Author Lisa Colón DeLay reflects on the purpose behind the ascetism that is commonly found in the teachings and stories of the early desert spirituality:
This early period of Christian history, 300-600 CE generally, became a full-blown historical movement as communities of Christians lived as religious ascetics. The word ascetic comes from the Greek word for strenuous athletic training that involves discipline and deprivation: askesis. In a similar sense, these desert dwellers were athletes, training not for sports or games but for the spiritual contests of life: challenges that involved the totality of themselves. They purged their lives of everything superfluous and turned toward obtaining spiritual victories, which don’t come easily.…
Those with a passing knowledge of the desert ascetics may suppose they were some sort of super saints or perfected hermits: pious followers of strict religious rules who had purged themselves of all fleshly desire and pleasure. That is incorrect. [1]
In the lineage of the desert ammas and abbas, we too are invited to a lifetime of practice and a commitment to intimacy with God.
While it’s true that desert hermits and monastics had lives far removed from what we experience in a typical day, the human vulnerabilities that plagued them plague us too. The real test of spiritual maturity isn’t whether it works on an isolated mountaintop cabin or a refreshing retreat center; it’s whether we have been transformed so that our maturity plays out in regular life. Untold numbers of Christians, most of whom remain forgotten by history, found stillness and peace right in the middle of the stress and chaos of ordinary life, and many still do. They are the innumerable and unnamed ordinary saints—a grand cloud of witnesses who also cheer us on from just beyond the veil….
All the desert abbas and ammas show us that one-off special insights are not what bring us spiritual maturity or peace. Through the layering of situations, struggles, and seasons, we grow more devoted, mature, and wise. The inheritance in the kingdom of heaven means possessing Christlikeness; this inheritance comes in slow disbursements that take diligence and attention to learn and receive. We accomplish this not over weeks or months but over decades—over our lifetime and even into and throughout generations. The pace is slow. Let’s get accustomed to that and settle in for the long haul.
The spiritual seeds the ammas and abbas once planted in the fertile soil of seekers can still beautifully bloom now in the soil of you, more than 1,500 years later. This is how the glory of God works. You are the glory of God made manifest. [2]
References:
[1] Lisa Colón DeLay, The Way of the Desert Elders: How the Wisdom of the Ancient Christians Sustains Us Today (Broadleaf Books, 2026), 5.
[2] DeLay, The Way, 198.
Image credit and inspiration: Dan Grinwis, untitled (detail), 2017, photo, Namibia, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. By stepping freely into the desert, the seeker claims their own capacity to think and become whole in a vast place of transformation beyond the structures of any system.
Story from Our Community:
I have really appreciated the meditations on the desert fathers and mothers. After one of the meditations, I was spending some time in contemplation when these phrases came to me: Live simply, forgive deeply, and love fearlessly. Those words have remained in my heart.
—David W.
