THE SAINTS IN A YEAR - ST ANTHONY AND OUR NEED FOR SILENCE AND SOLITUDE

Fr Billy Swan

St Anthony of Padua is one of the most beloved saints of the Church whose feast day is celebrated each year on 13^th June. He is often confused with his namesake, St Anthony of the Desert, whose feast day we celebrate this Saturday, 17^th January. This earlier Anthony is considered to be the father of both Western and Eastern monasticism so his influence on the Church was immense. But what can this strange figure who retreated into the silence and solitude of the Egyptian desert in the late third century, teach us today - we who inhabit a noisy and complex world?

By the time of Anthony’s death about 356AD, thousands of monks and sisters had followed him into the desert, drawn by a desire to live the life of Christ in a more radical way. Yet, their entry into the desert was not a form of escapism. Deeply conscious of the Biblical tradition of the desert being a place of encounter, conversion, transformation and preparation for mission, what these holy people were seeking was their true selves in Christ that coincided with detachment from their own egos and pride.

We live in a noisy and hectic world. Most of us are uncomfortable with silence. Why? Because only silence allows us to hear what is really going on within our restless hearts. Only when we are still can we listen to what the Spirit within is saying to us: “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). Only in silence can we hear what we need to hear and can’t hear if we keep running away, losing ourselves in activism, compulsions and addictions. What St Anthony anticipated was our inability to face ourselves – our wounds, our incompleteness, imperfection, limitations, losses and need for love. Not facing ourselves and never taking the time to pray our vulnerable realities before God results in a life of sadness and unfulfillment as we reach instead for compensations and distractions that can never satisfy.

The same is true for solitude. We fear loneliness. But loneliness is not the same as solitude. Loneliness is a state of disconnection from ourselves, from God and others. Solitude purifies our ability to connect and relate better. In the modern secular sensibility that leaves little room for God, to be alone is to be completely alone which is why so many of us fear it. Yet, for the Desert Fathers, to quote St Ambrose, “we are never less alone than when alone”.  In other words, for the believer, we are never completely alone for God is more intimately present to us as lover and friend than we are to ourselves. Solitude allows us to face ourselves with courage, entering a space where transformation is possible.

In our noisy and distracted world, each of us need to cultivate times of silence and solitude as part of our habit of prayer. This is true if we are single or married. We don’t always need company, music or the radio on in the car. We don’t always need to be talking just for the sake of it. Take the time to put aside your smart phone, shut down your lap-top and turn off that noise. Listen with your heart when you stay in the silence of a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. Listen to how you are feeling and ponder the reasons why. Ask the Lord for the grace to understand yourself better. Allow Him to accept you, love you, cherish you, refresh you. Do not be afraid to face up to your limitations, lacks and wants. Awareness of these lacks and wants makes us poorer in spirit, which brings us closer to the kingdom of heaven (Cf. Matt. 5:3). Don’t be afraid of being alone for the one who has Christ is never alone.

Saints like St Anthony of the desert have much to teach us and much to advise to offer in our noisy and overly stimulated world today. Not least they teach us how to pray by embracing times of solitude and silence, attuning the passions of the human heart to the passionate love of God so that God’s love might transform us to become “all flame”.