Few stories in the ancient world circulated as widely and as rapidly as St. Athanasius’ telling of the life of St. Anthony.
Anthony was the great fourth-century hermit of the Egyptian desert, and his biographer had known him personally. Within a generation of Anthony’s death, the book had motivated countless Christians to take up the contemplative life in seclusion. The drama in Athanasius’ narrative turned on a single moment in Anthony’s youth.
“Not six months after the death of his parents, he went according to custom to the Lord’s house. … He entered the church, and it happened the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19:21). Anthony, . . . as if the passage had been read on his account, went out immediately from the church, and gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers. … All the rest that was movable he sold, and having got together much money he gave it to the poor, reserving a little, however, for his sister’s sake. … And again he went into the church, and he heard the Lord say in the Gospel, ‘do not be anxious about your life’ (Matthew 6:25), he could stay no longer, but went out and gave those things also to the poor. . .”
In a simple story Athanasius shows us that, for the early Christians, the ordinary place of scriptural interpretation was the Church, and the ordinary time was the Mass.
This had been true also of the assembly of ancient Israel, which proclaimed the Scriptures in its liturgies of synagogue, temple, and home. Biblical religion was liturgical religion, and its sacred texts were primarily liturgical texts.
For both Jews and Christians, the scriptural texts, though historical in character, were not just records of past events. The Scriptures were intended to sweep the worshiper into their action — “as if the passage had been read on his account.” More than two centuries after Jesus spoke his words to the rich young man, Anthony assumed that the words were addressed directly to himself.
Anthony heard the Word of God in the liturgy, and it changed him — and then he changed the world.
We must not underestimate the power of the Scriptures when we encounter them in their natural and supernatural habitat: when we hear them proclaimed at Mass. The feast of St. Anthony of Egypt is upon us, Jan. 17, so we should take to heart the great lesson of his life. Very few of us will be called to make a lifelong retreat to the desert. But all of us are called to be saints, and God calls to us in the reading of the Scriptures when we go to Mass.
