As many of you already know, I have found the sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers insightful, provocative in the best sense of that word, and a source of great comfort and encouragement as I try to understand and live a Christian life. Having read in and around the collection of their stories and advice in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (trans. Benedicta Ward) almost 0n a daily basis, I’d like to encourage everyone interested in developing a mature Christian faith and life to become acquainted with the witness to our Desert Elders. In addition to the basic collection of their sayings, I have found the following books notably helpful inasmuch as they provide valuable contextual “saying-by-saying” commentary:
To give you some sense of what you might find in The Sayings and the commentaries on them, I’d like to quote what John Chryssagavgis says in Chapter Eighteen, “Encountering God,” in his In the Heart of the Desert. After sharing with us two insights important insights that the Desert Elders may give us as we encounter God, Chryssagavgis provides this third insight:
Third, and finally, there is another lesson about encountering God that may be gleaned from the teaching of these elders in the desert of early Egypt. In the struggle–in the very place where we meet God, and where we are loved by God–we too discover how to love others. It is in the struggle itself that we discern ways of embracing the weaknesses of others, and learn how to be compassionate, like God. We understand that we are like others not primarily in our virtues and our strengths, but especially in our faults and our flaws. In the desert, the call to perfection is received as an invitation to love; it percetived in the light of Christ’s injunction: “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6.36). That is why [and here Chryssavagis give us three stories]:
Like a god upon this earth, Abba Macarius would cover the faults of others, which he saw, as though he did not see them; and those which he heard, as t hough he did not hear them.
A brother, who had sinned, was turned out of the church by the priest. Abba Bessarion got up and went out with him, saying: “I too am a sinner.”
One day Abba Isaac sent to a monastery. He saw a brother committiong a sin and condemned him. When returned to the desert, an angel of the Lord came and stood in front of the door of his cell, and said: “I will not let you enter.” But he persisted saying, “What is the matter?” The angel replied: “God has sent me to ask you where you want to throw the guilty brother whom you have condemned.” Immediately Abba Isaac repented and said, “I have sinned; forgive me.” Then the angel said: “Get up, God has forgiven you. But from now on, be careful not to judge someone before God has done so.”
I don’t know about you, but I am frequently guilty of judging others without remembering that I too am a sinning fellow-travelor with all my human brothers and sisters. For example, I find it quite easy to judge others whose religious life–especially when it comes to praying and worshipping–is not quite like mine (be they Lutherans, Southern Baptists, or Adventists); when I observe what goes on in parishes other than my own, I find myself making comparisons, comparisons that result in my looking down or askance on someone (maybe even a pastor!) who doesn’t behave or preach as I think appropriate. It’s then that I listen again to this story:
Some of the elders came to visit Abba Poemen and asked him: “When we see brothers who are falling asleep during the services, should we arouse them so that they will be watchful?” Poemen said to them in response: “For my part, when I see a brother falling asleep, I place his head on my knees and let him rest.”
Surely that little story has much to teach us as to how we might love others more fully, especially when we perceive ourselves a bit (or a lot!) better than they. It’s stories like this one (and there are hundreds of them) that have made me read, study, and appreciate our Desert Elders. They are good mentors in the Faith. Perhaps you too will come to know and love them.
On Sunday, September 5, at St. John Lutheran Church in Griffin, Georgia, we begin a thirteen-week series of seminars designed to deepen our prayer lives. In the first seminar my responsibility is to introduce the series and provide an overview of what we’ll be studying, discussing, and practicing. For those of you who are interested, here is a preview of the preview:
