Archive, Readings
Desert Fathers 4
Below is the text of the fourth episode in the series Desert Fathers in a Year. You can find it in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts.
Three Fathers used to go and visit blessed Antony every year and two of them used to discuss their thoughts and the salvation of their souls with him, but the third always remained silent and did not ask him anything. After a long time, Abba Antony said to him, ‘You often come here to see me, but you never ask me anything’, and the other replied, ‘It is enough for me to see you, Father.’
Two decades of life in seclusion did not shut Antony up in himself. On the contrary, it made him a man for others. Not only did God use him as a tool by which to heal the sick and to drive out demons. He gave him such grace in speech that he could comfort those who were troubled and reconcile enemies. To all he spoke of God’s great mercy. He urged them not to put anything before the love of Christ, inspiring many to conversion and discipleship. Hermitages started to pop up everywhere, making of the desert a city.
Anyone who saw this wonder, writes Athanasius, was led to exclaim with the Psalmist: ‘How lovely are your dwellings, Jacob, and your tents, Israel!’ This reference is more than an outburst of casual devotion. In fact, throughout his text Athanasius presents Antony as a new Jacob. Even as Jacob after long testing became the father of a nation, Antony assumed paternity for the monastic state. He directed all who embraced it ‘as a father’. This passage into fatherhood represents a vital stage of his trajectory, as it does for any man. All of us yearn to be fruitful, to give and nurture life. It is a healthy yearning, calling out to be realised whatever our state of life. It is good to ask ourselves at intervals, ‘Is my life life-giving for others?’, then, if it is not, to reform it. It is an unhappy prospect to stay a self-sufficient, crusty old bachelor focused on his own preferences, hang-ups and whims. Both married men and monks can fall into that trap, and make of it a comfortable if shabby nest.
Antony lived utterly for God. His life was constant prayer. At the same time he poured himself out for anyone in need. He had this great gift: faced with a throng, he knew at once who merely wanted to speak with him and who needed to. He went straight to these last. Having immersed himself in silence, Antony, ‘governed by the Word’, became a man of words. His biography gives a full account of his teaching. We also have some letters he wrote. Many of the themes he addresses will occupy us during this year, as we seek to go deep into the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, all of whom would proudly call themselves Antony’s sons.
The temptations Antony endured equipped him to give an analytical account of devilish ruses, then counsel on how to overcome them. He stresses the importance of cutting through illusions with the sword of truth. For this to happen, we must know, first of all, who we are. Honest self-knowledge is the indispensable foundation for a life of faith, for a spiritual life. Anything that helps us confront hidden aspects of ourselves, things we are ashamed of or fear, is potentially a blessing, even if it comes heavily disguised. Temptations have their usefulness; in them the gold of authenticity is purified. Only, we must consent to the melting-off of dross.
Antony knew from experience that Christ, Lord of the Universe, is all-powerful. He speaks of the power that resides in Christ’s name and in the sign of the cross. These are mighty weapons in the spiritual struggle, weapons within reach of all of us. Of course, the cross is no talisman; prayer is not magic. As I make the sign of the cross, I must determine to live by what it signifies. If I do, if the power of his sacred Passion is alive in me and if, praying, I show myself a man of my word, evil cannot harm me. Then the devil will appear for what he is: a vanquished foe, and a pitiful one at that.
There are many stories about the impact Antony made on people, like the one with which I introduced this chapter, of the monk happy just to see him, finding his perplexities fizzling out in Antony’s company. People of all sorts came to see him. Philosophers sought him out, and Bedouin tradesmen. Even the emperor heard of him and wrote an epistle from himself and his sons. Antony was pleased but unoverwhelmed. He wrote nicely back, congratulating these august men on their faith while reminding them that Christ is the true Augustus, then asking them to love mankind, to keep justice, and to look after the poor. ‘Our life and our death is with our neighbour’, he would say: ‘If we gain our brother, we have gained God; if we scandalise him, we have sinned against Christ.’
He was fit into old age. Athanasius stresses that he kept all his teeth. When his time had come to leave this world, he gathered his disciples around him. He told them to bury him in a secret place. He wished his legacy to be the sweet scent of Christ Jesus, not some monument to his mummified self. Then Antony gave his last exhortations. He told his friends to keep the true faith. He reminded them that demons have no power over us unless we perversely empower them. Then he summed up his life of prayer in this magnificent recommendation: ‘Let Christ be the air you breathe’. A life lived on these terms sheds a light that spreads across time and space. Yours and mine could be such a life.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call on my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’
Zechariah 13.9