We have many accounts of early Christians going off into the desert. The first Christian monks were those who went into the desert for a life of solitude and prayer. Foreboding and desolate, with steep, barren mountains, dusty, rocky soil the color of bones. Jesus himself was led by the Spirit into the desert.
The season of Lent is meant to be a desert experience when we strip away the extra baggage and learn again the value of Christian simplicity.
One of the great desert fathers was blessed Macarius who lived to the ripe age of ninety in 4th century. Echoing the words of St. Paul, he said "If you die to the world and to yourself, you will begin to live with Christ."
Early in the book of Hosea, God speaks to Israel who had grown complacent, who was unfaithful in many ways, and God says, “I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”
The desert is a place of testing, of simplicity, but it is also meant to be a time of profound encounter with God, of God speaking to our hearts. This is why we encourage not just fasting during Lent, but prayer as well.
God does not need a desert to speak to us, but sometimes we do. For our hearts become so clogged with false desires. We need desert moments where we have stripped away everything unnecessary, where we approach God in nakedness and silence to hear the voice of Our Father more clearly.
We enter the desert, that we, according to the command of Christ, You may love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. and love our neighbor as yourself.
Led by the Spirit, Jesus entered the desert. May we follow him into the desert, that we may encounter him there, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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