Two more desert fathers stories

They said of Abba Macarius the Great that he became, as it is written, a god upon earth, because, just as God protects the world, so Abba Macarius would cover the faults which he saw, as though he did not see them; and those which he heard, as though he did not hear them.

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Some of the monks who are called Euchites went to Enaton to see Abba Lucius. The old man asked them, “What is your manual work?” They said, “We do not touch manual work but as the Apostle says, we pray without ceasing.”

The old man asked them if they did not eat and they replied they did. So he said to them “When you are eating, who prays for you then?” Again he asked them if they did not sleep and they replied they did. and he said to them, “When you are a asleep, who prays for you then?”

They could not find any answer to give him.

He said to them, “Forgive me, but you do not act as you speak. I will show you how, while doing my manual work, I pray without interruption. I sit down with God, soaking my reeds and plaiting my ropes, and I say “God, have mercy on me, according to your great goodness and according to the multitude of your mercies, save me from my sins.”

So he asked them if this were not prayer and they replied it was. Then he said to them, “So when I have spent the whole day working and praying, making thirteen pieces of money more or less, I put two pieces of money outside the door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money. He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me when I am eating and when I am sleeping; so, by the grace of God, I fulfil the precept to pray without ceasing.”

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It is quite commonplace for the Desert Fathers to be accused of being legalistic people who were trying to work their way into heaven. And, there is no doubt that they engaged in rigorous fasts and practices that seem odd to us nowadays. But, when one reads their sayings, one encounters a mentality completely different from that of the West. Rather than legalism, one encounters overwhelming grace, and rather than theological argumentation, one reads stories that are designed to give you examples of what true holiness is. And, so it is in the two stories above.

In the first story, that of Abba Macarius, did you expect that his growth in holiness would actually lead him to be more forgiving? Is not our common stereotype that the more holy one is the more intolerant of sin one becomes? And, in one sense, that is utterly true. As one reads the Desert Fathers, one can see just how intolerant they are of the sin that they still find within themselves. But, did you expect that as Abba Macarius grew in holiness that he would also grow in love towards humanity, to the point that he behaved like God, who so loved the world that He sent his only-begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life? We have come to equate someone involved in a holiness journey to be a self-righteous legalist. And, that is because so many of those who preached holiness in American history really were self-righteous legalists. If you read John Wesley’s story, you can see that in his young life that is precisely what he was. It was not until he felt his heart strangely warmed among the Moravians that his legalism dropped and his call to holiness became a great movement that swept across many parts of colonial America through the ministry of the circuit riders. But his story shows how close is the dividing line between self-righteous legalism and loving holiness.

Did you get a laugh out of the second story? Have you ever met people so heavenly-minded that they were no earthly good? Is not Abba Lucius the precise opposite of that? And, did you expect that he would argue that he fulfilled his call to pray without ceasing by so ministering to others, that the others would then start interceding on his behalf, so that it could be said that he never stopped praying? There is a small additional twist to the story that you may not know. As you read the Desert Fathers, you will see that they often ate very little and prepared their own simple meals. But, Abba Lucius did not. Why not? I cannot prove it, but I am convinced that it was because it gave him the opportunity to give money away to the poor who prepared his food while maintaining their self-dignity. The Euchites monks who visited Abba Lucius were a prototype of the later medieval monk who lived in his (or her) monastery and were too good to work with their hands. They were specially chosen by God for higher things and it was appropriate that the “profane” serve their needs so that they might fully devote themselves to the things of God. You find this type of monk being pilloried by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. Some of them can be found in Dante’s Inferno, in the pit. But, Abba Lucius punctures the egotism of these monks with but a few well-chosen words that show his love for the world (in the right way) and his service to the poor. And, as he points out, as a result, never-ending prayer goes up to the gates of God.

So, I urge you to read the Desert Fathers. Do not be put off by their extreme ascetism. Read the stories of the Desert Fathers, learn the lessons they tried to teach the novices, see how they tried to prevent the novice from becoming a legalist, listen as they spoke by example of the extreme love that God has for humankind. And, let the Desert Fathers minister to you.