A Saint for Times of Madness
Every day is blessed if we greet it in the name of Christ. But some days have the extra blessing of revealing the mysteries of God’s will to us. Every Sunday is such a day. January 17th is such a day.
Sometime around the year 270 AD, a young man in Egypt named Antony heard words of Christ at the Liturgy and immediately did what Christ advised. He sold everything he had inherited from his wealthy parents, gave it all away to the poor, and went into the desert to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. There he was assailed by demons and temptations, just as Jesus himself was tempted by the devil in the desert. But he made the desert his home and inspired countless other men and women to do likewise. The deserts of Egypt flowered with monasticism and works of the Holy Spirit.
We need a new flowering of the desert at a time when most of what is called Christianity has lost its fervor for the Lord. Today Christians are more apt to show fervor for a social problem or politician than they do for the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. We have become way too comfortable with our reductionist trivialization of the Word of God. Not so with Antony. He heard the Word and did what the Word told him was the way of his salvation. Every person’s way to salvation is different!
One of the quotes attributed to St. Antony is worth repeating here: “The days are coming when men will go mad; and, when they meet a man who has not lost his mind, they will rise up against him, saying, ‘You are mad, because you are not like us.’”
Those days are here. Antony is a Saint for our times of madness. Many Christians have no saints to emulate or inspire them, so they fall for whoever and whatever pleases their ears or egos. But we Orthodox, and Catholics, have thousands of great saints to inspire us daily with their lives and their obedience to the call of Christ. Antony is one of the saints who have been given the title “the Great” in the Orthodox Church. But his greatness did not come from media exposure or votes of popularity. His greatness came from the Lord himself, who said, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). With those words, Jesus was preparing the way for saints like Antony the Great. Though he was rich, Antony became poor and least among men, but great in the kingdom of God.
The entire yearly calendar of our Church has saints to inspire us and connect us with the amazing history of Christianity. Don’t settle for cheap imitations; go for the real thing, and inspire the youth in your life to find meaning for their lives in the words of Christ and in the lives of those who took the words of Christ seriously. January 17th is special because it reveals how the Word of God can continue to be incarnate through the life of a man like Antony who heard it and lived it.
The Apolytikion (main liturgical hymn) of St Antony the Great is a good example of the global and even cosmic perspective that Christian history gives us:
O Father Antony, you imitated the zealous Elijah. You followed the straight paths of the Baptist and became a desert dweller. By prayer you confirmed the universe. Wherefore, intercede with Christ our God to save our souls.
Father Constantine Sarantidis