Fr Billy Swan
On Friday 17th January, the Church celebrates the feast of St Anthony of the Desert. He is not to be confused with St Anthony of Padua who was a Franciscan and who was born much later.
St Anthony was born in 251 and is considered to be the father of monasticism. He was born in Egypt and lost both his parents at a young age leaving himself and his younger sister orphaned. In his grief, one day he was praying and he listened to the words of the Gospel and decided to give all his belongings to the poor as a radical response to the call to follow Christ. He went out into the wilderness to begin a life of penitence, living in absolute poverty, praying, meditating, and supporting himself by manual work. According to ‘The Life of Anthony’ written by St Athanasius, Anthony suffered many temptations, both physical and spiritual, overcoming them with God’s grace and his determined desire to live a holy life. Disciples gathered round him, attracted by his wisdom, moderation, and holiness. He lived to be over a hundred years old, and died in 356.
St Anthony and the other Desert Fathers encourage us to fully become who we became at our baptism, namely as prophets (also kings and priests). Consider the following words, spoken by St Anthony:
“A time is coming when men will go mad and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying ‘You are mad, you are not like us’”.
Do these words not have an eerie timelessness and prophetic quality for the woke culture of today? No doubt, some considered the Desert Fathers to be mad in their time as they consider committed Christians to be mad today. But, who is right? Who is looking at the world the right side up and who is looking at the world up-side down? The following insight from Thomas Merton sums it up:
“Society…was regarded by the Desert Fathers as a shipwreck from which each single individual had to swim for his life…These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster”.
It is for this reason that the wisdom of St Anthony and the other Desert Fathers encourage us to embrace our prophetic calling. In secular culture, the Church appears to be “off-side” or “on the wrong side of history” when it comes to many contemporary issues. But if she is to be true to herself and the Gospel of the Master, she cannot do otherwise. For although certain lifestyles and behaviors are endorsed by society as being normal and truth is something that we decide for ourselves, this relativism is producing victims who are hurting and inflicting wounds on the people involved.
The Desert Fathers and the wisdom of the Church call out madness for what it is and heals the wounds of those who are lost and sore. Each of us are called to build up the Church community as a contrast-society that offers an alternative narrative to the meaning of life and upholds the dignity to which we have been raised. The Prodigal Son needed a home to return to. He was blessed to have one. For those who limp their way back to the Church with hearts that have been wounded and heavy with sadness, we need to be prophets to warn people from getting lost but also have the home ready with the lights on, food on the table and a warm embrace ready to welcome people home. St Anthony helped people find their way in a fallen world. With the spirit of the Gospel, the Church must do the same.
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