Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).

Creative Action

“The disciple of a great old man was once attacked by lust. The old man, seeing it in his prayer, said to him, ‘Do you want me to ask God to relieve you of this battle?’ The other said, ‘Abba, I see that I am afflicted, but I see that this affliction is producing fruit in me; therefore ask God to give me endurance to bear it.’ And his Abba said to him, ‘Today I know you surpass me in perfection.”

“It is not because evil thoughts come to us that we are condemned, but only because we make use of the evil thoughts. It can happen that from these thoughts we suffer shipwreck, but it can also happen that because of them we may be crowned.”

A Desert Father

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).

Learning humility

“It was said that one of the Desert Fathers had prayed to the Lord and the Lord had taken away all his passions, so that he became impassible. And in this condition he went to one of the elders and said, ‘You see before you a man who is completely at rest and has no more temptations.’ The elder said, ‘Go and pray the Lord to command some struggle to be stirred up in you, for the soul is matured only in battles.’ And when the temptations started up again he did not pray that the struggle be taken away from him, but only said, ‘Lord, give me strength to get through the fight.’”

Abbot Pastor

Perseverance

“A hermit had persevered for thirty years. One day he said to himself, ‘I have now spent so many years here and I have had no vision and performed no miracle as did the Fathers who were monks before me.’ And he was tempted to go back into the world. Then he was told, ‘What miracle do you want to perform that could be more extraordinary than the patience and courage God has given you and which allowed you to persevere for so long.’?”

A Desert Father

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey.

Testing
“Some time later God tested Abraham.

“Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out from heaven . . . “Do not lay a hand on the boy. . . Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

“Abraham looked and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’.”

Genesis 22:1, 10, 13-14.

“At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

“And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan.”

Mark 1:9-12

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).


Testing

“If some temptation arises in the place where you dwell in the desert, do not leave that place in time of temptation. For if you leave it then, no matter where you go, you will find the same temptation waiting for you.”

A Desert Father

“The desert cell is Hell’s cockpit, no less than a royal palace or the trader’s bazaar, a maiden’s thighs or the scholar’s desk.

“But what is played out there takes its costume from the hidden thought of each actor. Shape and symbol are invested with power from conjoined dread and desire, both drawn from a soul’s deepest wells.”

Derek Webster

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).

Solitude

“When you retreat into yourself, you should stand before the Lord, and remain in His presence, not letting the eyes of the mind turn away from the Lord. This is the true wilderness—to stand face to face with the Lord.”
Theophan the Recluse

“Men and women of solitude have discovered that the only way to be truly present to the world is to live in the presence of God.”
Alessandro Prozato

“I have often said that the sole cause of our unhappiness is that we do not know how to stay quietly in our room.”
Blaise Pascal

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).

The Presence and Absence of God

“The desert is an arid, scorching, frightening place where everything portends death. But at the same time it is also a place of rest, gentleness and life.

“In the desert you find friendliness and hostility, anguish and joy, sorrow and exultation, trial and triumph. The desert is the land of malediction and the land of benediction. The desert can be hard and merciless. You might die of thirst there, but if it rains you could be drowned. In the desert nature manifests itself in its extremes: prodigal fertility and cruel barrennness. We wait for years and do not get even a drop of rain. Then, without warning, the rain comes down in torrents; and, with frightening speed, the wadis fill up and overflow, sweeping everything before them. You might come upon an oasis where there is life and vegetation. And a little farther on you could find yourself on a desolate patch where you fear your sanity.

“The desert can be tomb and cradle, wasteland and garden, death and resurrection, hell and heaven.

“Thus in the desert you will find that God is simultaneously present and absent, proximate and remote, visible and invisible, manifest and hidden. He can receive you with great tenderness and then abandon you on the cross of loneliness. He consoles you and torments you at the same time. He heals you only to wound you again. He may speak to you today and ignore you tomorrow.

“The desert does not delude and least of all does the desert delude those who accept it in its two-sided reality of life and death, presence and absence. Nor will they be deceived by God who calls them to the desert. God never abandons us.

“The desert is a good teacher. It is a place where we do not die of thirst. It is a place where we rediscover the roots of our existence. Once we grasp this lesson, we realise that the physical desert is not necessary to lead the life of a hermit. It then becomes pointless to go in search of a desert on the globe. You can find your desert in a corner of your house, on a motorway, in a square, in a crowded street. But you must first renounce the slavery of illusions, refuse the blackmail of pressure, resist the glitter of appearances, repudiate the domination of activity, reject the dictatorship of hypocrisy. Then the desert becomes a place where you do not go out to see the sand blowing in the wind but the Spirit waiting to make his dwelling within you.”

Alessandro Pronzato

Moving towards Easter in the Desert

For the last weeks of Lent until Easter, we will provide daily reflections on the a desert journey. The citations come from John Moses, The Desert. An Anthology for Lent (Harrisburg, PA.: Morehouse, 1997).

Setting out on the Journey
Monday, 23 March, 2009

“What really matters is that I have taken the fundamental decision to begin the journey.”

“The desert is the threshold to the meeting ground of God and man. It is the scene of the exodus. You do not settle there, you pass through. One then ventures on to these tracks because one is driven by the Spirit towards the Promised Land. But it is only promised to those who are able to chew sand for forty years without doubting their invitation to the feast in the end.”

Alessandro Pronzato