A word from the Desert:
Amma Syncletica said: "There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town; they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd; and it is possible for those who are solitaries to live in the crowd of their own thoughts”.
A word from a Brother:
What could be better than a retreat in the Desert to fully embrace the freshly begun Lent? Sure, it's easy to say but not so easy to do! After all, reading a reflection once a week while continuing to live in the daily hustle and bustle doesn't quite sound like a Desert retreat...
Yet, Amma Syncletica, one of the often lesser-known Mothers of the Desert, doesn't seem to think so. Indeed, in the saying above, she rejects any sharp distinction between the solitaries of the Desert and those who live amidst the chaos of city life.
Those who first chose to venture into the Desert did so out of a desire for radicality in living out their faith, something they no longer found feasible in the society of their time. We are not all that different today! The Church offers us Lent precisely to rekindle this desire for radicality, to be carried through the entire year.
So, what to do then? The fundamental advice given by Amma Syncletica is not to dwell "in the crowd of our own thoughts". The great spiritual battle that the ascetics undertook, as did Jesus with his temptations in the Desert, is against evil thoughts (“logismoi” in Greek).
Thoughts that drive us to do harm, clouding our lives; thoughts that only remind us of the suffering endured, shutting us off from any chance of reconciliation; thoughts that make us focus solely on the negatives, shutting us off from the immense joy of living as children of God, to whom the Father never ceases to give an abundance of gifts.
Confronting these thoughts means, firstly, carving out time, even if it's just once a week, to identify and name them. Then, according to the teachings of many Desert Masters, we should reveal them to a brother or sister in faith so that they lose their deadly power. Sacramental confession can be a privileged moment for this salvific disclosure, but any sincere and fraternal conversation can wield just as much strength.
Fighting against thoughts isn't an intellectual exercise, but a return to reality, seeing it as a space truly inhabited by God. The first asceticism to which we are called in this desert is to name the evil that resides within us without fear or hypocrisy. We must discover ourselves as radically imperfect in order to rediscover ourselves as even more deeply loved! That's why Pope Francis reminded us in this year's Lenten message that "to make our Lent concrete, the first step is to want to see reality".
In this way, as the Pope says, "through the desert, God guides us to freedom", and with freedom comes a joy previously unknown. We can say to have lived through an effective Lenten asceticism if we have unloosen at least one of our "mental chains" and gained one more reason to smile.
A word to address to God:
O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity,
humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors
and not to judge my brother,
for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.
(Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian – 4th century)