Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot

Readings -- 1 Sm. 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1; Ps. 21:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Mk. 2:13-17.

Some Notes on Ordinary Time:

The joyful Christmas season ends on the Sunday after Epiphany, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 14 January of this year 2026. Then Ordinary Time begins and continues until Ash Wednesday (18 February), the beginning of the Season of Lent. Ordinary Time resumes after Pentecost Sunday with its 8th week, Monday, 25 May. It will end on 28 November, Saturday, the day before the 1st Sunday of Advent.

This year, Ordinary Time has 34 weeks. While the Christmas and Easter Seasons celebrate the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, Ordinary Time does not celebrate any particular aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, it celebrates the mystery of Christ in its fullness, especially on Sundays. It is called in Latin “Tempus per annum,” literally, “Time throughout the year.”

The word “ordinary” as used here comes from the ordinal numerals by which the weeks are identified or counted, from the 1st week of Ordinary Time in January to the 34th week toward the end of November. The liturgical color is green. The last Sunday of Ordinary Time this year is 22 November, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

Some Notes on St. Anthony, Abbot:

He is known by various names: Anthony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony the Hermit, and Anthony of Thebes. He was born of wealthy parents in Lower Egypt on 12 January 251 and died on 17 January 356 at the age of 105.

St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his biography. He is sometimes erroneously considered the 1st Christian monk; there were many ascetics before him. But he was among the first to go into the wilderness, the desert. He is invoked against infectious diseases. His life served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both East and West.

After his parents died, he gave away some of his family’s lands to his neighbors, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds to the poor. Placing his sister with a group of Christian virgins, he then left to live an ascetic life. He spent his first years as the disciple of another local hermit. While other ascetics lived in the outskirts of cities, he was the first to go into the desert, west of Alexandria, where he remained for 13 years. He ate only bread, salt, and water, never any meat or wine. He sometimes fasted through two and four days.

The devil fought him by afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and the images of seductive women. He was tempted with piles of gold and silver. He had conflicts with demons in the form of wild beasts (a satyr and a centaur) that sometimes left him nearly half dead. By the power of prayer, he resisted all temptations. At the age of 30, he went into absolute solitude to a mountain by the Nile. He lived in an abandoned Roman fort for some 20 years. Food was thrown to him over the walls.

Gradually a number of would-be disciples established themselves in caves and huts around the mountain. They begged Anthony to be their guide in the spiritual life and he did so about the year 305. After five years, he again withdrew into the desert and fixed his abode on Mt. Colzim, where still stands a monastery that bears his name. Here he spent the last 45 years of his life in relative seclusion.

During the Diocletian persecutions, he visited prisoners in Alexandria.

Though not the first ascetic or hermit, Anthony may properly be called the “Father of Monasticism,” as he organized his disciples into a community and inspired similar communities to be built throughout Egypt and elsewhere. Even Emperor Constantine requested prayers from him. In 338, he visited Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius.

He was closely associated with St. Paul of Thebes, who was regarded as the first Christian hermit. Before Anthony died, he gave his staff to Macarius of Egypt, a sheepskin cloak to St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and another cloak to his disciple, Serapion of Thmuis.

He was interred in a grave next to his cell. His remains were later transferred to Alexandria, then to Constantinople, and then to France where a building, Saint-Antoine-l’Abbaye, was erected in 1297 for his remains. His story influenced the conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. John Chrysostom. In the East, he is considered the “first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks.”

Prayer: O God, you brought the Abbot St. Anthony to serve you by a wondrous way of life in the desert. Grant, through his intercession, that, by denying ourselves, we may always love you above all things. This we pray, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord. Amen.