Archive, Readings
Desert Fathers 36
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An elder was asked how a zealous monk might avoid being scandalised, should he see others return to the world. He said: ‘Let him pay attention to hounds running in pursuit of hares. Even as the hound that has actually seen the hare will keep running after it, the others that merely ran along with the pursuing hound, will run for a while, then turn back. Only the one that has seen the hare keeps in pursuit until it catches it. The return of the rest of the pack does not distract it from its goal; nor will it bother about precipices, shrubs, and sharp sticks. Even surrounded by thorns, scratched by them, it gives itself no rest. Such is one who seeks the Lord Christ. Ceaselessly attentive to the cross, he will pass over whatever scandals might affect him until he catches up with the Crucified.’
I love this saying. It gives voice to an energy of movement that defines monastic life well lived. It rarely appears to outsiders and is therefore often unsuspected. The gawper who peeks through the window of a monk’s cell, or over the enclosure wall, sees an existence marked by peaceful regularity. Life seems utterly predictable, with little or no room for spontaneous expression. The rhythm of prayer, work, reading, eating, and rest is unalterably kept, day in, day out, marked by the chiming of bells or the strangely sweet-sounding beating of the semantron. The hallmark of the monk, we have seen, is hesychia, a peace which the world cannot give. The monk seems to embody the very type of a pacified human being, whose inward order is outwardly reflected in a grave demeanour and measured movement. What image might such a person use in order to provide a simile apt to render the secret of his consecrated life?
The answer given by this particular elder may astonish us. For the image put before us is that of the wind-swift greyhound, of a brave, determined hunting-dog.
The context in which the image occurs is that of grievous perplexity. The elder is questioned about those who, having put their hand to the plough with alacrity, end up looking back, then turning back, unable or unwilling to stick to their furrow. Such situations arose in Antiquity, as they do today, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes great pain is involved. We must guard against facile evaluations. Yet a common denominator is often found. It has to do, precisely, with a loss of interest, a waning of desire. Even as a marriage that at first was loving and passionate may show signs of stress when the couple no longer have a shared sense of purpose, monastic life falters when the monk considers the daily round and asks, ‘What for?’
It is of supreme importance to keep one’s sense of finality alive while nurturing one’s will to accomplish it. Specific elements of monastic life may exercise great force of attraction at the outset. I may love getting up at 3 for vigils, going out to milk cows before dawn, taking frugal meals in silence. Such exercise may give me a sense of at last doing something real, of no longer living on fine words and devout resolutions. There is joy in this, a strong, pure joy I do not wish to disparage.
It is likely, though, that this joy will be tempered over time. So my fidelity must be rooted at greater depth, beyond sentiment. St Benedict stresses this when, in the midst of prescribing minutiae of regular life, he puts in lapidary phrases like these: ‘The love of Christ must come before all else’; ‘Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ’. The abba in our saying uses the image of a dog pursuing a scent. To live and thrive over time as a monk, it is not enough just to feel drawn to the community, wanting to belong, to do what the others are doing. The community plays a providential part in the realisation of a vocation, but I do not make vows for the community’s sake.
I make vows in order to know Christ, ‘and him crucified’; to be his and for him to be mine. Only if I keep my eyes fixed on him constantly, ever striving to be near him, will I be preserved from distraction into mediocrity or retrogression or recalcitrance.
How do I stay on scent and keep ‘the Lord always in my sight’? First by being faithful to the sacraments, to prayer and reading. My relationship with Christ, like any relationship, must be familiarly nurtured. The divine office, lectio divina, Mass, Confession: these are not just observances, they are privileged instances of a rendezvous not to be missed. To establish whether our first love is still alive, we have at our disposal a reliable criterion of discernment: our dreams, whether those that come to us at night or our daydreams. Petronius Arbiter writes in a poem of how our dreams reveal our preoccupations:
The lawyer sees the judge, the crowded court,
The miser hides his coin, digs buried treasure,
The hunter shakes the forest with his hounds,
The sailor rescues from the sea his ship,
Or drowning, clings to it. Mistress to lover
Writes a love-letter: the adulteress
Yields in her sleep, and in his sleep the hound
Is hot upon the traces of the hare
— taking us back to the parable from which we set out. In my conscious and subconscious desire, is ‘Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left’? Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, a text contemporary with many of our Desert Fathers, does put the matter in a nutshell.
Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767 – 1849), Nine Greyhounds in a Landscape. Which of them would remain in undistracted pursuit? Yale Center for British Art.