Lenten Reflection : First Sunday of Lent
Praying for those involved in cinema and theatre
St Antony of Egypt
Lent is one of these forms: it is the season of the desert - a living of this desert spirituality in imitation of Jesus. This experience, for most of us, will have to be spiritual rather than an actual going out into the wilderness, yet it can be just as ascetic and as fruitful. The example of St Antony and the desert fathers and mothers can help us focus in a new way on what this season is all about and we can see that the starting point for the Church as she begins this penitential season has always been Jesus’ own experience in the desert of Israel. In this season we accompany him
As we begin our Lenten desert experience, then, we might ask ourselves, why do we do so? Why must we enter into such a penitential way of living - in doing so are we not denying the goodness of so many of God’s gifts? Are we not just being extreme, fundamentalist? The modern secularist might ask these questions, but even those who do not believe in God see the benefit of asceticism every now and then: we might think, for example, of those who do a regular physical de-tox. This process is to help the body, wash out the toxins and make it healthier; that provides us with a good image for what we hope to do in the spiritual sense. The desert experience is not a way of life to be endured for the sake of suffering, but a way of life which brings one closer to God; to pare away the distractions and material things which can blur our vision of him; renouncing those things which can clutter the soul so we can make more space for God and make that act of total abandonment in which we give all to him. This is what Lent is all about - a course in asceticism to help us in our progress towards God. Lent, then, is concerned with our sanctification. It is a time to come face to face with who we are: to come to know ourselves better so we can become better.
Lent is also about penance, making reparation for our sins. We are all sinners: it is the fool who thinks he is perfect, the wise man knows he is weak and sinful. As we repent of our sins, we offer our penance in atonement. This penance, far from being negative, is in reality a positive gesture because it helps us recognise our responsibility and allows us to make amends. For the human mind and heart, making amends is important if we are to find peace. Yes, we believe in God’s forgiveness, in his totally free gift of mercy and grace. As the priest prays the words of absolution after we have made a good confession, God forgives us, but we must also make a contribution, an offering: and that is penance. That offering helps our restoration - it symbolises our willingness to cooperate with God in the work of our redemption. Among the saints of the desert we find St Mary of Egypt: she went in to wilderness to make atonement for her sins: there, living the difficulties each day brought, she found not only peace and God’s forgiveness, but she found God waiting for her there. Her place of penance became her wedding suite as the Lord, in the manner of The Song of Songs in Scripture, wooed her and sanctified her and prepared her for the wedding feast which was to come. Penance and the place of penance were transformed as she was transformed: it became the place of meeting, the place of betrothal and spiritual marriage: the place of union. The Scriptures constantly remind us that thanks to God, the desert becomes a place of springs, an oasis, a beautiful flowering garden; the barren becomes fertile.
And so, the Lord Jesus leads us out into the desert to accomplish the same transformation and lead us to the same intimacies. Now that we are there, what do we do? How do we live this desert experience in our daily lives with all our responsibilities? For centuries the Church and Judaism before it, relied on the spiritual triumvirate of prayer, fasting and almsgiving: these are the exercises in the school of holiness. Jesus himself engaged in these practices and his disciples imitate him. We may be used to them, but each Lent we are invited to look at them again and see how we can practice them in a more radical way.
Prayer is the first and it puts everything into context. St Antony and his followers sought the solitude of the desert to commune with God. In this spiritual converse they came to know him intimately, and this is what prayer is all about: coming to know and love God. Many people are afraid of prayer - it is seen to be difficult, and yet it need not be. It can be difficult to get down to pray, but if we look to the teachings of our saints we find great encouragement. St Teresa of Avila tells us that prayer is a friendly conversation between friends; St Thérèse of Lisieux teaches us that prayer is a glance towards God. Pope John Paul II in his example shows us that prayer is simply seeking to enter into the presence of God. Prayer, then, is our being with God, speaking to him, listening to him and then, as he leads us on the path of prayer, entering into an ever deeper union with him, living his life, loving him, serving him, and bringing him to others. The only way we can come to understand God and his ways is through prayer. If Lent is a school of holiness, then prayer is vital.
Fasting, perhaps the most fearful of the three, is the next exercise. Like prayer and Lent in general, we must see it in a positive light. First of all we must be reasonable in our approach - extremes are unhelpful: we do what we can as long as there is sacrifice. Fasting can take many forms. It can be fasting from food, and that in itself has many forms - living for a day on bread and water, or giving up a favourite food. It can also mean renouncing a favourite activity, or taking on spiritual activities. Fasting for Lent, then, means sacrifice. Why do we embrace sacrifice and fasting? There are many reasons, but three are important. First of all fasting is an act of penance, or reparation: self-denial in atonement for our sins. Secondly, it helps us develop self-control, builds up our will power for God’s sake so we can be free to say no to things which may otherwise enslave us: for example fasting from favourite foods allows us to be free of them rather than become slaves who cannot resist. Thirdly, fasting allows us to hunger and this can be a good thing in a spiritual context. “Man does not live on bread alone”, Jesus tells us, “but on every word which comes from the mouth of God”. Ultimately it is God who sustains our lives, and so the experience of hunger reminds us that we must hunger for God. Again in this common sense and responsible care for our God-given bodies must be observed.
Almsgiving, or giving money to the poor is the third spiritual exercise. We all see the benefits of this practice we give to those who are needy out of what we have. In a human context this is exercising our responsibility for our neighbour, but in a spiritual sense it is one which helps us forget about ourselves and put another first: it helps us focus away from ourselves Ultimately the one who must be first is God, but we must also look to our neighbour: to serve our brothers and sisters. The way of holiness is one of renunciation; almsgiving is the practical way of making that renunciation. We give in accordance with our circumstances and the Lord’s words on the Widow’s mite remains the paradigm for us.
One of the Church’s most remarkable saints must be St Antony of Egypt (251-356), often called St Antony the Abbot or St Antony the Great. He was one of those souls who, thanks to an insight from God, left his home and family to initiate a new way of life in the Church - what we now know as monastic life. Antony was a wealthy young man living in Alexandria and after his parents’ deaths he experienced a conversion which brought him to reflect deeply on what God was calling him to do with his life. This discernment was nourished by the liturgy and, as we are told in his biography written by his friend St Athanasius, it was in Church that God spoke to him through the words of Scripture. He sold everything he had, satisfied his obligations, gave the rest of his money to the poor, and then went out into the desert to serve the Lord in the eremitical life. He would not remain a hermit for long: his reputation for holiness and asceticism touched the hearts of many others and soon Antony found himself the founder of budding religious communities in the desert. He remained there for the rest of his life praying, making sacrifices, guiding his spiritual sons and daughters and providing support and intercession for the Church, dying at the advanced age of 105. During the years of Diocletian’s persecution of the Church and the Arian crisis, Antony provided a refuge in his monasteries for faithful Christians, among them St Athanasius who was exiled a number of times by the emperor for his defence of the orthodox teaching of the Church on the divinity of Jesus.
Why did Antony enter into such an extreme way of life? The Egyptian desert is certainly no paradise - it is a rough and heartless place. Antony found life there to be very difficult: to live in the desert was not just a risk to physical integrity - it was also a place of temptation and loneliness: a place which could drive a person mad. Painters down the centuries loved to portray him in the midst of a myriad of temptations to show how this great saint of the Church overcame these temptations and remained faithful to his desert calling. So again we ask the question: why? We find our answer in our Gospel today, that for the First Sunday of Lent. As the evangelists faithfully record, Jesus himself went out into the desert to prepare for his ministry - the desert was a place of testing, a forum in which one could become strong for the task ahead, for the life ahead. In going out into the desert Antony sought solitude - to be with the Lord in the manner of the contemplatives, but also to meet himself - to come to terms with who he was and, with the insight this brings, open himself up to the influence of the Lord so his life could be more conformed to that of Christ’s.
In the early Church, when the period of martyrdom had ended in the Roman empire, many Christians still wanted to offer their lives for Christ; observing the life of St Antony, they saw they could embrace a ‘white martyrdom’ - the life of the desert, and so they went out into deserts and wildernesses in their thousands to meet with Christ in the solitude. This form of life developed in surprising ways throughout the Church: the white martyrs or confessors of Africa went into the desert; in Europe they went into the mountains and other lonely places. Some went on to lonely islands like St Columba going over to Iona, or the monks in the south of Ireland going onto a rock in the Atlantic Ocean - Skellig Michael, to brave the changing moods of the tempestuous sea in order to find Christ. Those who could not leave their towns also found a way to live this desert experience. Blessed Julian of Norwich, many centuries after St Antony, found her desert in a small cell attached to her local church: there she sought the solitude and asceticism of the wilderness. St Catherine of Siena also: in the early years of her religious life while she remained with her family, she created the desert in the upper room of her parents’ house. The experience of the desert in the history of the Church has taken many forms.
In the early Church, when the period of martyrdom had ended in the Roman empire, many Christians still wanted to offer their lives for Christ; observing the life of St Antony, they saw they could embrace a ‘white martyrdom’ - the life of the desert, and so they went out into deserts and wildernesses in their thousands to meet with Christ in the solitude. This form of life developed in surprising ways throughout the Church: the white martyrs or confessors of Africa went into the desert; in Europe they went into the mountains and other lonely places. Some went on to lonely islands like St Columba going over to Iona, or the monks in the south of Ireland going onto a rock in the Atlantic Ocean - Skellig Michael, to brave the changing moods of the tempestuous sea in order to find Christ. Those who could not leave their towns also found a way to live this desert experience. Blessed Julian of Norwich, many centuries after St Antony, found her desert in a small cell attached to her local church: there she sought the solitude and asceticism of the wilderness. St Catherine of Siena also: in the early years of her religious life while she remained with her family, she created the desert in the upper room of her parents’ house. The experience of the desert in the history of the Church has taken many forms.
Finally, a word on temptation. We all have the experience of a Lent begun well with the best of intentions, but as the weeks progress the cracks begin to appear. The devil knows us so well: he knows what to do and when to do it. He might sit back and let us begin well, but he will have his traps set up already. Human weakness is also an important factor which must be considered. The extreme Lenten observance can crumble very quickly because the will and the body are unable for it, so we must be prudent. But how can we escape temptations in Lent? Lent is a time when we can face temptations and grow stronger, but in reality we cannot escape them: like it or not temptation is part and parcel of earthly life - but this is not a negative thing: temptations help us grow in the spiritual life - they are tests and that is why God allows Satan to tempt us so we can benefit from them. In this regard we must also remember that God will not allow Satan tempt us beyond our ability, so when he comes know at the beginning that it is possible for us to resist - not alone of course, God is there beside us to give us the grace.
If we look at the Gospels we see something radical about Jesus and the desert experience - we are told that Jesus went out into the desert to be tempted by the devil: he walked right into it! Now that does not mean we go out looking for temptations - no, stay where you are the devil will find you, but reflecting on this we are told that we must expect to be tempted, and this, helps us to prepare. But how do we prepare? Simple - prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The great spiritual writer, Thomas à Kempis has some wonderful insights on temptation in his work, The Imitation of Christ. In Book I Chapter 13 he deals with temptation and gives us good advice on how to fight them. He tells us that they begin with a suggestion, almost a whisper, and then, if we allow it, entertain it, our imagination and the machinations of the devil help it develop and soon we are dealing with a monster! The best way to deal with temptation is to nip it in the bud at the first stage - knock out the whisper. We cannot run away from it, but as Thomas advises us, we have to face it confidently and trusting in God: as Scriptures teaches us if we face down the devil he will run away from us - with God on our side he hasn’t got a hope. As we read our Gospel today we might see the temptations which were awaiting Jesus symbolised as the wild animals, but they are easily tamed by the strong. But we should also see the angels, who, the evangelist tells us, looked after the Lord: they are there also for us, to watch over us, intercede for us and guide us as instruments of God’s grace. So when the creamy doughnut is hovering over the fast, so too the angels with the grace to resist!
I wish you a good Lent; and may St Antony and all the holy men and women sanctified in the desert be your constant companions throughout these days of grace.
If we look at the Gospels we see something radical about Jesus and the desert experience - we are told that Jesus went out into the desert to be tempted by the devil: he walked right into it! Now that does not mean we go out looking for temptations - no, stay where you are the devil will find you, but reflecting on this we are told that we must expect to be tempted, and this, helps us to prepare. But how do we prepare? Simple - prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The great spiritual writer, Thomas à Kempis has some wonderful insights on temptation in his work, The Imitation of Christ. In Book I Chapter 13 he deals with temptation and gives us good advice on how to fight them. He tells us that they begin with a suggestion, almost a whisper, and then, if we allow it, entertain it, our imagination and the machinations of the devil help it develop and soon we are dealing with a monster! The best way to deal with temptation is to nip it in the bud at the first stage - knock out the whisper. We cannot run away from it, but as Thomas advises us, we have to face it confidently and trusting in God: as Scriptures teaches us if we face down the devil he will run away from us - with God on our side he hasn’t got a hope. As we read our Gospel today we might see the temptations which were awaiting Jesus symbolised as the wild animals, but they are easily tamed by the strong. But we should also see the angels, who, the evangelist tells us, looked after the Lord: they are there also for us, to watch over us, intercede for us and guide us as instruments of God’s grace. So when the creamy doughnut is hovering over the fast, so too the angels with the grace to resist!
I wish you a good Lent; and may St Antony and all the holy men and women sanctified in the desert be your constant companions throughout these days of grace.
Fr John Hogan,
Father Director,
The Fraternity of St Genesius
Father Director,
The Fraternity of St Genesius