St. Antony and the Christian Life

I’ve written in the past (here) about the life of St. Antony the Great of Egypt (c. 251-356), or St. Antony Abbot, in relation to the influence that his Life had on the conversion of St. Augustine. In addition to his Life, written by St. Athanasius, the other great source of information we have about St. Anthony comes from a collection of his sayings that was gathered together with other sayings of the desert Fathers and Mothers under the title of the Apophthegmata Patrum. It was thought by many that this collection of sayings applied only to those pursuing monastic or vowed religious life. More recent options, and mine among them, beg to differ. There are certainly many saying which do apply principally to the monastic or vowed religious life. But there are also a plethora of those that apply to the life of Christian discipleship in general; regardless of one’s particular vocation.

Some of my favorites that apply to the entire Christian vocation include the following. “Abba [i.e., Fr.] Antony said to Abba Poemen, ‘This is the great work of a man: always to take blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath.’” “Abba Antony said, ‘I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, “What can get through from such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me ‘Humility.’” “He also said, ‘Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.’” And, finally, a simple quotation from the Gospel: “Abba Antony said, ‘I no longer fear God, but I love Him. For love casts out fear’” (Jn 4:18).

I have a particular affection for St. Antony the Great; whose memorial we commemorated on January 17^th. Not only was he the patron saint of the saint whom I’m named after, i.e., St. Anthony of Padua, but my wife and I named our second son Antony (i.e., without the ‘h’), precisely to commemorate St. Antony the Great. It’s also a fun example for me to use with students. That is to say, I tell them that your destiny in life is to be the saint that you are, that you can be, not some other saint. In my case, no matter how good a saint I become – if it come true, Deo gratia – I can never be ‘the Great’; because there’s already a St. Antony the Great. But there’s no St. Maribeth the Great or St. Paula the Great, etc. That could be you!