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Vigils Reading – St Anthony
January 17
HE KEPT HIS HEART WATCHFUL
From the writing of Nikiphorus the monk4
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Once two brothers were on their way to visit St Antony, but on the journey
their water gave out and one of them died and the other was near to dying.
Unable to go any further, he too lay down on the ground and awaited death. But
Antony, seated on the mountain, called two monks who happened to be with
him and said to them urgently, ‘Take a jar of water and go as fast as you can
along the road leading to Egypt: two men were on their way here, but one has
just died and the other will also die if you don’t hurry. This was revealed to me
as I was praying.’
The monks set off; and finding the one man dead they buried him, while
they revived the other with water and brought him to the elder. It was about a
day’s journey off. Should you ask why Antony did not speak before the first man
died, I would say that the question is inapt: the decision about death rested not
with Antony but with God, and He allowed the first man to die and sent a
revelation to St Antony about the second. The miracle happened to St Antony,
and to him alone, because while seated on the mountain he kept
his heart watchful, and so the Lord showed him what was happening a long way
off.
Do you see how through watchfulness of heart St Antony was able to
perceive God…? For it is in the heart that God manifests Himself to
the intellect…as fire that purifies the lover and then as light that illumines
the intellect and renders it godlike.
We cannot be reconciled with God and assimilated to Him unless we
first…enter into ourselves, in so far as this lies within our power. For the miracle
consists in tearing ourselves away from the distraction and vain concerns of the
world and in this way relentlessly seizing hold of the kingdom of heaven within
us
4 https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/philokalia/nikiphoros-the-monk-from-the-life-of-our-holy-father-
antony.html. Accessed: Jan. 11, 2024.9