Slaying demons like a monk through wisdom
Antony left the church, gave the 300 acres of land to the villagers, and distributed all his wealth.
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When St. Antony’s parents died, they left him a huge inheritance that included 300 acres of fertile land.
Six months later, while in church, he heard the Gospel reading from Matthew 19:21 where Jesus says to the rich young man, “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” Right there, he knew his calling. Antony left the church, gave the 300 acres of land to the villagers, and distributed all his wealth.
At age 20, Antony became a desert monk. He lived in tombs and caves; devoting himself to intense prayer, fasting, and spiritual contemplation. He faced many temptations and spiritual battles.
How many of us could do or would have done this at 20? Not many, if any at all.
Our society is self-centred. We don’t care about our neighbours, let alone our surrounding nature. We praise greed because it often leads to power and vanity. And power and vanity lead to influence.
But Antony’s story reminds us to order our priorities correctly: we must not fall into the trap of endlessly hoarding power, wealth, and vanity. Instead we should open our mind’s eyes to see Truth, and to wake up from this sleeping state we’ve been drugged into by cheap pleasures.
And the only way to awaken is through wisdom. Without wisdom all else is meaningless.
This truth is perfectly illustrated in my favourite story from ‘St. Antony of the Desert’:
Some [philosophers] met [Antony] again in the outer hills and thought to mock him because he had not learned letters. Antony said to them, “And what say you, which is first, the mind or letters? And which is the cause of which, the mind of letters, or letters of the mind?” When they answered that the mind is first and is the inventor of letters, Antony said, “Then to one whose mind is sound, letters are needless.” This answer astounded both them and the listeners. They went away marvelling to see such wisdom in a plain man.
Lessons from St. Antony
He had this strange-seeming principle: he held that not by length of time is the way of virtue measured and our progress therein, but by desire and by strong resolve.
He himself gave no thought to the bygone time, but each day, as though then beginning his religious life, he made greater effort to advance, constantly repeating to himself St. Paul’s saying: Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching out to the things that are before (Phil 3:13); keeping in mind, too, the voice of Elias the Prophet saying, The Lord liveth, before whose sight I stand this day (3 Kings 17:1).
If we do not forsake these things for virtue’s sake, still we leave them later on when we die—and often, as Ecclesiastes reminds to those whom we would not. Then why not leave them for virtue’s sake and to inherit a kingdom?
Why no rather possess those things which we can take away with us—prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, understanding, charity, love of the poor, gentleness, hospitality? For if we gain these possessions, we shall find them going beforehand, to make a welcome for us there in the land of the meek.
Till next week,
Peace!
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