Desert Fathers Quotes & Sayings

Have mercy, Dad," said Kami. "Tell me you're here to rescue me before they break out the Jell-O. — Sarah Rees Brennan

If ever I murdered somebody," he added quite simply, "I dare say it might be an Optimist. — G.K. Chesterton

That year I had signed up for a course in French Medieval Literature. My mind was turning back, in a way, to the things I remembered from the old days in Saint Antonin. The deep, naive, rich simplicity of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was beginning to speak to me again. I had written a paper on a legend of a 'Jongleur de Notre Dame,' compared with a story from the Fathers of the Desert, in Migne's Latin Patrology. I was being drawn back into the Catholic atmosphere, and I could feel the health of it, even in the merely natural order, working already within me. — Thomas Merton

It was a dictum of his that the soul's energy thrives when the body's desires are feeblest. — St.Athanasius

The Alexandrian Mystics' emphasis on silent prayer gave their teachings interior depth missing from Western theology today. — Amos Smith

I love singing Christmas carols. I know every harmony to every music-hall Christmas song. — Zooey Deschanel

A monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger, "Do not blaspheme. My Father cannot die. — Benedicta Ward

There's always opportunity in the now. If I'm there, I will seize it. — Michelle Waterson

May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, &c. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good, and His mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, shew how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the; desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness, and His wonderful works before the sons of men. — William Bradford

For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience ... indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Being married to a psychologist, I realize that I learn more from imperfections. — Patricia MacLachlan

I would never, ever desert my child. A lot of my friends didn't have fathers growing up, and they were very upset that their fathers weren't around. I was lucky to have mine around. — Dwight Howard

A community is not a place where 'desert fathers' are testing themselves - more and more, harder and harder, each on his own. A community is what Saint Paul told us - our differences granted respect by one another, but those differences are not allowed to turn us into loners. You must know when to find your own, quiet moment of solitude. But you must know when to open the door to go with others, and you must know how to open the door. There's not point in opening the door with bitterness and resentment in your heart. — Dorothy Day

The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit. The desert was the region in which the Chosen People had wandered for forty years, cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had traveled directly to it. God's plan was that they should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back on the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone. The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else. — Thomas Merton

Never make a personnel judgment the first time it comes up. — Alfred P. Sloan

The Fathers of the Church were not afraid to go out into the desert because they had a richness in their hearts. But we, with richness all around us, are afraid, because the desert is in our hearts. — Franz Kafka

Looking out the window of a large women's monastery after Divine Liturgy, my friend saw a few nuns walking toward the woods with satchels on their backs. Inquiring who they were, she was told they were ascetics who lived in the wilderness and had come to the monastery to attend Liturgy and to receive some food. Although we are much weaker in our times and far less ascetical than the early desert fathers and mothers, let it never be said that extreme Christian asceticism is extinct. Who knows how many St. Mary of Egypts are hidden in the wilderness? — Constantina R. Palmer

For thousands of years, father and son have stretched wistful hands across the canyon of time, each eager to help the other to his side, but neither quite able to desert the loyalties of his contemporaries. The relationship is always changing and hence always fragile; nothing endures except the sense of difference. — Alan Valentine

All life is created in love, and thus in the depths of every human being lies a good heart. Some have lost their path from this love, so it up to us to show them the way. — Julia Butterfly Hill

Life in God should be a daring adventure of love - a continuous journey of putting aside our securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God. Too often, however, we settle for mediocrity. We follow the rules and practices of prayer but we are unwilling or, for various reasons, unable to give ourselves totally to God. To settle on the plain of mediocrity is really to settle for something less than God that leaves the heart restless and unfulfilled. A story from the desert fathers reminds us that giving oneself wholly to God can make a difference: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."15 — Ilia Delio

I detect the activist returning with a vengence. — E.A. Bucchianeri