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PPforFeb21throughFeb26Ascetics-CatholicStuff.pptxPaul
Paul was aware that his way of life was built on a belief that might or might not be true.
He built his hope on the BELIEF (not the knowledge) that goodness, beauty, love, and truth eventually triumph over all the crap.
He encapsulated this in one phrase: Jesus has risen from the dead.
Paul
The injustice of human society and life itself is not the final word. The righteous ones are rewarded for their pains. The people who do wrong will suffer for what they have done.
The ascetic would say: since we have all done something wrong, let’s get going with the suffering, already. Not to mention the doing good.
Paul
We have only this life to determine out status for eternity. E-t-e-r-n-i-t-y.
Wow.
That is a long time.
So wouldn’t it be better to give up some chocolate, sex, and trips to Hawaii now, while giving the money and energy to the poor or to preserving the National Park system?
It would work out better for you, in the long run. Good works would mean a happier eternity for you.
Paul
Seen from this viewpoint, NOTHING ELSE makes sense but the way of the ascetic.
Paul
Seen from this viewpoint, NOTHING ELSE makes sense but the way of the ascetic.
Paul
Seen from this viewpoint, NOTHING ELSE makes sense but the way of the ascetic.
Paul
It is the only intelligent choice.
Paul
Paul makes this clear in his statement that the Kingdom of God (the time of payback for all, both good and bad) was coming really really soon.
Like maybe this Friday.
So, are you going to spend time planning your wedding for Saturday? Oh come on, why even get married. Just stay as you are for the next 3-4 days and prepare yourself for the end.
And hand out some 20 dollar bills to people, while there is still time.
Paul
So that’s what Paul advised people to do: do good works, and stay as you are.
Don’t bother getting married; don’t bother switching jobs; don’t bother going to work (wait, no, he told them to keep working, but he had to actually say that); don’t bother freeing yourself if you are a slave. Don’t bother going shopping. Share your stuff, and wait.
All things are coming to an end.
Another Understanding of asceticism: the Desert Fathers (250 ce)
The Desert Fathers
Note: the citations listed in this next section are taken from another book by Cunningham, The Catholic Tradition
The Desert Fathers
It is clear by now that “the end” is not coming any time soon. So people began to form an “alternative culture” in the desert:
No material goods
A simple life re dress, diet, and behavior
Manual labor
No trips into the city with all such trips entail
The Desert Fathers
How did they spend their time?
Penance
Quiet
Labor
Solitude. (C, 28)
The Desert Fathers
WHY WOULD ANYBODY DO THIS???
Maybe they were being persecuted (the Decian persecution).
Maybe they owed a lot of taxes.
Maybe they were fed up with the crime.
Maybe they thought that their society had gotten onto the wrong track, and they were disgusted by the life-style that their culture bred. They saw no way to avoid it but to leave.
The Desert Fathers
They wanted to live out a new kind of martyrdom…a sort of living martyrdom.
It would take a long time… a life-time.
But it would incorporate the same virtues of courage and self-sacrifice that were evidenced by those people who died during the persecution (C, 29).
The Desert Fathers
They also wanted to attain to a higher plane of existence. They wanted to be like angels.
Angels don’t have bodies.
They can’t get rid of their body while they’re alive (duh), but they can live as ‘bodilessly” as possible. (C, 29)
The Desert Fathers
Yes, this sounds sick, not to mention un-natural.
But when you think about it, doesn’t it sometimes even seem odd that you HAVE a body?
Did you ever look at your hand and think, “Hunh. That’s odd.”
The Desert Fathers
Or, how many of you have, at some point in your life, decided that you just don’t like your body. And, quite frankly, you wish it would go away.
You’re not suicidal; you just want it to leave. And let you be in peace.
Bodily hatred is not something that was discovered in the 20th century.
The Desert Fathers
So they just wanted it to get out of their way.
The way to do this was to get control over it. Don’t let it, with its needs, demands, and urges, drive the bus anymore.
They called this “subduing the body.”
The Desert Fathers
They had a 2 step plan:
1) TOTAL RENUNCIATION OF THE WORLD.
You know what REALLY distracts the body? Pizza. And bikinis. Supermodels and chardonnay. Beer, chocolate, and sex.
It is very difficult to keep one’s mind focused on, well, really anything, with those around. And the world, at either its best or its worst (“you decide”) is full of those things.
So, you’ve gotta move. Out. Of the world.
The Desert Fathers
Which, of course, you can’t. But you can stay away from those things.
But to do that, you pretty much have to stay away from human culture.
So they left for the empty places, which in their environment happened to be not green fields, forests, or the Appalachian Mountains…but the desert. TOTAL RENUNCIATION OF THE WORLD. APOTAXIS. (C, 29).
The Desert Fathers
2) SUBDUING OF THE SELF.
Like Sweet Home Alabama, “You can take the girl out of Alabama, but you can’t take…” Nor would you want to.
But in this case, they DID want to. They wanted to take themselves out of the world and the world out of themselves. They didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives sitting in the desert, THINKING about bikinis and chocolate and beer.
So they had to somehow change their desires for those things. THEN, and only then, could they live in a state of true peace.
The Desert Fathers
Poverty, chastity, and obedience were just the training wheels. If they used them enough, they’d (hopefully) stop desiring what wasn’t good for them. (“Don’t feed it; maybe it will go away”).
They called the subjugation of their desires through these bodily disciplines ENKRATEIA.
They also had a name for that blessed place of peace and stillness: APATHEIA. (C, 29).
The Desert Fathers
I bet that you are wondering how their plan worked.
Theodora, one of the great female ascetics, tells us:
“You should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through…faintheartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakness of the knees, and (weakness of) all (else…)”
But if you keep at it, the evil will go away.
The Desert Fathers
We mentioned Theodora. She was a Desert Mother.
One of the most famous Desert Father and Mother ascetics of all time was Saint Anthony.
He embodied the Desert Fathers (and Mothers) ideal.
The Desert Fathers
The Desert Fathers were at the beginning of monasticism.
They were hermits. They left town and went out into the desert to live.
Their most famous hermit is St. Anthony of Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StAnthony.jpg
Painting of Saint Anthony, a part of The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot by Piero di Cosimo, ca. 1480.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_the_Great
The Desert Fathers
St Anthony lived around the 200’s ce.
Both his parents died when he was about 20 years old. They were quite well-to-do, and he inherited their money.
However, he heard the Gospel reading about the rich young man: “Go and sell everything you have, and give to the poor.”
The Desert Fathers
So…he decided to do just that.
There were other hermits at the time in Egypt, living in huts near the edge of town.
Anthony learned from them, and then he eventually went out into the desert by himself and lived in a tomb.
