The Lives of the Desert Fathers

Recommended reading for Great Lent: The Lives of the Desert Fathers, translated by Norman Russell, published by Cistercian Studies, 181 pp. I first discovered this book while I was in high school, and I've treasured it ever since.

This is an ancient account of a journey taken in the year 394. Seven monks journeyed from Palestine down into the Egyptian desert. What they found there amazed them: venerable old hermits and monks of profound holiness, each one exemplifying the Christian virtues, many of them well known for the miracles he had worked. The Lives documents nearly thirty of these desert fathers, sometimes in just a paragraph or two, but in other cases for several pages. A sample:

ON ABBA BES

     1. Then we saw another old man, called Abba Bes, who surpassed everyone in meekness. The brothers who lived round him assured us that he had never sworn an oath, had never told a lie, had never been angry with anyone, and had never scolded anyone. For he lived a life of the utmost stillness, and his manner was serene, since he had attained the angelic state. 2. He was extremely humble and held himself of no account. We pressed him strongly to speak a word of encouragement to us, but he only consented to say a little about meekness, and was reluctant to do even that.
     3. Once when a hippopotamus was ravaging the neighboring countryside, the farmers called on this father to help them. He stood at the place and waited, and when he saw the beast, which was of enormous size, he commanded it in a gentle voice, saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ I order you not to ravage the countryside any more." The hippopotamus, as if driven away by an angel, vanished completely from that district. On another occasion he got rid of a crocodile in the same way.

ON THEON

     1. We also saw another father in the desert not far from the city, called Theon, a holy man who had lived as an anchorite [hermit] in a small cell and had practiced silence for thirty years. He had performed many miracles and was held to be clairvoyant by the people of those parts. A crowd of sick people went out to see him every day, and laying his hand on them through the window, he would send them away cured. One could see him with the face of an angel giving joy to his visitors by his gaze and abounding with much grace.
     2. Not long before, some robbers had come at night from some distance away to attack him. They thought that they would find a considerable sum of gold hoarded by him, and intended to kill him. But he prayed, and they remained at the door, rooted to the spot, until daybreak. When the crowd came to him in the morning and proposed to burn these men alive, he was forced to speak a single sentence to them: "Let them go unharmed; if you do not, my gift of healing will leave me." They obeyed, for they did not dare to contradict him. The robbers at once entered the neighboring monasteries, and with the help of the monks changed their way of life and repented of their crimes.
     3. By grace the man had a competent knowledge of three languages, being able to read Greek, Latin and Coptic, as many told us, and as we discovered from the father himself. For knowing that we were strangers, he wrote on a slate, giving thanks to God for our visit.
     4. He ate vegetables but only those that did not need to be cooked. They say that he used to go out of his cell at night and keep company with the wild animals, giving them to drink from the water which he had. Certainly one could see the tracks of antelope and wild asses and gazelle and other animals near his hermitage. These creatures delighted him always.

The Lives of the Desert Fathers is available here on Amazon.com.

The ends do not justify the means

Be attentive to your heart and watch your enemies [the demons], for they are cunning in their malice. In your heart be persuaded of this: It is impossible for a man to achieve good through evil means. That is why our Saviour told us to be watchful, saying: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there are that find it" (Matt. 7:14).

- St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect

Do not boast about your knowledge . . .

Wisdom does not consist in speaking; wisdom means knowing the time when you should speak and when to reply as necessary. Make it seem that you know nothing, although you have knowledge, so as to avoid great distress; for he who appears to have knowledge lays burdens on himself. Do not boast about your knowledge, for no one knows anything. 

- Abba Isaiah

h/t  Fr. Demetrios Carellas

Psalm 6

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,

   nor chasten me in Your wrath.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;

   heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled;

My soul is troubled greatly;

   but You, O Lord, how long?

Return, O Lord, and deliver my soul.

   Save me because of Your mercy.

For there is no remembrance of You in death;

   and who will give You thanks in the grave?

I am weary with my groaning;

   every night I will drench my bed;

   I will water my couch with my tears.

My eye is troubled by anger;

   I have grown old among all my enemies.

Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity;

   for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.

The Lord has heard my supplication;

   the Lord has received my prayer.

Let all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled;

   let them be turned back and suddenly be put to shame. 

Do not leave your heart unguarded . . .

I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, so long as you are in the body. Just as a farmer cannot feel confident about the crop growing in his fields, because he does not know what will happen to it before it is stored away in his granary, so a man should not leave his heart unguarded so long as he still has breath in his nostrils. Up to his last breath he cannot know what passion will attack him; so long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for His help and mercy. 

When a man severs himself from evil, he gains an exact understanding of all the sins he has committed against God; for he does not see his sins unless he severs himself from them with a feeling of revulsion. Those who have reached this level pray to God with tears, and are filled with shame when they recall their evil love of the passions. Let us therefore pursue the spiritual way with all our strength, and God in His great mercy will help us. 

- St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Heart.

The usefulness of anger

There is among the passions an anger of the intellect, and this anger is in accordance with nature. Without anger a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy. When Job felt this anger he reviled his enemies, calling them "dishonorable men, of no repute, lacking everything good, whom I would not consider fit to live with the dogs that guard my flocks" (cf. Job 30:1, 4 LXX). He who wishes to acquire the anger that is in accordance with nature must uproot all self-will, until he establishes within himself the state natural to the intellect.

- St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect.  

Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . .

Spiritual poverty consists in esteeming oneself as though not existing, and God alone as existing; in honoring His words above everything in the world, and in not sparing anything to fulfill them, even one's own life; in considering God's will in everything, both for ourselves and others, entirely renouncing our own will. 

The man who is poor in spirit desires and says with his whole heart: "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It is as though he himself disappears; everywhere and in everything he wishes to see God - in himself and in others. "Let everything be Thine, not mine." He wishes to contemplate God's holiness in himself and in all - His kingdom, also His will; also to see Him alone entirely filling the human heart, as it should be, because He alone is  all-merciful and all-perfect, all-creating; while the enemy - the Devil and his instruments, and those who oppose God - are thieves in the kingdom of God, and adversaries of God. 

To him who is poor in spirit the whole world is as nothing. Everywhere he sees God alone giving life to everything, and ruling everything; for him there is no place without God, no moment without God; everywhere and at every minute he is with God, and as though with Him alone. 

He who is poor in spirit does not dare and does not think of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, to discover God's mysteries, to philosophize on the highest; he believes in the single word of the Lord, the Life-giver, knowing that every word of His is truth, spirit, and eternal life; and in the words of His Church, ever instructed in all truth by the Holy Spirit, he believes as a child believes his father or mother, not requiring proofs, but perfectly relying upon them. 

He who is poor in spirit considers himself the very last and the most sinful of all, reckons himself worthy of being trampled under foot by everyone. 

- St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ, pp. 102-103. 

Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, 1984.

Two thoughts from Abba Isaac

Fear is necessary for human nature in order that it might keep within the bounds of obedience to God. But the love of God incites a man to desire the works of virtue and through love he is caught away to the doing of good. Spiritual knowledge naturally comes after the performance of the virtues, but both are preceded by fear and love; and again, fear precedes love. Whoever says with presumption that it is possible to acquire the more perfect virtues before he accomplishes the elementary has, without a doubt, laid the first foundation for the ruin of his soul. For the Lord's way is that the more perfect be born of the former virtues.  

[Translation: Don't put the cart before the horse. Genuine spiritual growth is always grounded in the fear of God and the keeping of the basic commandments. Don't expect to attain the heights of the mystical life while you're still struggling with the most basic passions - lust, greed, an unbridled tongue, etc.]

Do not exchange your brother's love for the love of any fleeting thing, because love conceals within itself Him who is more precious than all things. Abandon what is small, that you may find what is great. Spurn what is superfluous and without value, that you may discover what is truly valuable. Become an one dead during your life and you will not live unto [i.e., for] death. Give yourself over to death in your struggles, rather than live in heedlessness. For martyrs are not only those who have accepted death for their belief in Christ, but also those who die for the sake of keeping His commandments.

-  From Homily 3, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, 

Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, 1984.  

Forsaking the dunghill

St. Isaac of Syria, on the subject of what we ask for in prayer, and whether we are asking for the right things or not: 

Do not become foolish in your petitions, lest you insult God by the meanness of your knowledge. Become wise in your prayers that you may be accounted worthy of glorious things. Seek what is honorable from Him who gives ungrudgingly, that you may also receive honor from Him by reason of your own volition. 

Solomon asked for wisdom and with it he received an earthly kingdom, inasmuch as he asked wisely of the Great King Himself. Elisseus [Elisha] asked for a double portion of the grace of the Spirit that abode in his teacher, and by no means failed in his request. For he that requests contemptible things of a king brings contempt upon the latter's honor. Israel asked for what was contemptible and received the wrath of God. It ceased to marvel at the works of God, His terrible wonders, and made supplication for its belly's lusts: "But while their food was yet in their mouth, the wrath of God rose up against them." (Ps. 77:30, 31). 

Present your petitions to God so as to accord with His glory, that your honor may be magnified before Him, and He rejoice over you. For if a man should beseech the king for a measure of dung, he not only dishonors himself by his miserable petition (since he has shown great lack of sense), but also he has heaped insult upon the king because of what he asked for, even so he that seeks earthly things from God in his prayers does the same. For lo, angels and archangels, who are the King's great officials, are gazing steadfastly upon you at the time of your prayer to see what petition you will make of their Master; and they are astonished and exultant whenever they behold one who is made of earth forsake his dunghill and ask for what is heavenly. 

- From Homily 3 of The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, 

Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, 1984. 

Service in the Cathedral of Saint Panteleimon

In Abkhazia. Divine Liturgy for the Feast of St. Panteleimon. Words and music are a mixture of Church Slavonic and Georgian. Apparently a movie has been filmed at this monastery, which will be debuting in October.

h/t - Byzantine Texas.

A glimpse from 1909

Some may already have seen it, but I wanted to point out this amazing and beautiful photo gallery from the website of the Library of Congress. It features 272 photos, some black and white but some actually in color, taken by the Russian photographer Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii in the year 1909. (I hadn't even realized that it was possible to take color photos in 1909, but apparently it was.)

The photos are a magnificent view into rural Russian life before the Revolution changed everything. The churches are particularly stunning. It's well worth spending a few minutes to peruse this long-vanished world.

The danger of criticizing the passions

[Our spiritual situation today] is similar to what happened in the days of idolatry. Back then, if you reviled the idols, they would stone you or put you to a miserable death. Now in our times, every passion has taken the place of an idol. And if you reprove or criticize the passion that you see overcoming each person, they all shout, "Stone him, because he has reviled our gods!" 

- Elder Joseph the Hesychast (+1959)

One is reminded of the recent report of the British coffee shop whose owner was reprimanded by the police for having in his shop a television set on which he was played, with no sound, DVDs that included the entire text of the New Testament. This was offensive to a customer, and the police said that playing the New Testament DVDs publicly constituted "disorderly behaviour." (See Byzantine Texas for the video report.)