About "Children of the Desert"

"Children of the Desert" seeks to reunite the lay and monastic spiritualities, to recapture and revive the Devotio Antiqua which was the common devotion of all Christians until the late Middle Ages. We seek to leave behind the moral excesses and spiritual estrangement left from a degenerated Devotio Moderna run amok by returning to more secure causeways abandoned by reactionary Christian Humanism, a Christian Humanism which quickly and easily morphed into a neurotic, scrupulous, anti-intellectual, spiritual navel-gazing and has become the mainstream spirituality of the Latin West. Ironically, it has even become viewed as "traditional."

In the East, it is not so much that it [Devotio Antiqua] has been forgotten but that it is frequently not used by the People of God. There is attendance at Divine Liturgy and Vespers, but where does it go from there? It is the integral part of the spirituality of the East to live the Sacred Mysteries throughout one's own life, to bring it home and live it in the Domestic Church. While those who are converting to Eastern Catholicism as well as those who switch over from the Latin Rites embrace this liturgical spirituality, so many "cradle" Eastern Catholics have let this spiritual organism atrophy. The Devotio Antiqua needs to be re-fostered here as well.

We desire a spiritual recrudescence of the Devotio Antiqua. Our spirituality is to be the spirituality of the Church itself as manifested in Her sacred liturgies, Her sacred writings, Her sacred seasons -- no matter what Rite. We hope for the reunification of devotion with doctrine with the former flowing from the latter. We seek to take our cues from some of those best ambassadors of the Devotio Antiqua: the Desert Fathers, the Fathers of the Church, and St. Thomas Aquinas. As the truth lies in the mean, we will endeavor to avoid the intellectual extremity of hyper-scholasticism with its resultant moral inactivity as well as the corresponding, unbalanced reaction of humanism which sought for and, unfortunately, greatly achieved the divorce of the act of the intellect from the act of the will or devotion, unnecessarily seeing an apparent incommensurability between the theoretical and the practical. We will endeavor to make our spirituality individual and personal without losing sense of our common patrimony.

In particular, we intend to drink deep from the chalice of divine insight, especially as given to us through the Apophthegmata (the Sayings of the Desert Fathers), the Institutes and Conferences of St. John Cassian, and the scriptural commentaries and theological works of the Fathers of the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas, for devotion cannot and should not be separated from doctrine. It will be our endeavor to make Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Liturgies our immediate and primary sources of our devotion as particularly expressed in the Divine Office (in which the laity, in Christian antiquity, used to participate daily) -- whether it be the Roman Breviary or the Horrologion. These will be the foods upon which we masticate and derive our nutrition. In the end, we hope to fulfill St. Paul's mandate to pray always.

None of this is to mean that there should be an absolute abnegation of private devotionals. Quite to the contrary, it is our belief that returning to these more ancient and proven practices will empower our other devotions.

None of this will be done in vacuo. We have every intention of remaining faithful to the Magisterium of Holy Mother Church. We will seek and follow the counsels of wise monastic mentors known for their knowledge, wisdom, and orthodoxy.

In general, our program will entail the praying of the Divine Office, in common with our family or individually, to the extent our state in life will permit. We also intend to foster and encourage the ancient devotional practices proper to each Rite (e.g. praying with an Icon corner for those of a Byzantine heritage). Further we will prayerfully study the Sacred Scriptures with the appropriate guidance of the Desert Fathers, the Fathers of the Church, and the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom it was said by Gennadios Scholarios, the first Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople under Ottoman rule (who is considered a saint among our Orthodox brethren), that in Thomas was the synthesis of all of the Church Fathers. In particular, it is our ambition to memorize portions of Holy Writ (the amount of which is to be established by our spiritual fathers) for the purpose of constant rumination and achieving the divine command of perpetual and constant prayer. It is from this reflection that the theoretical (intellectual) may descend into the heart (the biblical sense of "heart" and not that baser notion of the heart which can be easily reduced to a shallow sentimentality) and achieve the practical end of the application of divine revelation in our life. Sacred Scripture is to become our Rule of Life and thus our Rule of Prayer.

More particulars of the proposed application of these intentions will be given in various forthcoming posts.

This should not and cannot be the work of man or it will utterly fail before it begins. May our endeavors be blessed and guided to the glory of the most Holy Trinity, +Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through the intercessions of the most Holy Theotokos, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Please pray for us.