A Pilgrimage Towards Monk Hood

St Anthony the Great, called ‘The Father of Monk.’ He was born in Egypt in about 251 AD; in about 269 he heard the Gospel read in church and applied the reading “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and come…” to himself. He sold all and went into the desert. After a time he attracted followers and acted as their spiritual father. He lived to the age of 105. His history was written by St Athanasius.

When asked what one must do to be saved he answered, “…always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep up these three precepts and you will be saved.” Anthony thought it a great work to take blame for his own sins before God and expected temptation to his last breath.

Abba Anthony knew the limits of men and did not stretch his brothers beyond their limits. St Anthony was blessed with the gift of discernment. He was able to perceive demons and knew of the miraculous works of men.

One time the brothers came to St Anthony and asked him about a passage in Leviticus. St Anthony went out into the desert, he was followed by Abba Ammonas. Abba Ammonas saw St Anthony cry out to heaven saying, “God, send Moses, to make me understand this saying.” Abba Ammonas heard a voice speaking with him but he could not understand it. It was said of St Anthony that he was “spirit-borne.” Meaning that the Holy Spirit carried him along. He could see what was happening in the world, as well as knowing what is going to happen. He never spoke of this, because of his humility.

St Anthony was once asked to go to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantius, Constantine’s son. He asked Abba Paul if he should go Abba Paul said, “If you go, you will be called Anthony; but if you stay here, you will be called Abba Anthony.”

With a such a list of sayings and deeds it is easy to tell that St Anthony was a great man of God. He was one of the greatest of the early monks. He also participated in the great Council of Nicea where he defended the orthodox faith against Arianism. Being as humble as he was he instructed his followers to bury him in an unmarked grave lest his body become an object of veneration. Countless monasteries have been based off of his monastic rule.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we pray that we might follow after your Servant Jesus, just as Anthony followed after our Lord. We pray for humility, that we would seek to keep our deeds secret that all glory and honor might be given to you and none to us. We pray that we might heed his advice that most assuredly came from you. Allow us to always have you before our eyes and to always defier to the Holy Scriptures when we have a question, allow us to be content with where we settle. Make us remember that we have been tempted from our birth and that we will not stop being tempted until we die; but allow us when tempted to always turn towards you as our examples Jesus and Anthony did. And forgive us when we sin; make us grow from it, we pray never let us blame any other for our sin. Pour out your Spirit on us; so that we will know when you are present and that we will know when Satan and his demons are tempting us. Give us discernment that we might know how to bring the most glory to you. Conform us in to servants like Anthony, who like Elijah and John the Baptist sought you in the desert. Father Anthony intercede to Christ for us that our souls might be saved. We ask all these things through our mediator, your Holy Son our Savior Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.

So what I thougth I would do now that I am reading a lot of stuff about the church fathers is that I would start to blog about them. My basic lay out will be to give a little bit of a history about them and why I think that they are important. Then I will write a prayer that is inspired by their life and example. So I hope you enjoy.

St. James is I believe the most important person in Christian history, after Jesus of course. St James is the brother of our Lord, but this is not the reason that he is so important. St James is important because he foregoes his own love of Judaism and it’s connection with Christianity in order that Gentile might be brought into the faith more easily. He is the one that decided that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to become Christians.

Some other information about St James called the Just. He was the head of the Church of Jerusalem, the most important church in Christianity until 70 AD. St Jeromewrites this about St James “After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem… This one was holy from his mother’s womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies…and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels’ knees.” From Jerome’s writing it would seem that James was a Nazerite from birth.

St Paul calls St James with Sts Peter and John a “pillar of the Church.” St James is also thought to be the author of the Letter of James in the New Testament.

He was killed at the hand of Pharisees in Jerusalemin 62 AD. Eusebius, in his book Historia Ecclesiae, states that St James was thrown off the summit of the Temple, stoned, and then had his skull bashed in with a fuller’s club.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we pray that we may follow after our perfect example Jesus, just as your servant James followed after the example of his brother. Allow us to give up our own opinions so that we may follow after your holy way and lead others to you more easily. Give us a heart that we may pray unceasingly we ask this through your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ who, with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns with you, one God now and forever. Amen.

Regent Woes, the title of the last post, has turned to Regent Joys.  Seeing as how I just got an e-mail saying that I was accepted to Regent College.  So I am pretty excited.  Too bad I am fasting today because I really want to go have a nice dinner to celebrate, but thus is Lent.   For Lent I am doing a full fast on Fridays, giving up music in my car and while walking to classes, and I am going to try and do a week long fast at some point.

Peace

Well I sent out my application to Regent College on Saturday.  There has already been some woes, since I one forgot that I needed a character reference for the school.  Thankfully, Bryan Sherwood was able to get that done for me very quickly.  Then I read the writing sample requirements and found that my preferred writing sample was about five pages too long.  So, I went with a shorter but not as good writing sample.  Lastly when I sent out the application I sent it the fastest I could so that it should have gotten there yesterday.  And to my surprise when I checked the mail today I found my application here.  The man at the post office did not make sure that everything was fully filled out on the shipping information.  So it came back to me because it did not have a customs value which is $0.  So now I am going to be charged a $20 late fee by Regent.  So I am going to complain to the post office and see if they will take off $20 from the shipping fee or give me $2o since I sent the package in this manner to make sure that it would get there in time.  Hopefully I am not out this $20 because that would really suck.

Well I thought now that finals are over I should post something.  Thus, this post.  Nothing much going on with me; I am starting to finish filling out grad school applications.  It looks like one of the people that I asked to write my letters of recommendation, has just given birth.  So I am not sure if she will be able to write them since the Duke letter was not written as of the other day.  The priority deadline was due today so maybe they will take one a few days late since I also need to have my transcripts sent to them along with my writing sample and letter of intent.   Well  I don’t know what else to write about right now.

Peace

Well UK classes start today.  I have one class today and then three tomorrow and I am done for the week.  I have had one problem with my classes.  I have two classes that overlap by 15 minutes so that means that I have to get approval from the instructors.   I did that but  I think my advisor needs signatures from the teachers.  So I think that is taking a little while to get if she does not have it.  Oh well I think it will work out in the end.

I thought I had some good ideas for some post the other day but they were going to take a while and I totally forgot what I was going to talk about.  Oh well I guess they will come back to me at some point.  Well that is all for now.  Peace.

So as some of you all may have known I went to the Abbey of Gethsemani last week.  Other then being really, really, really hot it was really nice.  I spent most of the time praying, reading, and thinking about Catholicism.  I figured out a few things one that I probably could be a monk.  Two that I could not be Catholic.  Mainly because of the issue of the Papacy.  I do not see any support for it, in Scripture or in the very early Church.

It was interesting to see that most of the people on the retreat could not stay quite for a few days.  Even when there were signs everywhere that said “Quite Please” or “Silence is Spoken Here.”  It was alright though some people just cannot really keep quite in their mouth but might be able to in there heart.

I spent a lot of time in my cell, following the advice of the desert fathers.  It was nice I got to experience some real silence.  I was able to turn off my thoughts/brain for a few moments.  It was really nice.

I would like to go back sometime and I think I will I am going to be talking with Bro. Luke to see if I could come there in the winter and stay with them for a little longer and really experience the Monastic life.

I have also started to work on another icon for my friend Justin who is in rehab for the next 20 months from what I hear.  I am also going to write a prayer for him.  When I get that done I will post it on here and send it to him and some of his friends and ask them to pray it every day for him.  Well that is all I have going on now.

Peace