The Extremes of the Desert
One
The Extremes of the Desert and the Toughness it Demands
The desert is a place of extremes. It’s usually a place of extreme heat or extreme dryness. Sometimes it’s a place of extreme variation, in some deserts, it’s freezing at night and boiling during the day. But in any case, it’s a hardcore place. There aren’t a lot of animals or plants that live out there but the ones that do are incredibly tough and resilient.
And that’s why, in the early centuries of Christianity, Christians swarmed out to the deserts. Like Saint Anthony went out into the desert to get away from the distractions of the world and imitate Christ in his time in the wilderness, stripped of every earthly comfort and relying on God alone.
Two
The Monks and the Extreme Things They Did
At the very beginning of Christianity, there was a pretty steady stream of persecution. Being a follower of Jesus meant that, like Him and His Apostles after Him, you were putting yourself at risk of martyrdom. Which meant that Christians had to be dedicated. They had to be serious about their faith since it might mean losing their lives.
But eventually, the persecution died down. Constantine made it politically and even socially acceptable to be a Christian. And Christians began to get comfortable. They began to get soft, and worldly.
So the monks left the world, they left civilization, and went out into the desert. And they did “ascesis,” which means exercise, or training. They kept themselves in shape, spiritually. Kept their spiritual muscles strong. They fasted, they prayed, they worked, they read the Scriptures, and they spoke very little. Some of them performed amazing, wild feats of self-discipline and self-denial. They’d do extreme acts of penance, go without eating for long periods of time, and humble themselves before others.
The culture would no longer force them to be hardcore about their faith, would no longer demand that they sacrifice for Christ. So they would go out into the desert and do it themselves. They would not let the relaxion of the world around them make them spiritually soft.
So what about us? Has the world around us made us spiritually soft?
Three
The Softness of Our Culture / The Seductions of Comfort
People often bemoan that our sedentary, convenience-filled, and food-saturated culture is making people physically soft. Most of us don’t have to do much manual labor anymore, so if we want to stay fit, we have to take matters into our own hands. We have to develop our own exercise regimen, maybe buy some home exercise equipment, or get a gym membership.
But of course, the same thing’s true of our souls. We have grown spiritually slack. No one forces us to bear witness to our faith, no one is there to demand that we pray, and the endless supply of banality in news and entertainment makes it all that much more likely that our minds get too sluggish to think of spiritual things at all.
So what are we going to do? How are we going to stay spiritually fit, the way the monks did? What exercise, what ascesis will we do? What extreme place, what desert can we find that will encourage us to take our faith to the limit?
Four
Mortification, Self-Discipline and Self-Denial
A Christian has to stay spiritually fit, and that requires pushing yourself. We have to be masters of our bodies and mouths and minds, the way the monks were.
This Lent is our time to go into the desert and acquire self-mastery. So, make a sacrifice of physical comfort. Some ideas: Get up the second you hear the alarm clock. Take a lukewarm shower. Give up a food or a drink you really like. Make a sacrifice of the mouth, of speech. Some ideas: Try, for forty days, to not gossip. Try not to mention a single physical discomfort. Try to stop using coarse language. Make a sacrifice of the mind. Sit in silence, not reading anything, for fifteen minutes every day. Imagine you’re sitting next to Christ during those forty days He was alone in the desert. Think about what heaven will be like. Think about how quickly this life will be over. Think about how all the things you preoccupy yourself with won’t matter much very, very soon.
Nothing worthwhile happens without discipline, without training and practice. And certainly not sanctity. That’s what the Desert is for. That’s what Lent is for. And that, eventually, is what life is for.
Five
The Radicality of Our Vocation
When we hear about the wild things those early monks used to do out in the desert, we think, “Well, that was extreme. Certainly, we’re not all called to be so extreme.” But remember, the desert, where the monks lived, was extreme. And the desert doesn’t just signify lent, it signifies this life. Where you have to be hardcore, spiritually extreme, to make it.
In fact, it’s important to remember that there’s no such thing as being too extreme when it comes to the Christian life. There’s no such thing as being “too” Catholic. You can’t have “too much” faith, hope, or charity. And the place where we get our best opportunity to live the Christian life radically is in our vocation. It’s in our family.
We may think it’s extreme for a monk to live on the top of a big pillar for years. But plenty of people think it’s just as extreme for a man to be faithful to just one woman for his entire life, to be open to conceiving a child with every sexual experience, to never look at another woman lustfully. We may think it’s extreme for a monk to live in a cave and eat almost nothing and speak to almost no one. But plenty of people would think it was just as extreme to never hold a grudge, to never speak ill of anyone, to forgive your husband or kid or parent or friend seventy times seven times, and never hold their bad behavior against them.
We have the opportunity, even in our lives, in the deserts, the training ground of our vocation, to live our faith radically. To be extreme Catholics. To be hardcore followers of Christ. And remember, that’s why we’re here.
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
Make a sacrifice of physical comfort this Lent. Sit in silence, not reading anything, for fifteen minutes every day. Imagine you’re sitting next to Christ during those forty days that He was alone in the desert.
Commit to completely cutting gossip out of your life for forty days.