CAC Dean of Faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher takes inspiration from the desert Christians of the fourth century. These men and women fled to the deserts of Northern Africa and elsewhere to practice their faith apart from the Christianity of empire.
Around 313 CE and the Edict of Milan, Christianity became yoked with empire. [1] A lot of people who wanted to have a genuine experience of living out the promises of Christ left the empire, so to speak. They went out into the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Arabia. There were women and men, rich and poor. Some of them had been working in royal courts, and some had been murderers. Some were people of high esteem in society while others were viewed by society as scoundrels.
The Christians who went to the desert sought an interior martyrdom. That’s how they thought about it, at least. They wanted to learn how to die to aspects of themselves that were preventing them from experiencing an intimate relationship with Jesus in a mystical dimension. The seekers would go out into the desert, and they would say, “Abba, father or Amma, mother—give me a word,” because they really wanted their souls to be awakened.
The desert elders have meant so much to me, and the really great thing is that even before I quite understood them, I loved their stories. My favorite story is about Abba Moses of Egypt. Somebody sent a message to him and said, “We need you to come to the elders’ gathering because there’s someone who has committed a sin, and we need you to help us make a judgment about his behavior.” He just said, “I don’t want to go.” Then, a priest sent word to him and said, “Moses, we need you here. They’re asking for you. You’ve got to come.” So reluctantly, Moses got up. He went over to the old basket he had that was full of holes, and he filled it with sand. Then, he put it on his back and walked to this meeting where someone was accused of a sin and was awaiting the judgment of the group. People came out to him and said, “Moses, what are you up to? What are you doing?” He said, “Well, here I am going to judge someone for a sin they say he has committed, and yet here my sins are running out behind me, and I don’t even see them.” [2]
The accusers just fell away. They went back to the gathering and told the man, “We don’t have anything to say to you.” It disbanded because of Moses’s humility. It’s very much like the woman accused of adultery by the men in John’s Gospel, where Jesus comes up and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).
For me, the main message of the desert elders is one of love, and that is what keeps me coming back to them.
References:
[1] The Edict of Milan, passed by Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius, effectively granted religious freedom in the Roman empire, ending the persecution of Christians.
[2] See Benedicta Ward, The Desert Christian: Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Macmillan, 1980), 117.
Adapted from Carmen Acevedo Butcher with Mike Petrow, “Prayer of the Heart,” CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation, Center for Action and Contemplation, 2024.
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:
Father Richard wrote, “For the desert mothers and fathers, prayer was understood not as a transaction that somehow pleased God, but as a transformation of the consciousness of the one who was doing the praying.” This is the “word” I have been given this week, and it provides life-changing relief—to not have to decide what to pray or struggle to choose the “right” words, or even to feel sincere and honest while praying. Instead, I simply sit and receive. I don’t have to be anything but God’s child, gently and quietly anticipating transformation.
—Patty A.
