Part I: St. Paul the Hermit - A Dialogue in the Desert on Psalm 69 and the Ascetical Heart of Christianity

The Seeker and St. Paul the Hermit

The desert breathes with the slow rhythm of evening. St. Paul the Hermit sits at the entrance of his cave, the sand warm beneath his hands, the silence heavy and alive. The seeker approaches with hesitation, carrying a psalter worn thin with prayer.

Seeker:

Father, my soul cries out with the psalmist, “Save me, O God, for the waters have risen to my neck.

I have sunk into the mud of the deep and there is no foothold.”

This is how I feel when I look at the life of faith around me. Christianity itself seems to have forgotten its own heart. The Fathers teach that the Way is ascetical. That to follow Christ is to die to self, to slay the ego, to put on His mind through vigilance, fasting, repentance, tears, and unceasing prayer. But in the world I came from, especially in the West, this vision is treated with suspicion, or trimmed down until little remains.

Even when I was preparing for priesthood, any desire to rise in the night or to fast more intentionally was treated as pride, a criticism, or something unhealthy. The monastic heart that burned within me was something I felt compelled to hide: Contraband, as if the Philokalic Fathers were dangerous to the institution.

Father, I am drowning in the waters of this contradiction. My heart longs for the ancient path, but I feel pulled down by resistance from without and weakness from within. How do I walk this road when even the Church around me seems to resist it?

St Paul the Hermit:

My child, you speak with the voice of Psalm 69 because your soul has touched the truth. The faith of Christ is indeed ascetical in its very bones. The Church was born in fasting, in tears, in vigils, in the desert. Asceticism is not an addition to Christianity. It is its skeleton. Without it, the body collapses.

But listen carefully. The cry, “The waters have risen to my neck,” is not a cry of despair. It is the cry of one who still turns toward God. Even when swallowed by the mud, the psalmist does not cease calling upon the Lord.

So you must learn this first:

Opposition, misunderstanding, and the dullness of the age do not negate your call. They prove it.

Seeker:

But Father, the resistance is not only around me; it is within me. My practices have waxed and waned. I often laid down my zeal to keep peace or to avoid being accused of pride. I felt ashamed to love the Fathers, ashamed to desire what the saints embraced as the very marrow of the Christian life.

Even among Eastern Christians in the West the therapeutic, secular, or scholastic mindset dominates. Fasting is often symbolic. Prayer is functional. The inner warfare is hardly mentioned. And yet all I desire is to breathe the same air as the Fathers, simply and without disturbance.

How do I live this when I feel so torn?

St Paul the Hermit:

You must understand something the world does not understand:

The more the Church forgets her ascetical soul, the more necessary the hermit becomes.

Do not despise the opposition.

It is your training.

It is the mud through which the Lord teaches you to walk.

The Fathers were never embraced by the world around them. In my own day, many thought Antony was insane. Many mocked the desert. Many priests considered the monastics unnecessary or even harmful. The heart that seeks silence will always be a sign of contradiction.

But remember this:

Asceticism is not a performance.

It is not a badge.

It is not something to argue for or justify.

It is a response to divine love.

If your heart longs for it, it is because God has placed His Spirit within you.

Seeker:

Yet the battle is fiercest within the institutional Church itself. I do not want to flee the world. I want to flee to Christ. I want to enter the silence and divest myself of everything that is not Him. But fear rises: fear of delusion, fear of disobedience, fear of isolation, fear of what others will think.

St Paul the Hermit:

You speak as one standing exactly where you must stand.

Listen to the psalm again:

“I am wearied with crying aloud; my throat is parched.

My eyes are wasted away from looking for my God.”

This is the cry of a soul being shaped for the desert.

Let me teach you the marks of a true ascetical calling:

1. A holy homesickness

Not for escape, but for God.

Not to run from responsibility, but to run toward the face of Christ.

2. A fear of delusion

This fear is the greatest safeguard.

The proud do not fear delusion.

Only the humble do.

3. A love for the Fathers

This is not contraband.

This is inheritance.

4. A heart that wants to be hidden

True asceticism desires obscurity, not admiration.

5. A spirit wounded by the passions

Asceticism begins not in strength, but in weakness.

If these dwell in you, then the call is real.

Seeker:

But how do I live it without becoming defensive or bitter? How do I hold to this path when it seems foreign or unwelcome to those around me?

St Paul the Hermit:

You must carry the ascetical heart quietly.

The desert begins not with a place but with a manner of life.

Let me speak plainly:

1. Do not argue for the ascetical life.

Live it in secret.

The truth shines more brightly when hidden.

2. Do not expect the Church to understand you.

The Church understands holiness only after it appears.

Never before.

3. Let opposition purify you.

The Fathers say,

“When men oppose you, bow your head lower.”

4. Begin with the small asceticisms.

The ones invisible to others:

• the quiet swallowing of anger

• the refusal to defend yourself

• the gentle word

• the night prayer no one sees

• the simple meal

• the hidden psalm

• the secret tear

5. Keep the Jesus Prayer as your breath.

This will anchor you when all else shifts.

6. Let your love be larger than your longing for solitude.

Asceticism without love becomes iron.

Asceticism with love becomes fire.

Seeker:

Father, what of the desire for a hermitage—the cry in my heart to enter deeper silence? Is this longing from God?

St Paul the Hermit:

If the longing makes you love Christ more, it is from God.

If it makes you despise others, it is from the enemy.

If it makes you patient, it is from God.

If it makes you restless and reactive, it is your own.

If it leads you to confession, humility, and watchfulness, it is from God.

If it leads you to self-importance, it is a trap.

Test the longing with obedience.

Test it with silence.

Test it with love.

And remember this above all:

The hermitage you seek is first within your heart.

If the Lord wills, He will build its walls around you.

But if He delays, it is because He is building its foundations in your soul.

Seeker:

Father, guide me then. What should I do now?

St Paul the Hermit:

Do what every ascetic before you has done.

Pray the Psalms.

Rise quietly in the night.

Fast with humility.

Bow your head before all.

Speak little.

Love much.

Seek no admiration.

And let your heart become small and poor before God.

Then the waters will not drown you.

The mud will not swallow you.

And the Christ whom you seek will draw you into the silence where He Himself dwells.

For the desert is not a place.

It is a surrender.