Desert Wisdom 
Collection of the Wisdom of the Desert Fathers. St.Benedict pointed to the the writings of the early Desert Fathers, specifically mentioning the St. Basil and John Cassian (RB 73:5) as sources for “further perfection.”
Dust to Dust
I, your brother Paphnutius, was thinking one day that I would go into the further desert so I could see whether there were any brother monks in the farthest reaches of the desert. So I walked four days and four nights without eating bread or drinking water. I continued walking on into the farther desert… Read More ›
Everything Occurs Through God’s Providence
Do not wish for everything to be done according to your determination, but wish that it is how it should be, and in this way, you will attain peace with everyone. And believe that everything that happens to us, even the most insignificant, occurs through God’s Providence. Then you will be able to endure everything… Read More ›
Dorotheus of Gaza: Three Kinds of Liars
There are three kinds of liars: those who lie with their thoughts, those who lie with words and those who lie with their very lives. The liar of thought, for example, is the individual who is suspicious. If he sees two people talking, he immediately imagines they are talking about him. If they break off… Read More ›
Torn by Demons
There was a brother who renounced the world, gave all his possessions to the poor except for a certain amount which he kept for himself, and then went to Abba Antony. The old man soon understood what the situation was. “If you will,” he said, “please go into the village and buy meat. Dispose it… Read More ›
Practice First That Which is Written
Abba Abraham told of a man of Scetis who was a scribe and did not eat bread. A brother came to beg him to copy a book. The old man whose spirit was engaged in contemplation, wrote, omitting some phrases and with no punctuation. The brother, taking the book and wishing to punctuate it, noticed… Read More ›
Weeping Over My Sins
A brother questioned Abba Poemen in this way, ‘My thoughts trouble me, making me put my sins aside, and concern myself with my brother’s faults’. The old man told him the following story about Abba Dioscorus (the monk), ‘In his cell he wept over himself, while his disciple was sitting in another cell. When the… Read More ›
Think Seriously About the Way You Act
Abba Daniel, the disciple of Abba Arsenius, described how Arsenius told the following story as if it had happened to somebody else, though Daniel was convinced Arsenius was actually talking of himself: A certain old man was sitting in his cell when a voice came to him, saying, “Come with me and I will show… Read More ›
Abba Zenon: Can I Bear the Torture?
Abba Zenon told us how once when he was going to Palestine, getting very tired because of his journeying, he sat down to rest under a tree next to a field full of cucumbers. He began to think about getting up and going to steal some of the cucumbers to eat. “After all”, he thought,… Read More ›
Abba Antony: You are in Need of Prayer
The brothers came to Abba Antony and asked, “What must I do in order to please God?” He responded to them, saying, “Pay attention to what I advise you: wherever you go, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the Scriptures. You have heard the Scriptures?… Read More ›
When God reveals to you that the time is right
There was a certain hermit named Pior among the holy fathers who while still a young man had been initiated into monastic life by blessed Antony, but who lived with him for only a few years. For when he was twenty-five he went away to another secret part of the desert with Antony’s full knowledge… Read More ›