Sayings from the Desert Mothers, Part 1

 

Dear Parish Faithful, I plan on sending these relatively short passages, suited for possible mediation, out to the parish at large at least during the weekdays of Great Lent with some regularity. This year, I will focus on passages emerging from the "desert mothers," voices we are far less aware of when compared to the great "desert fathers."  Many of these saying have now been conveniently assembled with commentary by Lynn Swan in her book, The Forgotten Desert Mothers. These words of wisdom were forged in the "arena" of the desert - Egypt, Palestine, etc. - so they are "monastic" in origin. And that means a far cry from our own contemporary lifestyle. We then need to "translate" this wisdom in such a way that the core of these sayings can be meaningfully applied to our lives, as different as the setting is from their original monastic setting. A challenge that can get us thinking in a creative way, and which has its own (spiritual) rewards. We begin with Amma Syncletica (380-460). She was born in Alexandria to a wealthy and respected Christian family of Macedonian heritage. She was educated, and known for her beauty. She began practicing asceticism in her parents's home. Her two younger brothers died and she had a younger blind sister. When her parents passed away, she sold all of her possessions and gave her family wealth to the poor. She then cut her hair in an act of consecration and moved with her sister to the family tomb outside of Alexandria, beginning her life as a desert ascetic. Over time, many women gathered around her for spiritual leadership. She lived into her eighties with the last few marked by intense physical suffering, most likely cancer, before her death. Her feast day is January 5. Whatever we do or gain in this world, let us consider it insignificant in comparison to the eternal wealth that is to come. We are on this earth as if in a second maternal womb. In that inner recess we did not have a life such as we have here, for we did not have there solid nourishment such as we enjoy now, nor were we able to be active as we are here, and we existed without the light of the sun and of any glimmer of light. Just as, then, when we were in that inner chamber, we did without many of the things of this world, so also in the present world we are impoverished in comparison with the kingdom of heaven. We have sampled the nourishment here; let us reach for the Divine! We have enjoyed the light in this world; let us long for the sun of righteousness! Let us regard the heavenly Jerusalem as our homeland ... Let us live prudently in this world that we may obtain eternal life. A wonderful metaphor from Amma Syncletica that allows us to appreciate the good things of this world, as a taste or preparation for the greater good of the age to come. There is the finite and the infinite. The temporal and the eternal. The destination of our lenten journey will culminate with the Death and Resurrection of Christ, the basis for our own promised "passage" into that Kingdom of light and life. If we can meditate to some extent on the promise and joy of eternal life, then we will better understand how Great Lent and Pascha serve as a preparation for that final journey.