Today is the feast of St. Pachomius, Desert Father. We know a bit about him because he wrote the so-called Pachomian Koinonia (or, in St. Jerome's translation, Pachomiana latina). He was born of pagan parents in 292 in Egypt, was conscripted into the emperor's army, was dragged down the Nile in a service boat, and the only kindness shown him was by Christians. This disinterested kindness so impressed him, as soon as he was discharged he presented himself as a catechumen. After baptism he attached himself to a monk Palaemon, learned the way of the desert -- hard, cold and hungry as it was -- until he could do it himself and Palaemon went back to being a hermit. Pachomius went it alone for awhile until he had an angelic vision of founding a monastery, which he did in the Thebaid (desert) where he lived. He lived to see 3000 monks join him in the strict order. He grouped them by trade, had a list of 24 personality types (by letter of the Greek alphabet), enjoined silence on them most of the time and during communal meals, had each a cell and had them come together for worship every Saturday and Sunday. He died in 348 in the plague which hit the Thebaid hard. Here are some of his sayings.
As for you, my son, shun the satisfactions of this age, so as to be happy in the age to come.
Vanity is the devil's own weapon. This was how Eve was fooled; he told her, "Eat the fruit of the tree; your eyes will open and you will be like gods." (Gen 3:5) She listened, thinking it was the truth. She ran after the glory of divinity and her very humanity was taken away.
Become guileless and be like the guileless sheep whose wool is sheared off without their saying a word. Do not go from one place to another saying, "I will find God here or there." God has said, "I fill the earth, I fill the heavens."
And many, many others.
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