Alberic Jacovone OSB
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YEAR C
FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT - 25.2.07
Dt 26,4-10; Rom 10,8-13; Lk 4,1-13
A Time to befriend ‘the Hermit’ in you
Listening
to ‘the hermit’s call’. Archetypes are powerful concepts: they are packed with energy, create
a constant longing & -like hunger & thirst- generate restlessness &
search. The concept of desert (Greek: heremos
)is one of these. For us in Australia the call to the desert, is felt by a
magnetic lure towards the ‘Red Centre’. It draws us into the tyranny of
distance, & its isolation, silence & stillness, nourish our deepest
yearnings. All human beings, in all languages & cultures have felt the call
to the ‘wilderness’ describing it, as a place of silence, solitude &
stillness, (like the Aboriginal ‘dadirri’), where we deal with our inner
drives, the forces of evil & the awesome presence of God. Today, 1st Sunday
of Lent, Luke reminds us that Jesus was himself called to the desert - led by
the Spirit - for 40 days: there he was tempted & his saving mission was
tested. The Bible depicts the desert as a place hostile to life: a place of
famine & thirst, of scorpions & death: if we go there, we will not
escape the ‘sword of the desert (Lam. 5,9)’ which will confront us, in
separating good from evil in our life. The desert is a God-forsaken place where
it’s hard to survive - cut off from worldly intrigue & confronted by
life’s fundamental issues. For Lent each year, we are called to the desert -
to become ‘hermits’ as Jesus did, for 40 days & to penetrate the desert
of our life, dealing with any inner discontent & conflicts.
This
Lent, heed the hermit’s call. We may think that only Nuns & Monks experience the calling to the
desert, away from worldly ambition. But in fact, there is in each of us the
‘monk or nun’, with keen desire for solitude & serenity - purity of
heart - union with God & prayer - harmony with creation. In its first 300
years, Christianity felt a great calling to the desert, especially in Egypt,
where by the thousands, people fled the evils of their time & lived godly
lives, becoming the Desert Fathers (& Mothers) of the Church. Since then,
people of all cultures & languages have felt the ‘lure for the desert’
& lived as anchorites (Greek from ‘anachorites’= one who moves aside) or
a hermit (Greek from Heremos = desert), or a monk/nun (Greek from ‘monastes
& monazo’ = I live alone).... For centuries, Mount Athos has been a city
of monks, while St.Benedict & other saints have covered Europe with
monasteries, as ‘desert places’ where search for God & love for learning
was paramount. The Russian Church got its unique ‘hermitage or place of
retreat’, in the ‘Poustunia’: it consists of a small sparsely cabin with
bed, table, chair, cross, & Bible. One goes there to pray & fast, alone
in God’s presence. (See Catherine Doherty: Poustinia: Christian spirituality
of the East for Western Man, 1975). But by far the first & greatest teachers
of ‘desert-spirituality’ are the hermits -monks & nuns- that peopled the
desert of Lower Thebes, in Egypt & created the unique ‘Wisdom of the
Desert-Fathers’, starting from the 1st hermit: St. Paul the Hermit’ born in
228AD, with St. Anthony as his disciple. Key-insight in his life is that -at 23-
Paul ran for his life, in order to save his immense property from his usurper,
who had accused him to be a Christian to Emperor Decius. God led him to an ideal
hermitage & got him to own his hermit-vocation, which he had been forced to
choose by necessity of events. He found a huge cave, with palm & date trees
& clear spring-water, a place totally unknown to all. Paul there all
his life for 90 years, in perfect silence & union with God; he never
returned to the world. As at the time of Prophet Elijah, a crow brought him a
small bread each day for 90 years: Question:
Can the Desert Fathers, help you hunger for a desert spirituality?
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