Desert Fathers for Today

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I’ve recently started “Sayings of the Desert Fathers.” I just read the story of Abba Anthony and the hunter a day or two ago. Very true and relevant.
 
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The Fathers are the lifeblood of my spiritual life (though I’m sure any other Eastern Catholic would say the same thing)!

What their teaching boils down to is simply: simplicity and contemplation. Also prayer, prayer, prayer, fasting, more prayer, more fasting, and the Holy Eucharist. In a world that is as fragmented as much as it is interconnected (overconnected?), the emphasis on pushing out all obstacles to theosis is more important than ever. No matter what else is going on in your life, your parish, the Church, the world…prayer, fasting, contemplation, and the Holy Eucharist. As the Egyptian Fathers often said, “Develop a long perspective on your many thoughts.”

How? By retreating into silence, the inner desert. We never shut off our phones, our laptops, our televisions. Our brains are constantly processing most useless information and yet we cannot retain what we read in the Scriptures (if we read them all), what we pray with our beads and books, even what Fr. said at Mass/Liturgy just a few minutes ago. This is diabolical. It truly is. We are pulled in many different directions by circumstances in life and the devil and his associates rush into the chaos only to instigate more.

Also, with overuse of technology and subsequent lack of silence, I often wonder if we use the noise as a safety net of sorts. Because with silences comes ownership of our thoughts and deeds. The recognition of sin. The need of grace. The need for mending our souls and our lives. The spiritual necessity of being exactly opposite of what we currently are. The Fathers dealt with these issues and more. And the stories of monks (who did nothing but pray and read the Scriptures) falling into sin ought to terrify us. If they did, what excuse to we have for not praying and conforming ourselves to the image of Christ as sincerely and profoundly as we can? We have forgotten this and the multiple crises in the Church and society as a whole are the result.

The Hermit Fathers, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius, The Life of Repentance and Purity by (Coptic) Pope Shenouda III, the Evergetinos, the Philokalia…these are what we all should be reading. If we are not interpreting our lives according to these, the Scriptures, and the Catechism, we have absolutely no hope.
 
You’re not on the only Eastern Catholic for whom the Desert Fathers are the lifeblood of the spiritual life. 👍😄 I’ve been reading/studying them pretty intensively, and trying to live their teachings for the last three or four years. Not an easy task, but certainly worthwhile.

I like the way you boil down their teachings. Simplicity, contemplation, prayer, fasting, and the Eucharist.

As I’ve read their lives and sayings over the years, I boiled their teachings down to humility, repentance, and obedience. From these flow prayer, fasting, meditation/contemplation, hospitality, participation in the Sacraments, etc.

At one point I was considering how I, as a married man, could live humility, repentance, and obedience in my life. The advice of a friend of mine before my wedding came to mind: “If you’re going to have a happy married, you need to learn to say three things: 1) Yes dear, 2) I’m sorry, 3) You were right.” What I’ve found is that if we approach these three things with sincerity they actually do make for a happy marriage! “Yes dear” = Obedience. “I’m sorry” = Repentance. “You were right” = Humility.

That’s just my own (fun) spin on the foundation of the spiritual life according to the Desert Fathers. 😜
 
Another thing I came across recently in The Paradise of the Holy Fathers - In several stories taken from Palladius’ Lausiac History he mentions how one of the first casualties of pride is belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

I read this right around the time that the study came out stating that only about 30% of Catholics believe in the Real Presence. Apparently we don’t have a crisis of belief so much as a crisis of humility.
 
I think it was Josyp Terelya in his autobiography Witness who said that when the Soviets wanted to break someone, they put the prisoner in a small room and bombarded them with noise for 23.5 hours with a half-hour of silence. Then they started bombarding the prisoner with noise again. People either cracked and “confessed” to anything or went nuts.
 
That was why they wanted to send Nijole Sadunaite to an insane asylum. She was in peacee and that drove her captors crazy.
 
Margaret_Ann said:
I think it was Josyp Terelya in his autobiography Witness who said that when the Soviets wanted to break someone, they put the prisoner in a small room and bombarded them with noise for 23.5 hours with a half-hour of silence. Then they started bombarding the prisoner with noise again. People either cracked and “confessed” to anything or went nuts.
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This noise is the desert - A home for askesis… The desert of the world… The wilderness of people and noise and distraction…

Each life comes with it particular and specific challenges…

For those at peace, the noise and people do not distract from the constant prayer that abides in the silence and Love in the heart of one’s soul…

I keep remembering the Peace on the faces of the Copts bound and on their knees in the sands of Lybia awaiting execution by beheading… The Peace and the Love…

geo
 
I keep a picture of those Coptic martyrs that some artist made, it is like an icon.
 
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This is the copy I have.
 
My favorite saying from Abba Anthony:
When the same Abba Anthony thought about the depth of the judgments of God, he asked, "Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked men proper and why are the just in need? He heard a voice answering him, “Anthony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to known anything about them.”
 
I just finished reading the first volume of The Paradise of the Holy Fathers for the second time last night. Two things really jumped out at me on this read-through:
  1. How subtle the vainglory can be. The Fathers give almost constant warnings against this passion. But what really stood out to me is how easily those who are doing good - even performing miracles - can slip into this passion.
  2. Their lack of what we would call “evangelization.” The Desert Fathers didn’t go out and actively evangelize. Sure, they spoke the truth when people came to them. But for them, bearing good fruit for the Kingdom meant bearing the fruit of spiritual excellence. I can see how St. Seraphim of Sarov’s saying “Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved” is completely in line with the Desert Fathers.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Their lack of what we would call “evangelization.” The Desert Fathers didn’t go out and actively evangelize.
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“They cast their nets on the Right side and caught much fish…”

That is true evangelization… Enter into deep prayer and ask God’s Mercy… Door to door Christianity with strangers is not God’s Way… If a single person finds God’s Peace, many around him will be saved…

We had a Bishop on Cyprus who was being verbally assaulted by a Cypriot for causing his daughters to enter a monastery… The Bishop contradicted him, saying: "I warn them a great deal - I tell them they should in no way even imagine they might become monastic women - I warn them of little food, little sleep, having to be obedient at all times, having to work all the time or be in Services, and how much they will suffer… How only God can make possible such a wretched life… The man, a father of daughters, apologized: “I thought you were telling them how wonderful monastic life was…” and departed… The Bishop said to himself - ‘But I was…’ And to the reporter who recorded the encounter, when he asked “How do you recruit Nuns then?” replied: “We have our ways - They are not the ways of the world…”

I may have details of the above a little wrong - But the basics are ok I think… Came from the book: “A night on the Holy Mountain” as I recall…

geo
 
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Please send me a link to this book via pm. I’d like to check it out. Thank you!
 
Here is a modern day Desert Father:

Elder Ephraim’s story

Once there lived an ascetic monk (the elder did not say this story was about himself, but monks often speak about themselves in the third person). And once this ascetic, having many spiritual children, knocked for the Lord. The Lord opened to door for him, and the monk said:

“My Christ, I labor here with all my strength, I pray—can I ask of You one thing?”

“Ask,” answered the Lord.

“I have spiritual children, people with whom I’m connected. In the past, to enter the Heavenly Kingdom you had to score ten points. Ten out of ten. You had to labor quite hard. But times are so hard now that there’s no one around who can labor this way, to get ten out of ten… Can You make it so that those who get eight points would also be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom?”

“Very well, for your sake, for the sake of your love for Me, so be it.”

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The ascetic continued to pray and again knocked at the Lord:

“My Christ, can I ask you another favor?”

“Ask,” the Lord answered again.

“You know, My Christ, even eight points is very hard to get. But people try. They try to obey, to pray. And what if only a few of them can score eight points? Make it, please, that those who get six points would also be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom. After all, it would be a shame if a man tried all his life… But they’re so weak now… There are so many temptations in this world now and spiritual life is so low… Those who score six points—take them to Yourself as well!”

“Very well,” the Lord answered. “For the sake of your podvigs and love for Me, so be it.”

After a while the ascetic knocked a third time:

“Lord, and if they only score a four? Please, My Christ, I will labor for them, will keep vigil and labor even to the point of blood! Please, allow them also to see the Heavenly Kingdom!

“So be it,” uttered the Lord.

The monk looked around at the people, looked at all his spiritual children, thought, and again meekly approached the door. But when he was about to knock again, the Lord Himself opened the door and said to the ascetic:

“You know, all the same, they themselves have to try and make some effort!

Olga Rozhneva
Translated by Jesse Dominick

Pravoslavie.ru

12/14/2016


Elder Ephraim is still alive, well into his 90’s, but no one thinks for much longer… His picture here looks to be from some 15-20 years ago or so…

geo
 
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Phillip_Rolfes said:
@george720, I’d love to know where your pastor got the quotes from Mark the Ascetic in this post. I loved both of them.
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I don’t know, but I found this one on line that I like a lot, and it was taken from the Philokalia:

Icon of St. Mark the Ascetic
Do not claim to have acquired virtue unless you have suffered affliction,
for without affliction virtue has not been tested.
So I would perhaps chance a guess that it is from vol 1 of the Philokalia…

Is this work in your library and on your reading list?

geo
 
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