Solitude

There is a vast gulf between isolation and separateness and solitude and together quietness…

Saint Anthony of Egypt (Icon)

I have always loved Saint Francis of Assisi.

When I was a little girl, I used to watch the movie about his life.  It was a technicolour old movie and beautiful and romanticised to watch.  There were scenes of the Crusades where murder and death in battle were shown through a smear of red paint to represent blood and characters were presented in beautiful blurred perfection.  There was nothing in there to scare me and I could sit and watch the way that Saint Frances tamed the leopards in the desert and charmed the sheik who saw that he had some power over animals and therefore considered this a proof of the power of “his” God.

In reality, Saint Francis of Assisi lived a very difficult life.  Firstly, he rejected the wealth and opportunities of his family, leading to their misunderstanding and rejection of him and his works.  He lived in abject poverty begging even for a scrap of bread.  He spent years building a Church for God believing that was what had called him to do, only to realise later than God wished for him to build the holiness of the church rather than its stone structures.

He fought for the order of the Franciscans, which remains a practicing order today.  And he sponsored the Poor Clares, who also followed the rule and example of the Franciscans living in abject poverty.

Saint Anthony of Egypt lived in a similar way – though he lived at an earlier time in the third and forth centuries.He sold everything he owned when he was twenty and gave everything to the poor, inspired by the message of the Gospel, “Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor.” (Mark 10:21b).  Saint Anthony lived largely in solitude offering great personal mortification for the salvation of sinners.  And though he lived alone in prayer and fasting and penance and sacrifice, he attracted many pilgrims who wished to pray with him and be healed of their sins.

When he was fifty-four years old, he founded a monastery which was comprised of scattered cells in the hills.  He – like Saint Frances who would come later – feared “stately buildings and well-laden tables”.  He prayed to become a martyr in the Roman persecutions of 311, but was not condemned by the Romans, despite openly ministering the Christians imprisoned during this persecution. He fought the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ when he was eighty-eight years old.

When he was one-hundred and five years old, Saint Anthony died in solitude. 

And I have been reflecting on that long life of that Saint today.  For God had a purpose for him at every stage.  And I know that God has a purpose for me at every stage of my own life.  And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking about my Beloved.  For it seems that I am not open to His Holy Will as I should be and without Grace I never will be open to it and will live in isolation rather and solitude with my Beloved…  For there is a vast gulf between isolation and separateness and solitude and together quietness…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.