"we will experience times of great inner emptiness"

Last fall, I was invited to join a book club with some Benedictine oblates. This month’s selection was The Forgotten Desert Mothers written by one of the Benedictine sisters, Laura Swan.

As Swan writes in the preface, “Women’s history has often been relegated to the shadow world: felt but not seen. Many of our church fathers became prominent because of women. Many of these fathers were educated and supported by strong women, and some are even credited with founding movements that were actually begun by the women in their lives.”

Swan begins by outlining the cultural context of these women as well as a description of what is meant by desert spirituality. She then shares and comments on the sayings of more well-known desert mothers such as Syncletica and Theodora, and catalogues the brief biographies of nearly 40 lesser known women who chose this ascetic life.

Especially as we experience the liturgical desert of Lent, these women have much wisdom to share on humility, grief, anger, overindulgence, and self-awareness.  

“When I encountered the ammas,” Swan writes, “they made sense of the desert in my life.”