The spiritual practice most associated with Lent is asceticism: giving things up, refraining from some pleasure, or even restricting some necessity (e.g. eating less). But beyond this practice, what is the point of Lent? Any Lenten practice should help us to return to the source of our being, to the grounding of our existence, to the eternal, to God. This is the point of Lenten practice. But the practice itself often distracts us from the point.

In her pithy saying above, the Desert Elder Amma Syncletica, gives us a good description of the temptations associated with giving things up. She was well aware of the competitions among the desert Christians in the severity of their ascetic practices. Instead of the self-centered striving of asceticism, her prescription for true spiritual practice is humility achieved by living in community. It will take us a few paragraphs to get through this prescription, and in the process we will end up redefining two difficult words in her quote: obedience and humility.

Women were treated in many of the Desert Father’s sayings as temptresses, but there is emerging evidence that the deserts and towns of Egypt were well supplied with women monastics.   Mother Synkletika was born in Alexandria, of wealthy parents who sailed from Macedonia to settle there.  As is the pattern with most monastics, she refused marriage, despite her parents’ pleas.  After the death of her parents, she gave her inheritance to the poor and moved into a family tomb in a graveyard on the outskirts of Alexandria.  Tomb dwelling was an ancient Egyptian practice that put one in touch with the spirit world.  A community of women eventually gathered around her, and she is often called the mother of women’s monasticism (there are of course others). Nautical images abound in her sayings and in her teachings collected in a saintly biography.  For instance, she says of humility that it is like the nails in a boat, without them, it sinks.  Though acquainted with Evagrius’ abstract teachings, she preferred humble, earthy metaphors and stories.    

So, we return to her teaching on humility: one gains it by obedience.  And loses it by asceticism. We can get some idea of how asceticism leads to pride if we recall the many stories in the sayings of monks envying each other for greater severity in the ascetic practice of renunciation.  This beating down of the self by force of will can lead to despair when it fails and pride when it succeeds. 

And then we are left with two difficult words in one saying: we must learn humility by obedience.  We now have some idea that this is not our modern idea of humility.  It should not, like misguided ascetic practice, be the beating down of the self.  It stands to reason that obedience will also be something surprising. 

Note that she begins with “as long as we are in the monastery…”. So there is a specific setting for her advice, that of the community of the monastery. At that time (250-350 AD or so) and place (the northern Egyptian Desert), monasteries were communities whose primary goal was to help each individual in their search for God.

There was a central practice in these communities: honest conversation between an elder and a novice about the novice’s thoughts and practice. I mentioned this practice in the previous blog to note that its goal was discernment of the heart, of the thoughts and motivations of the individual. Being moved to action by this discernment, letting the discernment rule one’s actions, is the heart of what the elders called obedience.

And what does one gain by this sort of obedience to discernment? All the Desert stories of obedience are eventually about the student finding insight into his or her false attachments to things, ideas, knowledge, possessions, goals, experiences, and people. These false attachments are distractions, they should not be the most important focus of our concern.  Thus, obedience seems instead to be a tool that pries you free from attachments.  Free from attachment to possessions, concern with personal pride, free from achievement.  Free, even, from attachment to the Desert Elder who is your guide. 

Amma Syncletica has led us to an insight about that most difficult of monastic practices: why are people practicing asceticism and obedience?  To become free.  And only when we are free of false attachment can we return to the source of our being, to the grounding of our existence, to the eternal, to God.

So this is the point of Lenten practice. To be moved to action by discernment in a way that sets us free from false attachment and fixes our gaze on the eternal.

And this leaves us with a question: Does your Lenten practice, or your daily routine, set you free?  Does it lead to discernment that compels you to action? Does it, in some small way, help you to focus on things of worth?

A Blessing

When you gaze on your partner or friend
When you look at the new green buds on branches
When you walk in the moist breeze of Spring
May each speak to you and set you free.

CH