World Christian Discipleship

Eternal Lord of all things, 

I feel your gaze on me. 

I sense that your Mother stands near, watching, 

and that with you are all the great beings of heaven – 

angels and powers and martyrs and saints. 

Lord Jesus, I think you have put a desire in me. 

If you will help me, please, 

I would like to make my offering: 

I want it to be my desire, and my choice, 

provided that you want it, too, 

to live my life as you lived yours. 

I know that you lived as an insignificant person 

in a little, despised town; 

I know that you rarely tasted luxury and never privilege, 

and that you resolutely refused to accept power. 

I know that you suffered rejection by leaders, 

abandonment by friends, and failure. 

I know. I can hardly bear the thought of it all. 

But it seems a toweringly wonderful thing 

that you might call me to follow you and stand with you, 

I will labor with you to bring God’s reign, 

if you will give me the gift to do it. Amen. 

-Joseph Tetlow, SJ

We’ve recently been reading “The Forgotten Desert Mothers”, godly ammas (a woman “seasoned in the ascetic life, known to have reached a level of maturity and wisdom with experience in teaching by example, exhortation, story and instruction”) from early church times who, although outnumbering monastic men two to one, have been long relegated to the shadows as history has often chosen not to recall their stories and wise words.  

The Desert Fathers have created an infinite ripple in the vast lake of religious practices, which have influenced the ebb and flows of many peoples spiritual life. Even though the monks may have lived in some form of seclusion, their writings encourage a true, practical life of following Christ that can only really be fruitful if one understands the opposition to God’s work. The Fathers hated sin and loved everything about God. In a statement of sure brokenness, they drew a stone carved line against their past lives, that defined their motives but much more it symbolized their desire for a life guided by purity of heart formed only by God. I’ve gained a better understanding of the foot-faults within myself along with the world around because of their teachings, and have begun to make changes in my own life rhythm in the hopes that I may have space daily to encourage the Holy Spirit to turn the soil of my own heart. These early church fathers challenged me for my lukewarm living. They were human like I am; weak and weary like we all get, but the difference between them and I is that they were deeply intertwined with The Spirit of God more than I could ever imagine. They knew that we as latter readers could eventually swim in the warm depths of God’s love as they do, but we must first draw our own lines within ourselves via the tears of repentance, humble and consistent prayer, as well as frequent sincere fasts; all of which are mere conduits that beckon the closeness of Christ, in a space that is still and silenced from the world.

-Terry Gibson

• …simplicity occurs when we voluntarily let go of all our attachments that keep us from moving deeper within.  This is not a rejection of the created world, all of which is God’s delightful gift to us, but a rejection of our tendencies to grasp at aspects of creation in a way that diminishes our unity with God.”
• For Amma Sarah, ”fornication principally meant anything that possessed her heart and separated her from God.”
• The true ascetic seeks neither to exalt nor to denigrate self.  Humility is to know won self as created by God, as interdependent with others and the cosmos, deeply loved by God.
• fasting creates space in our bodies, minds and spirits for god to be within us, for new things to grow… fasting and prayer breaks the cycle of thoughts that drains one life; prayer heals and nourishes the inner life.

All quotes are take from The Forgotten Desert Mothers: sayings, lives and stories of early christian women, by Laura Swan

Someone much wiser and more learned than I describes the desert fathers as “the auto-mechanics of the soul”. Through living the ascetic life, the desert fathers have discovered how their soul works and have learned how to tear it down into its constituent parts looking for brokenness and then labor to make the soul whole again.  By sharpening their spiritual senses (what they refer to as “intellect”), the monks have learned to observe their own soul with cautious fascination as one would stalk a wild animal, fierce yet reticent, in its natural habitat.

The Philokalia consists of letters written from one monk or abbot to another patiently yet unswervingly exhorting one another to remain faithful to Jesus, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit by living a life of simplicity and stillness apart from the worldly culture that surrounds them.  Ascetic spirituality is about stripping away the non-essential in order to get to the core truth.  The monastic life, including silence, solitude, meditation on scripture, self-examination and daily office of liturgical prayer, is a means to an end.  The monk’s ultimate purpose is purity of heart through which he can better discern God’s will.  The monk’s ultimate goal is to live for the Kingdom of Heaven.

To paraphrase just some of the lessons that I learned from the desert fathers…

1. The three great temptations of forgetfulness [of God’s Grace and humility in Jesus], laziness [in following monastic practices] and ignorance [of our sin and susceptibility to certain temptations] overlay and darken us with a terrible futility. (Mark the Ascetic)
2. Before striving for discernment in spiritual matters, we must confess our base thoughts to a spiritually mature father [mentor].  We must first bring these dark thoughts into the light and they will squirm like a snake fighting to slither back into its den. (John Cassian)
3. Don’t ever isolate myself.  Seek guidance from a spiritually mature Abbot. (Mark the Ascetic)… (just in case John Cassian didn’t get through my self-defense mechanisms)
4. I cannot stop my mind from thinking tempting thoughts.  The mind is like a watermill which turns continuously just as the river driving it flows continuously.  But I can choose to feed the grinding millstone with either wheat [scripture, spiritual nourishment] or tares [temptation]. (John Cassian)
5. Unhealed passions [temptations] blind us to that passion which most enslaves us. (John Cassian)
6. Abandoning community when dejection [re: Dark Night of the Soul] envelopes me only ensures that the problem will surface in some other circumstances.  (John Cassian)
7. Those who don’t express their anger enable their own destruction. (John Cassian)
8. When I am defeated after offering stiff resistance, do not despair.  (St. John of Karpathos)
9. God allows us to fail so that we learn that we can’t trust in ourselves for spiritual discernment.  We are dependent of God’s Grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (St. John of Karpathos)
10. God uses temptation to restrain the presumption we feel after we advance in knowledge of God. (St. John of Karpathos)
11. When Grace is withdrawn for a time, man is inwardly confused and grumbles, but in reality he is a beggar who feels injured because he wasn’t invited to dinner with the King. (St. John of Karpathos)
12. The hard-won humility after enduring this thick darkness is incomparably stronger and higher than the abasement felt by those who have lapsed from holiness. (St. John of Karpathos)

What is most astonishing to me is the timeless practicality and eerie relevance of these teachings from the desert fathers to my own struggles and private brokenness.  In anticipating reading the desert fathers I expected some archaic, aloof and ethereal musings of men disconnected from the complex trials of modern life.  After all, many of desert fathers lived in isolated caves or huts in the middle of nowhere during the years 300-1400.  What could someone living that life possibly know about my modern (or post-modern J) troubles?  As it turns out, the old adage holds true, “If it’s true, it ain’t new”… or “There is nothing new under the Sun” if you prefer Ecclesiastes.  The letters read more like a captivating conversation with a firmly grounded Pastor or Mentor who has been run through the ringer in his life and earnestly wants to share the lessons he’s learned with anyone who will listen.  Anyone who been blessed with such a conversation will attest to the beauty of these experiences.  The name Philokalia itself means “The Love of Beautiful Things” in Greek and it is aptly named.

The most beautiful part about reading the Philokalia is how the monks’ wise counsel to one another is full of unflinching challenges delivered with endearing tenderness.  These letters are now what I imagine when someone speaks of “Telling the Truth in Love.”   They seem to be saying to one another, “My friend, do not go down that road.  I have travelled it and though the scenery seems pleasant, the destination will rob you of your joy.  There is a better way.  Pause and share a meal with me and I will tell you of my folly… before you continue.”

This same unflinching tenderness and vulnerability also typifies the one-on-one discipleship that I’ve received in conversations with BJ and Steph through World Christian Discipleship.  Through their spiritual gifts and training in spiritual formation, they have cultivated a gentle yet piecing way of moving beyond my superficial struggles to help me discover for myself “the thing behind the thing” (however deep that goes) that is holding me back from a closer relationship with Jesus.  This gentle discipleship isn’t due to their innate sensitivity but rather through the movements of the Holy Spirit in and through their own lives.  BJ and Steph have created space for God to work in their lives.  Their sincere desire is to help others to do the same, just as the desert fathers and mothers did before them.

The lessons that I’ve learned from the desert fathers are not through the cognitive insights of exceptionally wise and gifted men but rather a gift from the Holy Spirit speaking Truth to His Beloved within and beyond the limitations of time and place.  Mark the Ascetic (Palestine or Egypt circa 400 A.D.) summarizes the ascetic life this way, “The intellect [re: spiritual senses of the soul], renewed by the Spirit through these and similar virtues [re: monastic practices and ascetic life], discovers within itself the imprint of the divine image, and perceives the spiritual and ineffable beauty of the divine likeness; and so, learning from itself, it attains the rich wisdom of the inner law.”  I believe what St. Mark is saying is that if we devote all of our attention to faithfully following God though the disciplined practice of stillness and a simplicity of life, the Holy Spirit uses the Image of God within to teach each unique Soul how “To Be” like the “I Am.” 

-        Dan Emerick