A Daily Lent

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 28, 2015 The brothers praised a monk before Abba Antony. When the monk came to see him, Antony wanted to know how he would bear insults; and seeing that he could not bear them at all, he said to him, “You are like a village magnificently decorated on the outside, but destroyed from within my robbers.” [Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers , p. 4] Endurance for the Desert Christians invited reflection on what they believed about themselves. Were they able to bear up underneath insults and humiliations? No one likes to be embarrassed, insulted, or humiliated. It is, well . . . embarrassing, insulting, and humiliating!! But there are few things as helpful as embarrassments, insults, and humiliations to reveal to us what we truly believe about ourselves. They offend our sense of fairness and rightness, as we tell ourselves things like, “I don’t deserve this!” We want to be seen as a particular kind of person, with certain q...

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 27, 2015 Someone asked Abba Antony, “What must one do in order to please God?” The old man replied, “Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.” [Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers , p. 2] These are Abba Antony’s three keys to life: in every moment, attend to God, who is present always and everywhere; let the scriptures shape your heart so that all you do issues from an interior that has been molded by God’s Word; and have a sense of stability and consistency about your life . . . no flitting around. The third part of Antony’s saying is particularly relevant this week related to endurance and perseverance. It is reflected, a couple of centuries after Antony, in the vision Benedict of Nursia had for his...

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 25, 2015 Antony of Egypt was the first of the Desert Christians. I related some of Antony’s story in the first days of this year’s Lenten devotionals, so I won’t repeat his life story here. But it is important to know that 36 years elapsed from the time of Antony’s first entry into the desert to attend to his life with God, until the days when he took disciples (novices) whom he would mentor as a spiritual father (Abba). 20 of those years were spent in extreme solitude and silence, as Antony’s life was formed by the discipline and wisdom of the wilderness. Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, a friend and student of Antony’s, wrote The Life of Antony in order to record some of Antony’s experiences from the desert. He writes a great deal about Antony’s struggles in the desert, the daily battles Antony engaged with the darkness within himself, as well as with demonic forces. During one extended period of time, Antony’s struggle with the dark...

Monday of the Third Week of Lent – March 9, 2015 ANTONY tested a group that came to visit him by quoting a verse of Scripture. Beginning with the youngest, he asked each for an interpretation. They responded as well as they could, but Antony told them he did not think they understood the verse. Finally, he turned to Abba Joseph. “How would you explain these words?” Joseph replied, “I do not know.” Antony was elated. “Abba Joseph has found the way, because he admitted he did not know.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 2] The tongue (words we speak) reveals what lives within us. We use words to impress others, to demonstrate how smart (or wise, or vulnerable, or humble, or eloquent, or compassionate) we are. The words we choose are full of our inner-most motives. That’s not to say that there is never a time to speak. Rather, in the Christian spiritual life we are invited to a greater and deeper awareness of our words, and how they reflect our own interior...

Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 6, 2015 Abba Antony said, “Fish, if they linger on dry land, die: even so monks that linger outside their cell or live with people of the world fall away from their vow of quiet. As a fish must return to the sea, so must we to our cell: otherwise through lingering outside, we might forget the watch within.“ [Helen Waddell, The Desert Fathers , p. 91.] I find it helpful to have a consistent place where I can be alone with God. I’m certainly aware of God’s presence with me always and everywhere, but to have one place dedicated to my connection to God helps ground me. It is my own “cell” in the monastic sense. My “cell”, the place to which I return day after day to be alone with God, is an old, beat-up chair in my home study. If you saw the chair, you wouldn’t give me $5 for it. It has been around since the mid-1980’s. It was an early furniture purchase in the first little Northeast Texas town I served as pastor after seminary. We boug...

Second Sunday of Lent – March 1, 2015 ONCE Abbot Anthony was conversing with some brethren, and a hunter who was after game in the wilderness came upon them. He saw Abbot Anthony and the brothers enjoying themselves, and disapproved. Abbot Anthony said: “Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it.” This he did. “Now shoot another,” said the elder. “And another, and another.” The hunter said: “If I bend my bow all the time it will break.” Abbot Anthony replied: “So it is also in the work of God. If we push ourselves beyond measure, the brethren will soon collapse. It is right, therefore, from time to time, to relax their efforts.” [Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert , p. 63.] This week, we consider the wilderness wisdom held in solitude. Solitude is the spiritual practice of being alone for the sake of attending to God. By attending to God alone, without the conflicting voices of others, we are able to discover more truly who God created us to be. Solitude wa...

Monday, February 16, 2015 – A Pre-Lenten Reading Introduction to “The Wisdom of the Wilderness” by Jerry Webber During Lent, I’ll provide daily meditations based on the stories and sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (3rd – 5th centuries). First, though, I want to provide some background and context: Who were these men and women? How did they get to the desert? What did they do there? In the years after Christ, followers of Jesus faced a number of challenges. For many decades, Christians were persecuted by a hostile Roman Empire, which viewed Christian faith as atheistic (Christians did not worship the gods of the Roman Empire, nor the Emperor as deity). Christians were imprisoned, tortured, or put to death, often for sport in the Roman Empire. Another challenge arose about three centuries after Christ, when Constantine became Emperor of the once-hostile Roman Empire. The new Emperor declared that Christianity would be the official religion of the Empire. Suddenly, the ho...