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Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot
Chapel of the Choir, Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican
Rome
17 January 2025
Eph 6, 10-13, 18
Ps 16, 1-2. 5. 7-8. 11
Mt 19, 16-26
Homily
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saint Anthony, the first abbot in the history of monasticism, living in Egypt from the middle of the third century to the middle of the fourth century, developed an extraordinary knowledge and love of Our Lord Jesus Christ. So great became his communion with Our Lord that he retired to the desert to give his whole life to Christ in prayer and penance. His closeness to Our Lord drew many to Saint Anthony for spiritual counsel. With time, others joined him in the monastic life of prayer and penance, forming a community of which he became the father abbot.
Although he loved, most of all, the total seclusion of his monastic cell, the peril of souls led him from time to time into the city. Dom Prosper Guéranger writes:
If there were ever a monk to whom the charms of solitude and the sweetness of contemplation were dear, it was our Saint; and yet they could not keep him in his desert when he could save souls by a few days spent in a noisy city. Thus, we find him in the streets of Alexandria when the pagan persecution was at its height; he came to encourage the Christians in their martyrdom. Later on, when that still fiercer foe of Arianism was seducing the Faith of the people, we again meet the great Abbot in the same capital, this time preaching to its inhabitants that the Word is consubstantial with the Father, proclaiming the Nicene faith, and keeping up the Catholics in orthodoxy and resolution.[1]
In his total love of Christ and His Mystical Body, the Church, Saint Anthony, Abbot, became a close friend of the great Bishop Saint Athanasius who heroically defended the Catholic faith against the Arian heresy which denied the two natures, human and divine, in the one divine person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The example of Saint Anthony’s life and his intercession for us in the Communion of Saints awakens within us the sure hope which is ours from the moment of our baptism: the hope in God’s promise of eternal salvation through His only-begotten Son Who became incarnate of the Virgin Mary to win in our human nature the victory over sin and death, and the pledge of our final destiny in the company of the angels and all the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is divine hope which sustains us throughout our lifetime, as it did in the life of Saint Anthony, Abbot, and keeps us secure upon the way which leads to eternal life. The monastic life, as it is exemplified in the life of Saint Anthony, is for all of us a constant and luminous sign of Christ, alive for us in the Church, Who alone is our hope and our salvation.
Frequently, brother priests ask my counsel about how to be true to the grace of the Holy Priesthood in a time marked by so much confusion, error, and division regarding the most fundamental realities of life and of the Faith in society, in general, and, even more painfully in the Church and especially among her pastors. It is never easy to follow Christ faithfully in a world which is hostile to His reign of truth and love. The suffering becomes exponentially greater when the persecution of the faithful comes from within the Church. When Our Lord taught the disciples about the demands of following Him, of spiritual perfection, they exclaimed; “Who then can be saved?”[2] Our Lord responded with words of the sure hope found in divine grace: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”[3]
From the first days of the Church, Satan has been assaulting the Church, especially in her most sacred persons and actions. Let us not forget that Arius was a priest. In our own time, confusion, error, and division, which are the work of Satan, try to destroy any remnant of a Christian culture in the world and, as in past times, even enter into the Church to lead souls away from Christ and the eternal life which He alone brings us. We need very much to heed the exhortation of Saint Paul to the first Christians at Ephesus and to imitate Saint Anthony who, when the Church was persecuted from without by pagan rulers and from within by heretical prelates, held ever more securely and courageously to the truth and love of Christ as they are unfailingly taught and practiced in His holy Church. Saint Anthony, securely grounded in Christ through prayer and penance, was prepared to defend and sustain Christ.
In responding to the question of brother priests and, indeed, in responding to my personal concern about remaining faithful in such trying and tried times, the exhortation of Saint Paul is fundamental. First of all, Saint Paul is clear in describing the daily struggle to remain faithful to Christ: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”[4] We must realize, first of all, that we are not dealing with merely human challenges and adversaries but with preternatural forces bent upon our own eternal damnation and the damnation of as many souls as they are able to deceive and beguile. With that realization, we can only turn to God and to the help with He alone provides us in His Incarnate Son alive for us in the Church, in the divine grace which unceasingly flows from Christ’s glorious-pierced Heart into our hearts. Saint Paul exhorts us:
Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand… Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.[5]
Let us, as priests, conformed by divine grace to the person of Christ in His pastoral charity, remain always firmly anchored to Christ by a life of prayer and penance. Only then will we have the wisdom and strength to do what Christ is calling us to do. Let us, first of all, seek our strength in Christ, in communion with Him through the Divine Office, the daily offering of the Holy Mass, frequent Confession, and a rich devotional life.
Let us, then, seek our wisdom in Him and teach what the Church has always taught, even if the highest authorities in the Church should try to deceive us by language about a new teaching regarding faith and morals, especially about a new teaching on Christ Himself, on His Mystical Body, the Church, and on the Holy Eucharist and Holy Orders. It will be helpful to remember the exhortation of Saint Paul to the first Christians at Galatia:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel – not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.[6]
There are those who would have us doubt the only font of eternal life for us; they would have us question the truth of God’s promise of eternal salvation in His holy Church; they would have us give way to doubt, to grow weak in hope. But we know that Jesus Christ Who has consecrated us as His brothers in the priestly mission of pastoral charity is the Lord of Heaven and Earth. In times of temptation and trial, we turn to Him Who alone can save us and bring us securely to our eternal destiny. Let us never cease to be His disciples, students of His truth and love who never tire of deepening their understanding of the unchanging truths regarding faith and morals.
Thirdly, in our fidelity to Christ and to the Church as He called it into being, let us never lose respect for the Successor of Saint Peter, the Roman Pontiff, and the Successors of the Apostles, the Bishops. No matter how great may be the failings of individual men who exercise the Apostolic Office, let us never cease to recognize and honor the Apostolic Office itself and the irreplaceable service of those called to safeguard and hand on the truth and love of Christ, “the same yesterday and today and for ever.”[7]
Lastly, let us be faithful brothers to one another. We exercise our ministry in union with all who have been consecrated priests in Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest. We enjoy the intercession of the many saintly priests who have gone before us. Let us keep company with them through prayer. What is more, we as priests never act alone, in isolation, we act in Christ as His brothers and, therefore, as brothers to one another. Let us always keep in mind Saint Paul’s counsel to the early Christians, which pertains, in a particular way, to us priests:
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ… And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.[8]
Christ, from the very beginning of His Public Ministry, called together the Apostles[9] so that He might prepare them for the priestly consecration He conferred upon them at the Last Supper.[10] Today, fewer priests enjoy the fraternity of a common life, but all priests need to seek the fraternity of brother priests. When I reflect upon the almost 50 complete years of my priestly life and ministry, I am ever more grateful for the brothers in the seminary and in the ordained priesthood who have inspired me and helped me to be ever true to Christ’s call: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”[11]
Trusting fully in God’s promise of eternal life, let us lift up our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, opened for us in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and ready to pour forth into our hearts the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit. As Our Lord makes sacramentally present for us His Sacrifice on Calvary, let us with His Virgin Mother and Saint John, “the disciple whom he loved,”[12] place our hearts totally within His Most Sacred Heart pierced by the Roman soldier at His death. Let us lift our poor and sinful hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, ever open to receive us and to pour forth into our hearts the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, filling our hearts with wisdom and strength to be His faithful brothers in the Holy Priesthood and so to draw many souls to Him Who alone is their salvation.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] “… [O]n se souviendra à jamais que les charmes de la solitude et les douceurs de la contemplation ne surent le retenir au désert, et qu’il apparut tout à coup dans les rues d’Alexandrie, au fort de la persécution païenne, pour conforter les chrétiens dans le martyre. On n’oubliera pas non plus que, dans cette autre lutte plus terrible encore, aux jours affreux de l’Arianisme, il reparut dans la grande cité, pour y prêcher le Verbe consubstantiel au Père, pour y confesser la foi de Nicée, et pour soutenir le courage des orthodoxes.” Prosper Guéranger, L’Année liturgique, Le Temps de Noël, Tome II, 20ème éd. (Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils, 1923), p. 314. English translation: Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Christmas, Book II, Vol. 3 (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2000), 307.
[2] Mt 19, 25.
[3] Mt 19, 26.
[4] Eph 6, 12-13.
[5] Eph 6, 13. 18.
[6] Gal 1, 6-8.
[7] Heb 13, 8.
[8] Gal 6, 1-2. 9-10.
[9] Cf. Mt 4, 18-22; Mk 1, 16-20; Lk 5, 1-11; Jn 1, 35-51.
[10] Cf. Lk 22, 19; 1 Cor 11, 24-26.
[11] Mt 4, 19. Cf. Mk 1, 17; Lk 5, 10-11; Jn 1, 43.
[12] Jn 19, 26.
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