Recently I was teaching my history students about early monks and ascetics. Unsurprisingly, they reacted to the details of St. Anthony’s and St. Symeon’s lives rather strongly. My 21st century teenagers find the idea of strict ascetic practices very off-putting. I really don’t blame them, although I hope to sway their perspective. In our modern world, there is little more foreign to our daily lives and our cultural ideals than asceticism.
St. Anthony inherited land and money at the age of 20 in 271 AD and then followed the words of Matthew 19:21 literally, selling his possessions, giving them to the poor, and then moving out to the desert to live as a hermit. During his hermetic life, he fasted frequently, ate a very limited diet, often went without sleep, and spent the majority of his time in prayer.
St. Symeon lived a life that was more extreme than St. Anthony’s. He entered a monastery as young man and then gradually looked for more severe practices to discipline himself with. Eventually he moved to the top of a 15-foot pillar and lived on a one-meter square platform. He ate bread and milk delivered by local boys and spent his time in prayer. He, like St. Anthony, was very thin from his frequent fasts and limited diet.
Quite naturally, 36 high school juniors scoff a bit when they hear these stories. Surrounded as they are by a culture that prizes not only comfort but immediate gratification, indulgent luxury, and constant entertainment, these men seem to them to be mentally ill. However, their reaction is what tells me that students and adults in our society desperately need to learn about the spiritual disciplines and the enormous good they are in the Christian life.
High school students respond well to an analogy of sports. In any well-run basketball practice the coach requires up-backs of his players (sprints up and down the length of the court). In any well-run soccer practice, the coach requires laps of his athletes. Yet, no one has ever seen a coach call for up-backs or laps in the middle of an actual game. Up-backs cannot win a game during a game and yet they help win the game during the practice.
Thus, St. Anthony and St. Symeon could be considered the athletes of God. Ascetic practices prepare the human heart to love God more than worldly pleasures, to seek him before comfort, and to know him better than we know our possessions. Fasting prepares us for righteousness by weakening our response to fleshly desires and increasing our response to God’s call. Praying instead of sleeping prepares us to depend on God for all our needs rather than our own strength. Sacrificing our privacy reminds us how our entire selves are gifts of God and not things we own.
Recommended Reading: Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, In Praise of the Useless Life Br. Paul Quenon, Union with Christ by Rankin Wilbourne
