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.