Godfather Again!
At the Easter Vigil last night I was Godfather to my friend Mike who was baptized and received into the Church. Please pray for us 🙂
Month: March 2013
Christ Is Risen!
Hey everyone, I hope you had a really good Lent and you enjoyed the daily quotations from the Desert Fathers. Starting from tomorrow, the blog will be back to more usual postings.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have forty days of Facebook news to catch up on…
Trial and Salvation
As today is the last of the Desert Father quotations I’m going to be doing for a while, I’m going to end with my favourite, the Desert Mother Syncletica:
[Syncletica] also said, “When the devil does not use the goad of poverty to tempt us, he uses wealth for the same purpose. When he cannot win by scorn and mockery, he tries praise and flattery. If he cannot win by giving health, he tries illness. If he cannot win by comfort, he tries to ruin the soul by vexations that lead us to act against our monastic vows. He inflicts severe illness on people whom he wants to tempt and so makes them weak, and thereby shakes the love they feel towards God…
Iron is cleaned of rust by fire. If you are righteous and suffer, you grow to a higher sanctity. Gold is tested by fire.
When a messenger from Satan is given to you to be a thorn in your flesh, lift up your heart, for you have received a gift like that of St. Paul.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Perfect Obedience
They said that Silvanus had a disciple in Scetis called Mark, who possessed the virtue of obedience in large measure. He was a copyist of old manuscripts: and the hermit loved them for his obedience. He had seven other disciples, and they were sad that he loved Mark more than them.
When the nearby hermits heard that he loved Mark above the others, they took it badly. One day when they visited him, Silvanus took them with him out of his cell, and began to knock on the door of each of his disciples, saying, “Brother, come out, I have work for you.” Not one of them appeared immediately. When he came to Mark’s cell, he knocked, saying, “Mark,” and as soon as Mark heard the voice of the hermit he came out and Silvanus sent him on some errand.
So he said to the other hermits, “Where are the other brothers?” He went into Mark’s cell, and found a book which he had just begun to copy, and he was making the letter O, but when he had heard the hermit’s voice, he had not finished the line of the O. The visitors said, “You are right, abba, and we also love the one whom you love, for God loves him too.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Fasting and Gorging
A timely warning, given that Lent is nearly over…
[Syncletica] also said, “The devil sometimes sends a severe fast which is too prolonged; the devil’s disciples do this as well as holy men. How do we distinguish the fasting of our God and King from the fasting of that tyrant the devil? Clearly by its moderation.
“Throughout your life, then, you ought to keep an unvarying rule of fasting. Do you fast four or five days on end and then lose your spiritual strength by eating a feast? That really pleases the devil!
“Everything which is extreme is destructive. So do not suddenly throw away your armour, or you may be found unarmed in the battle and easily captured. Our body is the armour, our soul is the warrior. Take care of both, and you will be ready for whatever comes.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Trust
They said there was a working gardener who gave away all his profit in alms, and kept for himself only enough to live on. Later on Satan tempted him and said, “Store up a little money, as a provision to spend when you are old and infirm.” So her made a store of coins in a big pot.
It happened that he fell ill, and his foot became gangrenous, and he spent all his coins on doctors, but grew no better. An experienced doctor told him, “Unless we amputate your foot, the gangrene will spread through your whole body.” So they decided to amputate it.
But the night before the operation, the gardener came to his senses, and was sorry for what he had done, and groaned and wept saying, “Lord, remember my earlier good works when I worked in the garden and served the poor.”
Then an angel of the Lord stood before him and said, “Where is your store of coins? Where has your trust in them gone to?
Then he understood, and said, “I have sinned, Lord, forgive me, I will not do it again.” Then the angel touched his foot, and it was healed at once. He got up at dawn, and went to the fields to work. At the appointed time the surgeon came with his instruments to amputate the foot. The people told him, “He went out at dawn to work in the fields.” The doctor was astonished and went out to the field where he was working, and he saw him digging, and glorified God who had restored his health.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Faith on Fire
Lot went to Joseph and said, “Abba, as far as I can, I keep a moderate rule, with a little fasting, and prayer, and meditation, and quiet: and as far as I can I try to cleanse my heart of evil thoughts. What else should I do?”
Then the hermit stood up and spread out his hands to heaven, and his fingers shone like ten flames of fire, and he said, “If you will, you can become all flame.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V