St Aidan, Lent, and the Wild Within
In Paul Kingsnorth’s recent article entitled ‘A Wild Christianity’, he reflects on the life of Irish monastics who fled from the world to live in the wild where they could fast, pray and give their lives unreservedly to Christ. He makes the argument that the lives of ‘cave saints’ in Ireland and beyond brought a depth of spirituality and faith that changed the history of the church because they retreated from the world and then returned to it to share the gospel. He goes on to note that their physical suffering and asceticism was crucial in their pursuit of theosis, or the process of becoming God-like through Christ. Following the first desert fathers and mothers who retreated to the wilderness where they could pray and become anchors for the world, the saints of the British Isles intentionally sought out the wild, uninhabited and inhospitable places to be free from distraction in their pursuit of Christ.
The thought of fleeing to a cave may seem daunting to some. Even a short time of solitude can seem unbearable as we are forced into a type of detox from the digital world and all its distractions. Many are also reluctant to leave the modern comforts and conveniences of our Western lifestyle. Electricity, running water, hot showers, wifi and our digital devices have become so enmeshed in our lives that we can barely think of living without them for a day. A retreat to the cave is probably what we all need, but is it possible to visit the wild whilst remaining in the ‘civilised world’?
[The Castle at Lindisfarne]
Millenia ago, the Israelites stood on the verge of entering the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. Moses knew of God’s covenant promise of blessing, joy and peace in the land, but he also understood that the Israelites might be led astray. God had offered his people a home where streams flowed, springs welled up, fruit trees blossom, vines, fig trees and olive trees hung heavy with fruit. The land offered the hope of daily bread, wine, and everything needed to satisfy his people. The land would be a place of safety where the Israelites could build houses, raise their families and live with their extended relatives. They could grow old with satisfaction and live in peace with the strangers and sojourners who came to dwell in their communities.
Yet with all the promises of blessing, Moses also issued a warning. He says to the Israelites that when you experience all the good things that have come from the hand of the Lord, ‘then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God’ (Deut 8.14). Moses goes on with further warnings against pride, arrogance, and boasting. ‘Do you not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today’ (Deut. 8.17-19). It’s as if Moses knew the inner spirit of the Israelites as he sums up what they might be tempted to think once they are settled and comfortable in the land. ‘Life is good and I am the one to thank. I’ve worked hard. I’ve earned it. All that I have has come from my own power.’ Moses knew the heart of the people and he understood the danger of becoming so comfortable and content that we soon forget that all good gifts come from God. He knew that we need the wilderness. He knew that the wild holds the potential to be a refining furnace for the body and soul. And he knew that the people might forget this when they grew too complacent in the land.
The ancient Israelites did not have a season like Lent in their liturgical calendar. They celebrated the day of atonement, or Yom Kippur, which included fasting and repentance (Lev. 23.26-32). Moses’s command to ‘deny yourself’ or ‘fast’ could be translated literally as, ‘you shall oppress your own soul’ (Lev. 23.27; cf. Ps. 35.15). The act of self- denial and abstaining from food and water, along with putting on sackcloth and ashes, were all physical ways to align the body with the spirit. Just as celebrations included wine, dancing, songs and feasting, so too did the absence of food reflect the spirit of repentance and suffering. Fasting was a reminder of the wilderness, the barrenness of the desert and the need to turn unreservedly back to God.
Fasting was not limited to Yom Kippur and throughout Israel’s history it was practiced periodically as a sign of repentance. But rather than a discipline of turning back to God, some Israelites turned it into an outward act that lacked an inward transformation. In a scathing condemnation the prophet Isaiah castigates those who fast and yet continue to live unjustly, fighting with their neighbors and oppressing the poor (Isa. 58.3-5). They have completely misunderstood the point of subjecting the body to hunger. They have disconnected the physical experience of the fast with its intended moral and ethical outcome.
Listen to the phrases used by the prophet as he describes what can happen through the simple act of fasting. ‘Lose the bonds of injustice’, ‘undo the thongs of the yoke’, ‘let the oppressed go free’ (Isa. 58.6). These are powerful images of liberation and release. The prophet uses the language of the God of Exodus, the mighty warrior who defeated the Egyptians and delivered his people from slavery.
Isaiah goes on to describe further effects that come when fasting is accompanied by a life of justice and righteousness. Once again we hear a succession of phrases that paint a picture of what hunger in our bodies is meant to produce in the life of faith. ‘Share your bread with the hungry’, ‘bring the homeless poor into your house’, ‘cover the naked’ (Isa. 58.7). These are all practical ways in which God’s people can live according to his commandments. We hear a distinct resonance of the prophet’s voice later in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew’s Gospel. Those invited to receive the kingdom of heaven are those who gave to the ‘least of these’ as if they were giving to Christ. ‘When I was hungry, you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcome to me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me’ (Matt. 25.35-36). What we witness in these scriptures is that the life of the faithful is not lived merely through private prayer and devotion. Rather, the physical experience of fasting is meant to transform how we respond to our neighbor with compassion and provision. The physical discipline becomes the catalyst for change in how we perceive, and have compassion on, our neighbour.
The early Christians continued in the Jewish tradition of fasting and prayer particularly during the season of Lent. Modeled after the forty days Christ spent fasting in the wilderness, believers embraced the time to repent and deny the body its normal daily bread. This offered Christians a physical means to follow Christ into the desert as they went about their daily work. Lent was a period that reminded Christians, like Moses did for Israel, not to get too comfortable in the world. We all need reminders of the wilderness in our daily lives lest we think that our work, our profits and our successes, all come by our own strength.
The disciplines of Lent are meant to help avoid the dangers of becoming too complacent in this world and relying on our own strength. Christian saints throughout the centuries have recognized the need of the wilderness and fasting not only during Lent, but as a way of life. They refused to be seduced by wealth and self-sufficiency but, instead, they chose lives that were continually exposed to hardship, difficulty, and often the harsh elements of the environment. They abstained from rich foods, fine clothing and comfortable houses because they wanted to be attuned to a different kingdom. They wanted to witness the kingdom of heaven and the fullness of God in the fields, the trees, the animals, the birds and in every man and woman.
One such saint was a man called Aidan who left his home of Ireland to become a monk on the small, inhospitable, island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. The monastic community had been established there by Columba when he left Ireland with twelve of his companions. Columba made frequent journeys from Iona to Ireland and Scotland to spread the good news of the gospel. It was at this wild and desolate place that Aidan chose to make his home and live out his faith among his brothers not knowing that that he would eventually be called to another ministry in Northern England.
Aidan lived among a generation of monks at Iona who sought to re-establish the Christian faith among the Anglo-Saxons. Early vestiges of Christianity from the Romans had faded and many had returned to their pagan ways. In a struggle for power in Northumbria, two princes fled to Iona for refuge and were baptised into the faith. One prince, Oswald, returned to Northumbria and became king. Having established his rule, Oswald requested that the brothers at Iona send him a bishop to help reestablish the Christian faith. The first monk failed miserably and so they sent Aidan who made his home on the rugged island of Lindisfarne which was not unlike his home at Iona. It was there that he was made bishop and entrusted with bringing the love of Christ back to the land.
The earliest record we have of Aidan’s life comes from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples where he describes the monk as gentle, patient, kind and merciful, especially to the pagans who had rejected Christian ways. Bede goes on to write that Aidan would ‘traverse both town and country on foot, never on horseback, unless he was compelled by urgent necessity; and wherever in his way, he saw any, either rich or poor, invited them, if infidels, to embrace the mystery of the faith.’ Bede describes how Aidan never accepted money for himself but when given anything, he immediately distributed it to the poor, paid ransoms to free slaves, many of whom became disciples while others were ordained as priests.
Aidan was also known for his ascetic life. The discipline and exposure he experienced on the small rocky island of Iona had become a part of his life, stripped bare of worldly pleasure. It is no wonder he chose the similar Lindisfarne to be his home in Northumbria. Bede also comments on how many were inspired by Aidan’s asceticism and adapted his custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, except during the season from Easter till Pentecost.
Aidan walked among the pagan Anglo-Saxons of his day, meeting with them, caring for their poor, setting slaves free, speaking to them in his own gentle spirit. He did all these things travelling on foot from the rocky shores of Lindisfarne. Aidan lived most of his life on the edges of the wild. Though his work in Northumbria would result in the building of churches and establishing a scholarly center at Lindisfarne (where we would get the Lindisfarne gospels), Aidan’s legacy was a life marked by generosity, love, compassion, and willingness to forgo the pleasures of this world so that he might share the message of Christ with others. His ascetic practices, his graciousness and warmth of spirit convinced so many in Northumbria that following Jesus was truly a better way to live.
There is something about Aidan and his life on the edges of the wilderness that bring us back to Moses’s words to the Israelites. Aidan, and many other saints, forsook the physical comforts of this world and often sought out physical discomfort for the sake of refinement and purification. Aidan understood Moses’s warning that rings clear through the book of Deuteronomy and, indeed, the rest of the Bible – that ethical righteousness is intimately bound to our physical experience in the world. What we experience in our bodies shapes and changes in how we respond in our faith.
What Moses, Isaiah and Aidan understood is that our moral lives and character are formed by our physical experiences in the world. By abstaining from food we move our bodies from a state of comfort to discomfort. The feeling of hunger, the growling of the stomach, the lack of energy, the possible headaches, or unclarity of thought, are all critical in helping shape how we respond to others with compassion and empathy. Fasting leads us to a place where we are no longer in control, where we no longer dictate the terms of our engagement with the world and where we, as it were, step into the wild and entrust ourselves to God’s provision.
Sadly, as Isaiah witnessed, fasting can also be detrimental if the connection between our ethical lives is severed from our faith and religious practice. Like any discipline, fasting can become something detestable to God if it does not produce the fruit of the Spirit and does not cultivate things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness. Though some Protestant traditions associate fasting with ‘works’, as if trying to gain bonus points with God, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Fasting has been a part of faith since ancient times and is a Christian discipline emphasised in Lent that reminds us of our need to go back to the wilderness and not become complacent in this world.
Aidan walked the lands of Northumbria so that he could meet people face-to-face, share his possessions and tell them about the love of Christ. If he was frequently fasting, it is likely that he walked slowly as he attuned himself to the rhythms and the people in the world around him. Though his body was depleted of energy, his heart and mind were sharpened to the glory of God shining through all things. Lent is a healthy reminder for all Christians not to become too comfortable in this world. It reminds us of our need to get back to the wilderness, to fast, to care for those in need and to learn how the disciplines of the body help refine and shape the soul.
About the Author
Mark W. Scarlata is lecturer in Old Testament at St Mellitus College, London. He is also the vicar-chaplain of St Edward, King and Martyr and the director of the St Edward’s Institute for Christian Thought. He has recently published, A Journey through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice and the Rock Badger (Cascade, 2021) and will soon publish The Theology of Leviticus in the Cambridge University Press Old Testament Theology series. He has also written on the Sabbath (Sabbath Rest: The Beauty of God’s Rhythm for a Digital Age, 2019) and a theological commentary on Exodus (The Abiding Presence, 2017).