“As breath comes from the nostrils, so does a person need humility and the fear of God.”
-Abba Poemen (the Shepherd), Desert Father, Fourth Century.
At first glance there appears to be a large gulf fixed between today’s practicing American Catholic and the Desert Fathers. We are separated by history, geography, culture, language, and the chasm between an ancient monastic tradition of the fourth and fifth centuries, and the lifestyle of some lay, American Catholics who think that roughing it is when room service closes at 11.
Certain stories about the eccentric behavior of the fathers (and mothers) also can be alienating for the contemporary reader. Abba Agathon lived for three years with a stone in his mouth with the goal of learning to keep silence. Many are familiar with the story of Symeon the Stylite, the Syrian ascetic, who gained notoriety for living 47 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo.
We are fortunate that there are books written for today’s reader that help bridge the gap. There are many but two volumes come to mind: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG; and The Lives of the Desert Fathers, translated by Norman Russell with four helpful, introductory chapters by Ward. Both volumes are published by Cistercian Publications.
When you immerse yourself in this literature, you realize that the Desert Fathers speak directly to us in the shoe-leather of daily living. A small sampling:
Isidore the priest and companion of Macarius said, “Of all evil suggestions, the most terrible is that of following one’s own heart, that is to say, one’s own thought, and not the law of God. A man who does this will be afflicted later on, because he has not recognized the mystery, and he has not found the way of the saints in order to work in it” [emphasis mine].
The dominant ethos today in the West is autonomy, a rejection of any divine metanarrative (e.g., Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium) and an assertion that the individual is the sole arbiter of truth and morality. God has been taken off the throne and man has taken his place, fulfilling the serpent’s promise to humanity in Genesis: “You shall be as gods…”
We see this in the broader American culture that encourages people to “follow their heart,” and embrace “your truth,” (e.g., Oprah Winfrey’s speech at the 75th Golden Globe Awards). The wildly popular book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, encourages the reader to listen to “the god within.” Ross Douthat argues that “the god within” isn’t a divine voice at all, but an amplified human voice that caters to our self-love.
This dovetails with what sociologist of religion, Robert Bellah, found over three decades ago in his research in Habits of the Heart, and, especially, in a famous interview he did with a woman named Sheila. Sheila said, “I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice.”
Thus we see that Isidore the priest is not some dusty relic that we can easily dismiss and dump on the slag heap of religious history. Neither is Abba Poemen (the Shepherd):
“You must flee from sensual things. Indeed, every time a man comes near to a struggle with sensuality, he is like a man standing on the edge of a very deep lake and the enemy easily throws him in whenever he likes. But if he lives far away from sensual things, he is like a man standing at a distance from the lake, so that even if the enemy draws him in order to throw him to the bottom, God sends him help at the very moment he is drawing him away and doing violence.”
This saying has relevance for so many issues today’s practicing Catholic (and Christian) faces. How much time should couples spend alone who are romantically involved but not married? Should you cancel your subscription to this or that streaming service or cable TV because of the prevalence of nudity on some of the shows?
Because seventy percent of 18-24 year-old males visit porn sites monthly, would it be wise to subscribe to a service like Covenant Eyes or Net Nanny to filter out the bad stuff and hold you accountable to a trusted friend for your viewing habits? Abba Poemen’s words about not standing “near the edge of a very deep lake” have aged well and are just as timely as when they were spoken several centuries ago.
The individual sayings of the Desert Fathers are like pearls that all gathered on one string and that string is humility. They are like spokes connected to a wheel and that wheel is brokenness. They are like precious jewels in a crown, and, as Abba Or said, “The crown of the monk is humility.”
Both Abba Isidore’s and Abba Poemen’s sayings are rooted in a profound humility: we should not follow our unreliable hearts or be overconfident in walking too close to the cliff. St. Thomas joins the chorus of the Fathers in saying, “Acquired humility is in a certain sense the greatest good.”
The necklace, the wheel, and the crown all point to and call us to imitate the heart of Christ who is “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). The wisdom of humility of the Lamb of God is endless.
He is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world (I Peter 1:18-20) and yet he is seen as a lamb freshly slain in the eternity to come (Revelation 5) who was the only one worthy to open the scroll and the seven seals. In between eternity past and eternity future, he humbled himself in descending from heaven, becoming Man, being born in a manger, submitting himself to his parents, being baptized by John, washing the feet of his disciples, suffering affliction after affliction, all culminating in a most ignominious death.
T.S. Eliot summed it up well in his poetry: “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire/ Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”
What’s often overlooked in the reading of Jesus’ baptism by John (John 1:29-34) is the significance of the Dove descending on the Lamb. The power, grace, and enduement of God in the Person of the Holy Spirit rested on the meek and lowly Lamb thus fulfilling the biblical declaration that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34 LXX; James 4:6-7).
Reading and meditating on the sayings of the Desert Fathers has the effect of bringing us back again and again to the beginning, back to our spiritual foundation: we are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) and apart from him [Jesus], we can do nothing (John 15:5).
We are the celebrants at the wedding at Cana and we are out of wine. We are the Syro-Phoenician woman who, like a dog, is hoping for a crumb or two of bread to fall our way from the Master’s table. Think about this the next time you attend Mass and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.
People can live without oxygen for, at most, 3 minutes, and without water for 5-7 days. For the humble person, grace becomes their oxygen, their water.
From this position of the self-knowledge of our own spiritual and moral bankruptcy, the floodgates of grace can be released. The Spirit descends on the Lamb: His heart becomes our heart.
This is where Grace lives. It’s not a spiritual commodity or doctrine; he’s a Person: Christ in you, the hope of glory.
