Philip G. Bochanski - Wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: Ancient Advice for the Modern World

I n the year 385, a twenty-five-year-old monk from Bethlehem felt called to gain a deeper understanding of his vocation, the life that God had called him to live. He and a friend, a fellow monk, traveled three hundred miles to the deserts of Lower Egypt, south of the great port city of Alexandria, to visit the monks living there, whose reputations had spread throughout the Mediterranean world. He went, he said, If not for the sake of imitating them, then at least for the sake of becoming acquainted with them. He had been thinking and praying, reading and studying about his vocation, and he needed to see in person how it was done.

Our traveler made a new friend there, an old man named Archebius, who had been a monk for over thirty-seven years in the desert and was now bishop of the city of Panephysis. Archebius said that he had been taken from his desert solitude because he had been unworthy of that vocation and had not made enough progress in all those years. When Archebius heard what his visitors were seeking, he offered to help them.

Come, he said, and visit for a while with the elders whose old age and holiness, in bodies now bent over, shines so brightly in their faces that the mere sight of them is able to teach a great deal to those who gaze upon them. From them you shall learn, not so much by words as by the example of a holy life, what I regret that I have let slip and am unable to teach, because I have already lost it.

The young monk, whom we know now as St. John Cassian, spent the better part of fifteen years sitting at the feet of the monks in the Egyptian desert, learning from them the deep secrets of making a total renunciation of self and a complete commitment to purity of heart. Some twenty years later, at the request of his bishop in Marseilles, where Cassian himself had built a monastery, he wrote of his experiences in the desert. He insisted that he was no better than Bishop Archebius to do justice to what he saw there, much less to imitate it. Nevertheless, he related the lessons that he had learned so that others could benefit from them as well.

The aim of this book is the same that inspired Cassian: to share the life and the teachings of the great saints of the desert so that modern readers may draw inspiration and courage from their example and recommit themselves to the task of conversion and spiritual growth. To understand the monks of the ancient desert, it is necessary to rediscover both the world that they left behind and the new home that they encountered in the wilderness, alone with God alone.

Throughout the history of salvation, as recorded in the Sacred Scripture of both testaments, the desert frequently appears as a place to encounter Gods presence and Gods chosen locale for renewing his people and calling them to conversion and transformation. Above all, the story of the Exodus, when God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt and led them for forty years through the desert to the homeland he had prepared for them, shaped the life of the Jewish people and is imprinted deeply on the Christian consciousness as well. The desert of the Exodus was not only a place through which to journey but was the site of quite memorable miracles of Gods protection and providence: manna from heaven, water from the rock, and protection from countless enemies.

At the end of their journey, encamped by the River Jordan, Moses urged the people to recall the things that the Lord had done for them. You shall remember, he said, all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (Dt 8:23). Moses urged them never to forget the lessons God taught them in the desert, even by means of the suffering he permitted to befall them. Know then in your heart, he told them, that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him (Dt 8:56).

Of course, we know from the history of salvation that time and again the people of God did forget his commandments. God sent the prophets to call his people back to him, and there, too, the desert became a place of transformation, a place of renewal. Speaking through the prophet Hosea, for example, God tells the people that he will call them back to the desert, where he will encounter them again as in the days of the Exodus and remind them of his love. Speaking of Israel as his bride, he tells Hosea, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt (Hos 2:1415). Then speaking to Israel, he says, And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord (Hos 2:1920).

When they had been unfaithful, God drew his people back to the place where he had first met them. He drew them back to the wilderness, away from the busyness of the city and the burdens of daily life, to a quiet place where they could be renewed in his love and transformed by their time with him.

In the fullness of time, John the Baptist also appeared in the desert, calling the people to repentance, to make room in their hearts for the coming Messiah. Mark tells us, John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins (Mk 1:45).

Jesus, too, went down to be baptized by John, and as soon as he came up from the water and was filled with the Holy Spirit, the Gospels all relate that he was moved by the Holy Spirit to go out himself into the desert. There he dwelt for forty days and forty nights (a symbolic number which appears in Scripture to signify a period of transformation) to be tested by the temptations of the devil. In the desert, he accepted a share in our own experience of temptation, and he returned from that desert experience filled with power and ready to begin his public ministry.