spiritual combat they teach has been lost of late. They’ve become the subjects of clever cartoons in Playboy and witty essays in The New Yorker. The Deadly Sins have become human foibles. The “post-Christian” world is in the not-too-slow process of transmuting the Deadly Sins into the New Virtues.

If old Sin becomes new Virtue, what of the old Virtues?

If we can’t quite bring ourselves to banish virtue, we can at least relegate it to inoffensiveness. Some of the harder to grasp virtues—chastity and humility, for example—are best ignored, in hopes they’ll go away. Others, like temperance and diligence, can be made into civic virtues—AA or one of its offspring, for example, can become a pigeonhole for temperance. The rest, if not good for everybody (because nothing’s bad for everybody), are good for some people—patience and kindness, for example, are good for grandparents.

Of all the Christian virtues, the most understood of the list is humility. Humility makes us uncomfortable, mostly because we don’t know what it is. Instead of being the highest of virtues—fierce in its combat with pride, the deadliest of sins—humility is the virtue of the milquetoast, the refuge of the anemic.

So read what Abba Anthony has to say about humility. His words breathe fire: “Can you bear to have your words and thoughts, to have even your presence treated as nothing?”

Take that notion into your heart and mind and ruminate over it for a few minutes. How would you respond if you were treated that way? How do you respond when somebody cuts you off in traffic or interrupts you in conversation? Our response to these things is instantaneous and visceral. We snap and snarl at what we perceive as mistreatment.

Abba, however, doesn’t only say, “Can you take it?” He presses harder: “Can you find joy in it?”

What kind of disordered psychology is this? Take pleasure from being disregarded, when all our lives we’ve been taught to stand up for our rights? When every third best-seller on the New York Times Bestseller List insists that we “Learn the Power of No!”

We don’t need somebody to tell us to “love ourselves” or “forgive ourselves” or “value ourselves.” We do those things naturally (not the same thing as saying we do those things “healthily” but that’s because of that Inconvenient Truth—Original Sin). In Abba Anthony’s day, people then were just like us, in all the essential, unchangeable ways of our race. They had their own versions of Oprah and Dr Phil, etc.

Aristotle (who I do not equate with either of the last-mentioned), said that humility was “the virtue of slaves,” not to be counted as a virtue by the wise. It was for milquetoasts and cripples.

Abba Anthony has a different vision—a Gospel vision—of humility. He sees humility at the center of the arsenal of spiritual combat; the invincible weapon with which God has armed each soul in its warfare against “the world, the devil and the flesh.” Humility is a weapon so powerful, few Christians have the courage to wield it. Each who does quickly discovers the identity of his greatest, most deadly foe: himself.

(Part Two tomorrow)

THE GLORY OF THESE FORTY DAYS

Abba Moses said, “In all trials and troubles that afflict you never point at others in blame, but be still in your heart. Say only this to yourself, ‘It is because of my sins that this has happened.’ "

Abba Moses seems to be saying, “Regardless of who’s to blame for the bad stuff that happens to you, when bad times come, shut your mouth, take the blame on yourself, and say, ‘this happened as a punishment for my sins.’ ” He seems to be saying that, but he’s not.

Sometimes bad things happen to me directly as a result of bad or stupid or thoughtless things that I’ve done. If I scream and shout at my spouse, and she sets my hair on fire the next time I fall asleep, it may very well be the law of cause and effect coming into play. If I leave the water running in the bathtub, intending to take a bath, but then go the movies, it’s a certainty I’ll return to see water running under the front door. If I forget to make my car payment to the Fast and Easy Credit Company, it’s safe to assume the fact that my car is not in the driveway one morning is related to the forgotten payment.

Sometimes, though, bad things happen when I intend—and perhaps even carry through with—virtuous or kindly acts. A beggar asks for money and when I stop to give him some from my wallet, he grabs it and runs away. I go to visit a sick friend in the hospital and a four-ton crate of syringes falls from the roof and smashes my car to bits.

Abba Moses says, “never point at others in blame, but be still in your heart.”

His words aren’t intended as Words to the Stupid, but counsels for the wise. When he says never point at others in blame, he’s not unaware bad things may indeed happen to us because of the actions of other people. Abba Moses is telling us regardless of the person “at fault,” God is to blame.

“Be still in your heart.” The thing that has happened is sent to you by God, and the purpose is the training of your soul. In times of trial, many people, struggling to make sense of hardships, say “I’m supposed to ‘learn’ something from this.” Well, sort of. It’s not so much that God wants us to ‘learn’ a Mystic Cosmic Lesson as it is He wants to form our souls as His companions.

The Lord Christ was hauled before a night-time court for a midnight trial on trumped-up charges. The Scribes and Teachers of the Law who presided over the session broke Jewish Law by the bushel-load to condemn Him. He knew it. They knew it. And “as a Lamb before is shearers, He opened not His mouth.” He cast no blame, pointed no fingers. He took the crimes of His accusers on His own back and carried them with Him to the Cross. He made our sins, and theirs, His own.

That’s what Abba Moses has in mind. In times of trial and trouble, he says, follow in the footsteps of Him Who carries all the trials and troubles of the world. We can embrace life’s afflictions and transfigure them (they’ll come anyway), or we can blame everybody in sight, whine and moan like spoiled children, and redemption passes over our heads, unnoticed.

The life of the Spirit is a life of temptation, trial and sorrow. It’s also a life of growth, joy and peace, in the fellowship of the Saints and the friendship of God. In one of the most wondrously shrouded but profoundly insightful statements in all his writings, St Paul says, “I rejoice in my sufferings, as I make up in myself what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.”

Here is the heart of Christian life: for us to share our life with Christ and for Christ to share His life with us. When suffering comes, not only, Abba Moses says, are we to bear it manfully. We take it to ourselves as the Lord Jesus did. Don’t look to blame, don’t start to whine. In the secret prayers of your heart and the Common Prayer of the Church, lay it before God. He will take the pain and bless it.

If you are game, He’ll give it back. Nobody said this would be easy. It’s Glory He’s out to form in us.

PEACE IN THE DESERT

Abba Anthony said, “Hate the false peace of the world and cling to the true peace of God.”—from The Life and Teaching of St Anthony of the Egyptian Desert

After the Great Prayer of Consecration during the Mass (called the “Canon”), we recite the Lord’s Prayer. At its conclusion, the practice of the Church for more than 1,000 years was for the priest to break the Bread and say to the people “The Peace of the Lord be always with you.”

It's a time of the greatest solemnity during the Mass—God is present with us and active, doing what He most intends to do—draw us into the Oneness of communion and love which the Father eternally gives to His Son, and which the Son forever returns to His Father. The Bread is broken, a sign of the Sacrifice of Christ, of His complete self-giving, first to His Father, then to us. This incorporation of you and me, creatures, into the Uncreated Love of God is the reason you and I exist. God made us for this communion. The Peace of God is the gift He gives us of Himself.

The priest blesses us at the end of Mass, saying “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God…” He prays that God's Peace will be present in our daily lives, set in the midst of a turbulent and unpeaceful world.

“Hate the false peace of this world,” Abba Anthony growls.

In the old Russian text from which I drew the quote for today, the 18th century commentator wrote: “The unpeace of this world is the anti-peace of God.”
You’ll remember the “anti-Christ”, if not from the few references to it the New Testament, then by the many that are the stock-in-trade of old radio and television evangelists. Even in our lifetimes, the anti-Christ has been the Soviet Empire, the PLO, and not long back, Osama bin Laden.

When we refer to the “anti-Christ,” we mean that person or thing which is “against” Christ. That’s okay as far as it goes, but we miss the power of the words we use if we don’t know their meaning. In Greek, anti doesn’t mean “against”—it means “instead of.” The anti-Christ is not merely the one “against Christ,” it’s the one chosen “instead of” Christ.

In the same way, the “false peace” Abba Anthony warns us about—in fact, tells us to hate—is the “anti-peace,” the peace of the world, the peace chosen instead of the peace of God.

This “anti-peace” is the seductive whispering (often heard in loud, obnoxious shouts) of the world. It’s the promise that happiness can be found, the goal of your existence can be met, with what the world has to offer. St Thomas Aquinas lists these enticements—pleasure, power, fame, wealth. He goes on to say that these things aren’t evil in themselves, but become soul-twisting when we make them the ends for which we live. Abba’s “false peace” is anything you and I make to be the One Important Thing in our lives, the Thing we enshrine in place of God. We purchase that Thing at the price of our souls.

Abba Anthony says “hate it.” Hate the thing that entices you from God. Hate the thing that lures you to love yourself more than God.

Surely, though, God wants me to love myself. Oprah says so. Every best-selling psychologist says so. Common sense says so.

Thing is, we love ourselves plenty already. Even the most psychologically damaged among us loves himself too much. The problem is we don’t know the difference between “ourselves” and all the stuff we’ve filled ourselves full of. We often don’t know where the “we” stops and the love of pleasure, power, wealth and fame we’ve so completely embraced begins.

The Peace of God and “anti-peace” of the world are at war. The battle ground isn't some plain in Armageddon. It’s in our hearts. Lent is a time to arm yourself for the fight.

Pax.

A HIGHWAY THROUGH THE DESERT

Abba Macarius said, “The soul that loves God, though it may do ten thousand acts of piety, knows it has done nothing. Because it is moved by an unquenchable thirst for God, no act of charity, neither discipline of body nor struggle of the soul will satisfy its desire. Should the body exhaust itself with fasting, should the spirit weary itself in prayer, the soul makes true the words of Scripture in itself: ‘when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done only that which was our duty.’ ”—from The Teachings of Abba Macarius the Great

Otto Preminger’s 1962 movie, The Cardinal, follows the career of the fictional Father Stephen Fremoyle as a young priest, Vatican diplomat and finally American cardinal. Early in the picture, Fr Fremoyle serves as curate to an aging and grumpy monsignor, who assigns him the task of catechizing the children of the parish. When one of his students dogmatically asserts “Everybody knows only Catholics go to heaven,” the priest gently tells his class, “The Church teaches that it’s possible for anyone, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, anyone who follows his conscience, to go to Heaven.” The Precocious Girl (there’s one in every catechism class—trust me) springs to her feet and says what every kid is thinking: “Then what’s the use of going to all this trouble to be a Catholic?” At that point, the priest calls a break to class before the movie actually becomes entangled in a genuine theological question.

When I was a boy in confirmation class, without benefit of Preminger, some of us put our version of the same question to the long-suffering Fr Eubanks; when I served my first two curacies, it fell to me to teach the parish youth, and they figured they’d snared me with the self-same question, too. It’s one not a few adults have asked me privately.

We say our Faith is true, and we confess in the Creeds: “…I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church…” And that One Church does teach, as the fictional priest asserts, that anyone who genuinely follows the dictates of his conscience "can go to Heaven."

The whys and wherefores of that is something I’ll leave for another time(following Preminger's example). What concerns me is how the words of Abba Macarius relate to the question the Precocious Girl in each of us asks: “Then what’s the use of going to all this trouble?”

For Abba Macarius, “all the trouble” is the “ten thousand acts of piety…the acts of charity, the discipline of the body, the struggles of the soul.” “What’s the use?” Why bother to keep Lent, to fast and pray and give alms? To recall a question His Apostles put to the Lord Jesus, “What shall WE have, therefore?”

If we keep Lent in hope of a reward, we keep it in vain. The reward of fasting is hunger. The reward of prayer is callused knees and less time than we had before we prayed. The reward of giving alms is less money in your wallet and a smaller bank account.

We don’t do any of this to get something, but to give something.

We give God our hunger, our time spent in prayer, the extra pennies we put in the poor box. We give these things as a Lenten Offering of “ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice.”

We don’t follow the Lord Christ on the King’s Highway because we’re going to be the ones getting the prize at the goal. We follow Him for the same reason Abba Macarius does: This is how we tell Him we love Him, not only with our lips, but in our lives.

It's the only reason for Lent.

TEARS IN THE DESERT

It was said Abba Dioscorus wept continually. His disciple, who lived in a cell nearby, heard his master’s frequent weeping. One day he came to see the old man and asked him, “Father, why are you weeping?" “I weep over my sins," Abba Dioscorus replied. His disciple said, “But Father, you have no sins." The old man answered, “My son, if I were allowed to see the depth of my sins, three or four men would not be enough to weep for them."—from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

I’ve been hearing confessions for more than thirty years. I’ve listened to a child confess the day before his tenth birthday and forgiven the sins of a woman more than 100 years old. I’ve heard the confessions of bishops and cynics—people on the verge of lapsing into atheism. I’ve sat in the confessional and declared God’s forgiveness to men and women whose spiritual struggles moved even a hardened soul like mine to a sense of same for my sins. On rare occasions I’ve had to send someone out of the confessional without forgiveness, because, whatever the reason they entered, they had no true sorrow for their sins.

I’ve been making my own confessions for more than forty-five years. During that time, I’ve been blessed to have had some excellent confessors, masters of healing and guiding the soul.

One thing I’ve found as a result hearing the confessions of so many and having wise directors listen to my own for all these years is how little we see and how less we understand the hold sin has over us. I’ve sat amazed to hear a man of more than fifty years tell me he hasn’t confessed in a decade and then have him own up to a few occasions of drinking more than he should, feeling a pang of envy over a co-worker given a bonus when he was overlooked and—oh yeah—overeating last Thanksgiving (this isn't a real confession but an fictional example of a great many I've heard).

I myself, on more than one occasion, have bunched several sins at the very end of my confession that I didn’t particularly want to go into detail about, hoping my confessor would pay more attention to my less painful and more obvious sins of arrogance and intellectual pride (it rarely—if ever—worked. When you choose a good confessor, they’re good because they’re wise and experienced and pay attention to the things that actually need attending).

Abba Dioscorus wept for his sins, because he had a genuine sense of them and their impact on his soul. We may think he sounds unhealthily fixated, that he doesn’t grasp what we might nowadays call the “joy of forgiveness.” In our up-to-date version of Christianity and sin, what seems most important is not facing our sins and the damage they do to us, but, in the ludicrous terminology now so widely embraced, that we can “forgive ourselves.”

It’s not that the Abba has a misplaced focus on his sin, but that we’re so eager to blind ourselves to the reality and depth of our sins. If sin is merely a religious faux pas, an infraction against the Common Good of Society, or even a technical offense against religious rules, then Abba Dioscorus is indeed a doddering sentimentalist and we can laugh and clap our hands about our sins, because they’re so easily forgiven by our indulgent grandfather-type God.

But this pabulum version of faith has little to do with real sin, real men and women and nothing at all to do with the God Who Is. Abba weeps because he understands that sin embeds itself into our souls like sharpened fish-hooks in the heart, working deeper and deeper into us unawares. Abba weeps not because he’s a hopeless sinner dangling over the insatiable fires of hell, but because his sin has separated him from the Lover of All. He knows that heartfelt repentance doesn't bend God to mercy, but the sinful soul to love.

JUDGMENT-AND MERCY-IN THE DESERT

Some of the brothers came to the desert cave of Abba Poemen and asked him to speak to them about the virtue of silence. Abba said, “One man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others, he is babbling ceaselessly. There may be another who talks from morning till night and yet his heart is truly silent, for he speaks of others only to say what is good; the words of his mouth give birth to the virtue of silence.”—from The Lives of the Desert Fathers

In the tradition of desert monasticism, the monk shuts his mouth to open his ears. By not speaking to man, he hopes to hear God. But Abba Poemen cautions that sometimes the unspoken word hides the cankered heart.

The first monk Abba describes keeps the outward form of silent piety, but inwardly he twists himself into knots, judging and condemning those around him. No doubt some of his condemnations are for those who don’t keep the perfect silence he so scrupulously observes.

The second man speaks, but seasons every word with charity. “The words of his mouth,” Abba says, “give birth to the virtue,” the power, “of silence.”

Yesterday I called to mind the Lord Jesus’ words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” His command wasn’t nuanced; He didn’t suggest, “You know, you might want to cut people some lack now and then. Until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes you don’t really know what’s going on with them.” He said to those who would be is disciples, “Judge not, for the yardstick you measure others by will someday be used to measure you.”

Like so many things the Lord Christ said, the words aren’t hard to understand; they just seem impossible to follow.

That this is so is a conundrum I leave you with till another time. For now I want to focus on the real-life results from either following His command or laying it aside, as shown by the two monks Abba Poemen points out.

The first sees his neighbor—to keep the Abba’s topic let’s say he sees him talking—and he condemns him. What’s the yardstick he uses? Himself. “I don’t talk; I’m silent. Thank God I’m not like that blabbermouth.” He sets himself up as the yardstick of virtue, the arbiter of piety. Judging others by the man he imagines himself to be, everyone else falls short. When he turns to God he sees only a reflection of himself.

The second monk sees his neighbor, too. He sees the imperfections of his neighbor, perhaps noting the same imperfections the first monk saw. In his heart and with his lips, however, “he speaks of others only to say what is good.”

He’s not blind to the imperfections of others, but he doesn’t dwell on them. Why? Because he uses a different yardstick. The first monk measures everybody against his own virtuous self. The second measures himself, and everybody else, against God. He doesn’t condemn his neighbor for falling short of God’s goodness and glory, because he knows he, too, falls just as short.

The Lord Jesus commands us not to judge each other, not just because we aren’t competent judges—only He fits that bill—but more because of the spiritual damage we do to ourselves when we judge. When I fall into the trap of judging you, I’ve fallen into the same trap the old serpent sprung on Adam and Eve. “You’ll be like God,” the devil promised them. When I judge, I’m being like God, fulfilling His task, taking His place.

The “virtue of silence” about which Abba Poemen spoke is charity—love. As we love God more, we condemn others less. They, like us, are sinners in need of mercy.

JUDGMENT IN THE DESERT

Abba Mathois said, “The nearer a man approaches to God, the greater sinner he understands himself to be. He does not compare himself to his brother in this, but learns from the Prophet Isaiah, who saw God, and cried that he was unclean and undone."—from The Sayings of the Fathers

The Lord Jesus warned us “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” It’s not hard to see the sense in what He says. How can I judge anyone else, when I don’t know the deep circumstances of their life? Any judgment we make of someone else is at best faulty because there is so much about them we don’t know; worse, by doing so we put ourselves in the place of God. Though, come to think of it, that’s what most of us do most of the time anyway!

We believe the Lord when He tells us not to judge, but we also know His words apply to everybody else, not to us. I’m competent to judge you, but how dare you judge me!

Passing judgment on each other is a “lose/lose” situation, even if we consider it only from the point of view of human relations.

But Abba Mathois understands there’s something more important than failing a Dale Carnegie course in human relationships at stake when I judge you. Not only do I make wrong judgments when I judge, not only do I push God out of the way and try to take His place when I judge; when I judge you, I misjudge myself at the same time.

When I judge you, there's that fallen part of me, the part I like to pretend doesn’t exist, which delights in passing judgment on you. “I may not be perfect,” I congratulate myself, “but at least I’m not like her.” At your expense, I make myself feel better about myself—even my sins! The Abba is telling us the more we compare ourselves to each other—and remember the comparison is always faulty—the better we make ourselves out to be. And the farther we put ourselves from God.

“The nearer a man approaches to God, the greater sinner he understands himself to be.” Comparing my imaginary virtuous self with you, blackened sinner I know you to be, ensures I won’t begin to see the profundity of my sins. I won’t be able to, because I’m focused on your sins, not mine. And that’s just where I want the focus to remain.

A good friend of mine, now I hope praying for me in Heaven, used to say about other people’s less-than-perfect behavior, “We’ll just draw the curtain of charity over that.” She was no milquetoast and had a rapier-like wit (she skewered me on numerous occasions), but she had a fundamental grasp on the One Thing Necessary for a Christian—charity. In my better moments I aspire to Gail’s virtue.

St Ephrem the Syrian, in final section of his famous Lenten Prayer, prays: “O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother…” When we take the Lord Christ seriously and seek to find our own sins rather than reveling in those of others, we start to get a glimmer of the principal fact of our spiritual life: I sin, I like it and I don’t want to stop.

If we take that truth to heart and keep it before us this Lent, when we sing the Easter Alleluia it will be not only on our lips but in our lives, as those set free from tyranny to ourselves, sons and daughters of God made new.

FAILURE IN THE DESERT

Abba Pachomius said, “When you are free from temptations, when your soul tells you ‘Peace, peace,’ then know you are far from peace. The Master of Life covers the weakness of those who are too feeble to engage in the struggle of Grace. When you are resolute to follow Him, then temptations come. If you seek the King of Glory, you will encounter the master of this world. Then learn the text, “by faith you are saved through Grace, and not of yourself.”—from The Saints of the Desert

Many of us, at the beginning of Lent, can move mountains. Lenten disciplines and resolutions are easily kept; prayer, fasting and almsgiving, the customary practices of Lent, offer us no challenge. We’ve got this aced.

That’s why Lent lasts forty days and forty nights. Five or six days of spiritual discipline is refreshing for almost anybody, even the most hedonistic of people. Actually, a dedicated hedonist might find a week of self-denial the perfect prelude to a fat spate of self-indulgence. The real value of Lent isn’t in the beginning, when we’re fresh, nor the end, as we are on the doorstep of Easter. The virtue—virtus (from the Latin word “strength”)—of Lent is in the dull, plodding middle. Lent does its most effective work on our souls when it gets dull and we get tired of it.

When we’re tired, temptation finds us an easy mark.

After two weeks of keeping a Lenten discipline (if it’s a discipline worth keeping because it challenges you), we get bored with it: tired of the praying, tired of going without, irritated giving away my money. I don’t “feel spiritual” anymore, find myself distracted when I pray (did I forget to turn off the oven?), what good is it doing me not to watch television? Now, you’re keeping Lent! When the grumbling starts, so too does your Lenten contest.

“When you are resolute to follow Him,” St Pachomius forewarns us, “then temptations come.” Scripture tells us the Lord Jesus’ Lenten Fast was a time of temptation: “And He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by the devil.” You know the story. The devil tempted the Lord Christ, first with bread, then with power, finally with glory. The Lord, hungry, weak and alone, spurned every temptation.

St Pachomius spent his own time in the desert and lived through his own temptations. He shares the fruit of what he lived and learned with us: “If you seek the King of Glory, you will encounter the master of this world. Then learn the text, ‘by faith you are saved through Grace, and not of yourself.’ ” Temptation, failure and sin: the Christian who seeks to follow his Lord can expect these as his daily fare. It’s obvious Pachomius did. He warns us that if we rely on ourselves, on our own will-power or self-control to address temptations and selfishness, we’ll lose time and time and time again, world without end.

Lenten is not a forty-day seminar on “How to Become a Better, Stronger, More Self-Reliant Person.” Shocking as it may be, it ends up not being about us at all: not our painful abstinences, not our prolonged prayers nor our financial self-sacrifice. Lent is about life; about surrendering yourself to God, and giving yourself to Grace.

“Saved,” the old desert monk reminds us, “through Grace, and not of yourself.”

BLOSSOMS IN THE DESERT

Abba Nistero asked Abba Anthony, “What thing is there so good that I may do it and live?" Abba Anthony answered him, “All good things are not the same thing. Scripture tells us that Abraham was hospitable, and God loved him for his hospitality. The Prophet Elijah was silent, and God loved him for his silence, and David was humble, and God loved him for is humility. Find the one thing in your soul that desires to follow God above all. Do that one thing, and you have found life.”—the Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Lent is a time to look at our sins. You and I are sinners, not because we’re human beings and all human beings are sinners, but because you and I commit sins—real sins. We lie. We steal. We gossip. We hate. We take revenge. We claw over others to advance ourselves. We judge each other without knowing each other. We’re sinners because we commit sins, and we commit sins because we want to.

Lent is a time to say so—to God, to ourselves and to each other. But saying so is just the beginning, not the goal.

Many Christians, pious and well-intentioned, believe that confessing that we’re sinners and asking God to forgive us is the end all of salvation. However pious, well-intentioned and admirable they may be, though, they’re wrong about that.
The Lord Jesus said “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Our lives as Christians begin with an acknowledgement that we are sinners. But we’re meant to grow from spiritual infancy to maturity. The Prayer Book tells us, in the Baptismal rite, that from the time of our spiritual birth we are “manfully to fight against sin, the world and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant” to the end of our lives. Our Christian life is going to be an on-going struggled with sin from the beginning to end.

St Anthony the Great, the Father of monasticism, who lived in the Egyptian desert for 71 years (he died in AD 356), said “Every Christian must expect temptations until the day of his death.” St Anthony’s life in the desert was a life of continual struggle with temptation, but because it was, it was also a life of great holiness and profound joy.

If our lives are not a struggle with temptation and sin, it’s most likely because the tempter has us already sewn up.

Abba Nistero, one of the desert companions of the great St Anthony, sought out the old man in is desert solitude and asked him what was the one virtue he could practice, the greatest of virtues, the one which would win him a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Anthony told Nistero to find himself that one virtue, the pre-eminent gift which God had given him, and to bring that gift to perfection. The saint understood that to perfect hospitality, Abraham struggled with the sins which cluster around unhospitality: selfishness, greed, lack of concern for others.

Struggling to overcome these things, God’s Grace revealed itself in what became the proverbial hospitality and generosity of Abraham. And so Elijah’s silence was born of his struggle with a desire for admiration and self-opinion; King David’s humility sprang from his spiritual wrestling with overweening pride.

What is your favorite sin? What sin do you want to keep God farthest from? If you examine yourself, you’ll find hidden within your spirit is your greatest spiritual gift. It’ll be your favorite sin turned on its head. “Find that thing,” Abba Anthony says, “Do that thing, and your soul will live.”

Now there’s a Lenten project!

THE UNCOMPROMISING DESERT

“One of the brothers from the monastery near his cave came to Abba Sisoes and complained: “I am unjustly accused by the other monks; they say I eat in secret, look at women and at the time of prayer sleep in my cell.” Abba looked at him and said, “Why do you come to me?” The monk answered him, “I am innocent of the accusations. Will you do nothing?” Abba Sisoes said, “I will not steal from you.” The monk said, “Abba, what do I have for you to steal?” The old man replied, “The reward that you have of being ill-thought of and spoken about. These things are of more good to the soul than many days of fasting and spiritual labor.”

Since the Lord Jesus spoke the first words of the Gospel, His followers have looked for ways to empty His words of their power. “If someone strikes you, invite them to slap you again.” “If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt, too.” “When you are slandered, don’t defend yourself but leap for joy.” If someone actually lived this way, we wouldn’t think of them as living the Gospel life—we’d call them crazy. No normal, right-thinking person is going to follow Jesus’ commandments.

But that’s why those who followed God into the burning desert went there. They lived in the uncompromising desert to put themselves to the most uncompromising of tests, the ultimate trial of the human spirit: can a human being really and truly do what the Lord Jesus told us to do?

The unnamed monk seeks out Abba Sisoes and grumbles that he’s being ill-used by his brothers. Sisoes sends him away without condolences, offering no sympathy, showing him none of the milk of human kindness we all crave. “You’re being mistreated? Congratulations! This is why you came to the desert in the first place!”

We all like to hear the Gospel—or what we imagine is the Gospel—about God loving us regardless, God answering our prayers, God taking care of us like the lilies of the field. All true, but all incomplete. And the incomplete Gospel, the compromised Gospel, the Gospel of “olly olly oxen free” turns out to be no Gospel at all; it’s a trick.

The Gospel that doesn’t challenge us, that reinforces our prejudices and bolsters our politics—whatever they are—isn’t the Gospel of God but the soothing gospel of man.

The Gospel of the Lord Christ isn’t concerned with our comfort but our salvation. He doesn’t invite us to follow Him to a feel-good sing-along but along the tortuous Way of the Cross; when we get there it’s not to wring our hands but have nails driven through them.

“I am crucified with Christ,” St Paul cried, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.” That’s the Gospel Abba Sisoes hoped to get the monk to embrace. It’s the uncompromising Gospel of Lent.

How do we embrace it? More to the point, do we even want to?

I can keep the comfortable Gospel, a chocolate Lent, and be proud of myself when the forty days are over. Or I can keep a bold Lent, not struggling with sugar but with my love of prestige, of being well-thought of, of having my way and being right. How do I do that? I ask God to humble me, break my arrogance, strike at my pride. If I do, if you do, He will.

Keeping the uncompromising Lent of the desert is asking God to fight alongside us against our real, day-to day sins—and not complaining when He does.

THE FIRE OF THE DESERT

Amma Syncletica said “When a soul turns to God, there is joy unspeakable; but before this joy is pain and sorrow and darkness. Those who kindle a fire first endure the choking smoke, and with the smoke, tears, before they feel the warmth of the fire. Even so it is with God. It is written: “Our God is a consuming Fire.” When the divine fire is first kindled within our souls, we are choked with the sorrows and pains coming from our love of the world. Only when these loves are burned from us do we find the joy which no words can express.”

Amma Syncletica was said to be one of the most beautiful women in ancient Alexandria, from a family of wealth and position, but just over seventeen hundred years ago she walked away from all that to give herself unreservedly to Christ in the anvil of the Egyptian desert. She lived there more than sixty years, transformed by grace from a beautiful young worldling into one of the ammas, one of the “Mothers of the Desert,” whose spiritual teachings and insights, like those of the Desert Fathers, continue to guide Christians today.

The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews says, “Our God is a consuming Fire.” The statement hearkens back to the Old Testament, which repeatedly says the same. Many Christians, when they think about God as an all-consuming flame, conjure the image of God burning up the wicked in a Lake of Fire. Sometimes they seem to have a hand-rubbing glee when they do so, picturing sinners being tossed by the shovelful into hell’s fire at the Last Judgment.

But Amma Syncletica gives us fair warning: it’s not the sinners on the Last Day she cautions, but the souls who desire God in this life who need to be very afraid.

The God most people—many Christians among them—“believe in,” is more like an indulgent grandfather, turning a blind eye to our “flub-ups” (let’s not call them “sins,” please), than a Fire Which burns everything It touches. As a result, God is more a cartoon character than the One before Whom the many-winged Seraphim veil their faces.

In making God our granddaddy and Jesus our best bud, we’re re-making Him into our own image, rather than being ourselves re-fashioned by the consuming Fire of Grace.

At the outset of Lent, the Amma’s words are a needful corrective to the cheap grace so many of us eagerly grasp. In earlier times, Lent was a time to “afflict our souls,” to squarely address the failure and weakness of our spiritual lives. In ages past meats and cheeses and dairy products disappeared from the larders and storehouses of everyday homes, because these were the forty days of the Fast. Today we congratulate ourselves that we successfully survived forty days without sugar in our tea or butter on our brussel sprouts. Our souls have become little; they’ve shriveled with a continuous self-indulgence of body, soul and spirit.

This isn’t a cause for despair or fret, but a time for renewed resolution. This is the gift Lent can give. It starts, not with banishing everything tasty from our cupboards, but with a desire for a true taste of God’s Grace. It’s a willingness—even a desire—to be burned by the Fire.

Before we can live in the joy of God’s Presence, the Amma says, we have to endure the burning up of everything we so love that we put in place of God.

That sounds like a safe prayer until it gets answered. If I ask the Lord to take from me all that separates me from Him, all the stuff I love that I shouldn’t, I’m going to lose a lot more than the extra toothbrushes in the cup by the sink or the worn-out shoes in my closet. The desert is a place, and Lent is a time, to find out who and what we love more than God, and wrestle with what we’re going to do about it.

If God answers our Lenten prayer, if the Fire of the Desert comes to our lives, it will hurt. Fire burns and being burned is painful. But if we take Amma’s words to heart, the Fire of Lent can be one "giant step" to “the joy which no words can express.”

ALONE IN THE DESERT

Long before the Lord Christ “was driven by the Spirit,” as St Mark says, “into the desert,” men and women have gone into the wild places of the world to look for God. “The desert” doesn’t necessarily mean the barren, waterless expanse of Egypt, though Christian monasticism has its birth in there. We think of deserts as places like the Sahara or Death Valley, with high temperatures and low rainfall, though the underlying Latin word means “an empty place,” a place we might say is deserted. A desert is someplace far from humanity—a place alone.

That seems to be the cogent point for those Christian athletes of the spiritual life. They went to the desert to be alone, “far from the madding crowd.” They understood the difficulties of hearing the “still small Voice” Elijah heard at the end of his forty days in the desert while surrounded the cacophony of the world.

To hear the voice of God, they left the voice of men behind.

It sounds psychologically unhealthy. Fleeing human society in search of Something more, Something greater, at the very least sounds elitist, superior, stuck-up, not very sociable. What is greater and more practical than the service of our fellow man?

The Lord Christ said “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The second of His commandments, that we love our neighbor, is like unto the first. The Lord tells us our love for our fellows derives from our love of God. The desert demand of the Gospel is to love God above all things, visible and invisible.

We’re tempted with all sorts of false loves—love of wealth, power, position and security; even the love of friends, family, and spouse. All these “things” are potentially good things, except most of us put them in the place of the First Love. When we do, the best of human loving becomes distorted. When we love God—or tell ourselves we love God—somewhere down the list of our lovings, what we really are doing in putting something else in His place—and even when that something else is our spouse, our child or our dearest friend, that distorts both our love of God and the “love” we put in His place.

So the desert calls all of us, not just the spiritual athlete. We’re all faced with the question of who or what we love. We turn to the desert to refine and purify the “fallen” loves of our life.

The desert becomes a place of truth-telling, if we have the courage for it. Who do you love? Why? If you’re willing to tell yourself the truth in answer to these questions, what does that tell you about yourself? These are the questions of the desert, the questions of Lent.

“The brothers sought Abba Jonah in his desert cell and asked him, ‘Why do you live so far from the brotherhood?’ The old man said, ‘Solitude is like the furnace of Babylon, where the three children found the Son of God; and it is like the pillar of cloud where God spoke with Moses. To hear the voice of God, flee the noise of man.’ ”—from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

WHY THE DESERT?

In the desert life is cut down to the barest necessities. Water is scarce. Shade is precious. There, among rocks and scorpions and the unrelenting heat of the sun, luxury is a thing unknown. And so it’s no surprise that when men and women are seized with a burning desire for God, they find the desert enticing. It’s God or nothing there.

The Lord Jesus went into the desert for forty days and forty nights. He followed the example of Moses and the Prophet Elijah, both of whom fasted forty days and forty nights in the desert of Sinai, fierce in their determination to find God.

Like the Lord Jesus, like Moses, like Elijah, you and I have gone into the desert of Lent, our foreheads smudged with the burnt ashes of desert palms, to find God. That’s what Lent is about. We may not realize that’s why we’re here, we may not know what we’re doing. But for the next forty days and forty nights, we’re invited, at least, to follow Moses and Elijah and the Lord Christ into the desert.

Few of us can go wandering off to the desert—and even if we could, we have families and jobs and bills and responsibilities. So we have Lent. Lent with its candy abstinence and meatless days (there’s always shrimp and even lobster); Lent with some extra prayers and solemn purples. Even under the Texas sun, though, the desert of Jesus’ Lent seems far off and more than a bit unreal.

It hasn’t always been so. For more than seventeen hundred years, some Christian men and women, determined to find God, have set their faces towards the desert in their search for Him. They’ve done it for the same reason Moses and Elijah and the Lord Jesus did: in the desert its God or nothing.

The stories of their desert struggles to find God have come down to us. If we want to uncover in ourselves the potential of Lent, there’s no better place than to learn from those who gave up everything to follow their Lord into the searing desert sun, living among the rocks and scorpions, fierce to find Him.

For the next forty days and forty nights, I’ll be passing along their words and telling you something of their stories. I hope they enrich your lives as they have mine. The fire of the desert has burned away everything except their desire for God—not counting the cost to themselves, they have found Him Whom they sought.

If we follow them at a safe distance this holy season, we may catch a few brief glimpses of Him, too.

"One of the brethren went deep into the desert to find Abba Joseph. When he came to his skete, he said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can, I read from the Scriptures, I fast as I am able, I pray and meditate daily, I live in peace and I try to cleanse my thoughts. What else can I do?' The old monk stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire reaching the sky and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become ablaze with the Creator.' ”-from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers