Arkiv, Høytlesning
Desert Fathers 38
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Another brother asked [Theodore of Pherme]: ‘Abba, would you like that I eat no bread for a few days?’ The elder said to him: ‘You would do well; I myself have done likewise.’ The brother then said to him: ‘Right, I would like to take my chickpeas to the baker’s to get meal made.’ Abba Theodore replied: ‘If you are going to the baker’s, make bread! What need is there for such an expedition?!’
The Gospel tells us we are to be the light of the world. It exhorts us not to put our lamp under a bushel. On the contrary: ’Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.’ Need we be scrupulous about displaying manifestly good deeds?
To address the question, let us first note a few things about the Gospel’s words. They occur in Mathew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, just after the Beatitudes. They presuppose poverty of spirit, meekness, purity of heart, and so forth. They are linked to the new existence Christ came to enable. Jesus alone is ‘the light of the world.’ We are light in so far as we live in him. This decisive transposition must take place before we can reveal his light to others. That is why the Lord goes on to specify that our light is given in the form of a lamp whose brightness is not one with us but given us to carry.
Spontaneously we think of the parable later in Matthew, about the wise and foolish virgins. To be entrusted with a lamp is one thing, to make sure it keeps on burning is another. For that, the lamp requires fuel we cannot provide from our resources; we must get it from elsewhere. The fuel is God’s gratuitous grace, his gift of the Spirit. The more we are conscious that the light illumining our path, and through us that of others, is given freely, without any merit on our part, the more we shall carry it unselfconsciously.
Those whom the Desert Fathers designate as luminous are almost always people who have no idea that others see God’s light in them: it would not occur to them to look in a mirror. All their attention is oriented towards God’s gracious, gladsome bounty. If on occasion a monk is consciously blessed with a luminous visitation, he will strive to ensure that no one else suspects the graces vouchsafed to him, the way Arsenius did when a passer-by surprised him in ecstasy while he, beholding God, was ‘entirely like a flame’. The Fathers are coy about their graces. To God alone belongs the glory.
The story about the brother proposing to fast from bread is like a cartoon strip. It reveals how silly we make ourselves look when we try to be exalted. The brother’s inspiration is estimable. He does what St Benedict prescribes that monks should do when, during Lent, say, they ‘add to the usual measure of […] service something by way of private prayer and abstinence from food and drink’. Wishing to make his offering ‘of his own will with the joy of the Holy Spirit’, conscious of the risk of presumption inherent in merely private initiative, the monk is asked to make known to his spiritual father what he proposes, seeking his prayer and approval. If the father approves, he can go ahead. The monk does all this by the book. It is quite fine.
The mistake he makes regards the implementation of his scheme. Abstaining from bread, he has to eat something. Dried chickpeas will let him cook a tolerably nutritious mush, but he needs to get his peas ground. How better than by looking up the baker who normally provides his bread, asking him to run the chickpeas through his mill?
We can imagine the exchange between the two as the bakery doorbell tinkles. ‘Hullo’. ‘Hullo’. ‘The usual loaf?’ ‘Uh, not today, thanks. But would you grind these chickpeas for me?’ ‘Chickpeas!’ ‘Yes, you see my spiritual Father thinks now me ripe for advancement in mystical life, so I will fast more and forego bread.’ The talk is innocuous enough, yet a dark shade spreads over an initially generous proposal. There is self-congratulation in the explanation. It would be strange if the monk did not think the baker would think: ‘Blessed am I to have such holy monks as my clients!’ The chances, though, are that he would not think this at all, but rather: ‘Buh! Another blooming show-off!’ That is why Theodore tells him: ‘Stuff yourself rather with bread!’ Ostentation would make fasting worthless. If I wish to be generous, I should keep it secret, not letting even my left hand know what my right is doing.
Theodore rather specialised in counsels against vainglory. When a brother came to him asking for a word, he sent him away gruffly. Asked why, he said: ‘That man is a merchant wishing to gain glory for himself from the words of others!’ When another monk came to talk about things he did not practise, Theodore said, speaking like Antony in naval terms: ‘You have not yet found a boat or charged it with cargo, yet before having sailed you have arrived in town. First do the works, then you can broach the subjects you now prattle about.’ If Theodore kept stressing this point, it suggests he knew a thing or two about it from experience. That is encouraging. If we fight residual weaknesses, we shall gain wisdom that, with time, may benefit others.
A grand old baker, Michel Vallet. His obituary states: ‘Il aura formé de nombreux apprentis à qui il avait su communiquer sa passion, la fabrication du bon pain n’avait aucun secret pour lui’. I wonder what he would have said to a self-assured young monk turning up at his bakery in Rugles with a bag of chickpeas.