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To Love as God Loves: Conversations with the Early Church
Being a Christian means learning to love with God's love. But God's love is not a warm feeling in the pit of the stomach. It has definite characteristics we learn in the course of our life, in the behavior and teaching of the early monastics, as we ponder over what we can say about God as God deals with us, and finally, as we model our own lives on what we have learned.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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January 4, 2022
It might be too dramatic to say the this is the book on the Christian life I have been waiting for my whole life, but it’s close to the truth.
In this short book, Bondi introduces modern American Christians (mostly Protestants, who tend to have less of a connection to any historical Christianity before 1517) to the teachings of the desert fathers. Although this was published four decades ago, her insights into how Christianity tends to be taught ring true to my experiences. Little did I know, the ancient monastics addressed much of the struggle, guilt, and frustration I’ve had in trying to figure out how to live as a Christian. I'm so grateful to Bondi for making me aware of my rich heritage.
This book uses the writings of the desert fathers to answer the question: What is the point or goal of the Christian life? What exactly are we called to do? The answer is there in the title: love as God loves. Bondi explains just what she—or rather, the ancient monastics—means by love and then explores what helps us do this (chiefly, humility, prayer, and a right perception of God) and what hinders us (the passions). These words are ones we’ve heard before, but their definitions according to the desert fathers are radical and freeing.
Before I sketch out those definitions, I must note one of my favorite things about the book overall. Echoing the early Christians, Bondi emphasizes that there is no one right way to live the Christian life. At least, there is no one specific vocation, set of disciplines, temperament, etc. that enables every person to love. As Bondi says, “People are different from each other; what keeps me from being able to love is probably very different from what hinders you. what corrects my lack of love may only make your situation worse.” She therefore encourages readers to take what is helpful from the writings of the monastics and leave what is not. Within the guardrails of the high calling to imitate God's love, there is great flexibility. This is something that, for all their many faults, I think Western individualism and the influence of postmodernism have recaptured.
Now, love. Bondi begins by quoting the two great commandments to love God and to love others. This love she contrasts with legalism and with “pious behavior or Christian discipline.” As she says, “the goal of the Christian life is love; it is not to acquire a set of personal qualities, such as truthfulness. Humility makes it possible to distinguish between legalism and love. It makes us flexible. It puts heart into truthfulness. It makes our forgiveness of ourselves and others possible.”
Before I get to humility I want to touch on one of my favorite sections: Bondi’s discussion of perfection. I have long believed that there is some moral standard we are supposed to reach as Christians and that if we don't we are failing. It's hard for me to dismiss this completely as a lie because, after all, aren't we called to be holy as God is holy? I'm still not entirely sure what the “be holy as I am holy” verse means, but Bondi completely dismantles the idea that God wants us to be without fault at some static level of moral achievement. She says:
The term “perfect” suggests, to us modern people, a state of being which allows for no improvement.…Yet when, except at death, would a person be so complete that we could say “that person is perfect”? People are always changing; that is the basic human condition.
…
Our growing love is a continuous movement into God's love, as the ancient Christian writers say. But because God's love is without limit, and because being human means sharing in the image of God, we can never in our human love reach the limit of our ability to love. This means that though we made love fully at any one moment, it is not perfect love unless that love continues to grow. “For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing towards what is better and never placing any limit on perfection” (Gr. OP, p. 122). That we can never “arrive,” then, is cause for celebration, not despair, because it grows out of our likeness to God.
So perfection is not a status level, like in a videogame. It is is a journey of ever-increasing love—it is C. S. Lewis’s wonderful cry of “further up and further in!” Of course we can decrease in love, but instead of that meaning we have lost what we achieved and are back at square one, we know that this is part of the messy journey and that the second we ask for help and try again to love, that is the best thing we can do. That is perfection.
That idea itself was worth the whole read for me, but it gets better. Bondi next addresses humility. It is fundamental to our ability to practice love. She stresses that Christian humility is not a self-effacing permission for others to walk all over you; humility is not remaining silent in the face of injustice. Rather, it has to do with how we view those around us:
Humility meant to them a way of seeing other people as being as valuable in God's eyes as ourselves. It was for them a relational term having to do precisely with learning to value others, whoever they were. It had to do with developing the kind of empathy with the weaknesses of others that made it impossible to judge others out of our own self-righteousness.…It was an attitude of the heart without which the virtues had no Christian context.
One of the quotes that has stuck with me most is something the monastics said when they saw someone sin: “He today, I tomorrow.” Humility is recognizing how terribly close to the pit we all are, how likely it is that we will fall into the same error we see others committing. It's easy to see how this transforms how we treat other people and cultivates love when there is no longer room for self-righteousness or merciless condemnation. Some of her points made me a bit uncomfortable, like how the monks would sometimes protect people from the consequences of their sin. Is that taking this too far? Is that truly loving? But I want to ponder the idea more.
Next, Bondi discusses the opposite of humility, that which prevents us from loving: the passions. The passions are attitudes, thought patterns, or physical habits that distort how we see God and other people. When we do not understand who God is and when we do not view others as his precious creatures, there is no way we can love them. She breaks down some of the “deadly sins,” describing how each one distorts our perception of God and others. I'd heard of some of these things before, like gluttony or pride, but others were new to me, like acedia. All of them she defined in ways I hadn't considered before.
There were two especially helpful aspects of her description of the passions. First was her warning about how small sins lead to greater full-blown passions: “the great and seemingly uncontrollable passions do not start out ready-made. They begin with small things that we tell ourselves do not matter: a general snappishness toward family members when we have had a hard day, a sense of self-satisfaction when someone we do not care for it gets what is coming to them.” (Oof.)
Second was her explanation that God has no passions, according to this definition, and that this should be a comfort for us.
Because God is without passions, we need not stand in God's presence in fear. The passions of pride and anger, fear of the future, even the passion of vainglory have no place in God….Because God is without passions, God does not see us through a haze of uncontrollable longing that warps even eternal vision. God sees us, and God loves us utterly, as we are loved by no one else.
This leads to her discussion of prayer, which I found astonishingly helpful. Like many people, prayer is hard for me. I often don't want to do it and when I do it, I overthink it. Drawing from the monastics, she offers some helpful ideas on praying with words and without words, but I think this was the most eye-opening passage for me:
We have to set aside any idea that we must be in a good or holy frame of mind in the presence of God. We must be willing to pray when we feel mean or distracted or seriously tempted and even have the intention of giving into the temptation. We must place ourselves trustfully or even distrustfully in God's presence exactly as we are. We must relate to God in our prayer with our whole selves, and not only with our good parts. For most of us, relating to God in this way is something we have to learn over a long time. Not getting discouraged as we grow is itself an act of humility.
There are two final gems I found in this book: The first is Bondi’s emphasis that all of this—loving as God loves, cultivating humility, praying deeply, fighting the passions—is supposed to take a long time. Our whole lives, in fact. She says, “We must not let ourselves for one minute think that Christian love is something that arises in our heart as a gift of God's grace from the moment we become Christian or we set ourselves up for despair or hypocrisy. Love is the goal of the Christian life.”
That is liberating.
Second and last, Bondi argues that this idea of love and its centrality to the Christian life prohibits us from a theology of strength. That is my phrase to describe anytime we ascribe moral value to qualities like physical strength, health, mental capacity, social skills, status or success or even spiritual sensitivity. Some of these things you can work to increase and some you cannot. Either way, they should not be the goal of a Christians (good though they may be as sub-priorities). Too often, I see Christians (including myself) elevating such attributes too highly and judging others according to these standards. If the goal is to love others because they are the image of God and loved by him—and to love others only because of that—then we will not fall into this idolatrous meritocracy.
This was long, but I think the book deserves it. (This is mostly for me anyway, to record and remember what I learned.) It's a quick read and available on Kindle, and I highly recommend to anyone who has ever wondered what exactly this Christian life is supposed to be.
In this short book, Bondi introduces modern American Christians (mostly Protestants, who tend to have less of a connection to any historical Christianity before 1517) to the teachings of the desert fathers. Although this was published four decades ago, her insights into how Christianity tends to be taught ring true to my experiences. Little did I know, the ancient monastics addressed much of the struggle, guilt, and frustration I’ve had in trying to figure out how to live as a Christian. I'm so grateful to Bondi for making me aware of my rich heritage.
This book uses the writings of the desert fathers to answer the question: What is the point or goal of the Christian life? What exactly are we called to do? The answer is there in the title: love as God loves. Bondi explains just what she—or rather, the ancient monastics—means by love and then explores what helps us do this (chiefly, humility, prayer, and a right perception of God) and what hinders us (the passions). These words are ones we’ve heard before, but their definitions according to the desert fathers are radical and freeing.
Before I sketch out those definitions, I must note one of my favorite things about the book overall. Echoing the early Christians, Bondi emphasizes that there is no one right way to live the Christian life. At least, there is no one specific vocation, set of disciplines, temperament, etc. that enables every person to love. As Bondi says, “People are different from each other; what keeps me from being able to love is probably very different from what hinders you. what corrects my lack of love may only make your situation worse.” She therefore encourages readers to take what is helpful from the writings of the monastics and leave what is not. Within the guardrails of the high calling to imitate God's love, there is great flexibility. This is something that, for all their many faults, I think Western individualism and the influence of postmodernism have recaptured.
Now, love. Bondi begins by quoting the two great commandments to love God and to love others. This love she contrasts with legalism and with “pious behavior or Christian discipline.” As she says, “the goal of the Christian life is love; it is not to acquire a set of personal qualities, such as truthfulness. Humility makes it possible to distinguish between legalism and love. It makes us flexible. It puts heart into truthfulness. It makes our forgiveness of ourselves and others possible.”
Before I get to humility I want to touch on one of my favorite sections: Bondi’s discussion of perfection. I have long believed that there is some moral standard we are supposed to reach as Christians and that if we don't we are failing. It's hard for me to dismiss this completely as a lie because, after all, aren't we called to be holy as God is holy? I'm still not entirely sure what the “be holy as I am holy” verse means, but Bondi completely dismantles the idea that God wants us to be without fault at some static level of moral achievement. She says:
The term “perfect” suggests, to us modern people, a state of being which allows for no improvement.…Yet when, except at death, would a person be so complete that we could say “that person is perfect”? People are always changing; that is the basic human condition.
…
Our growing love is a continuous movement into God's love, as the ancient Christian writers say. But because God's love is without limit, and because being human means sharing in the image of God, we can never in our human love reach the limit of our ability to love. This means that though we made love fully at any one moment, it is not perfect love unless that love continues to grow. “For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing towards what is better and never placing any limit on perfection” (Gr. OP, p. 122). That we can never “arrive,” then, is cause for celebration, not despair, because it grows out of our likeness to God.
So perfection is not a status level, like in a videogame. It is is a journey of ever-increasing love—it is C. S. Lewis’s wonderful cry of “further up and further in!” Of course we can decrease in love, but instead of that meaning we have lost what we achieved and are back at square one, we know that this is part of the messy journey and that the second we ask for help and try again to love, that is the best thing we can do. That is perfection.
That idea itself was worth the whole read for me, but it gets better. Bondi next addresses humility. It is fundamental to our ability to practice love. She stresses that Christian humility is not a self-effacing permission for others to walk all over you; humility is not remaining silent in the face of injustice. Rather, it has to do with how we view those around us:
Humility meant to them a way of seeing other people as being as valuable in God's eyes as ourselves. It was for them a relational term having to do precisely with learning to value others, whoever they were. It had to do with developing the kind of empathy with the weaknesses of others that made it impossible to judge others out of our own self-righteousness.…It was an attitude of the heart without which the virtues had no Christian context.
One of the quotes that has stuck with me most is something the monastics said when they saw someone sin: “He today, I tomorrow.” Humility is recognizing how terribly close to the pit we all are, how likely it is that we will fall into the same error we see others committing. It's easy to see how this transforms how we treat other people and cultivates love when there is no longer room for self-righteousness or merciless condemnation. Some of her points made me a bit uncomfortable, like how the monks would sometimes protect people from the consequences of their sin. Is that taking this too far? Is that truly loving? But I want to ponder the idea more.
Next, Bondi discusses the opposite of humility, that which prevents us from loving: the passions. The passions are attitudes, thought patterns, or physical habits that distort how we see God and other people. When we do not understand who God is and when we do not view others as his precious creatures, there is no way we can love them. She breaks down some of the “deadly sins,” describing how each one distorts our perception of God and others. I'd heard of some of these things before, like gluttony or pride, but others were new to me, like acedia. All of them she defined in ways I hadn't considered before.
There were two especially helpful aspects of her description of the passions. First was her warning about how small sins lead to greater full-blown passions: “the great and seemingly uncontrollable passions do not start out ready-made. They begin with small things that we tell ourselves do not matter: a general snappishness toward family members when we have had a hard day, a sense of self-satisfaction when someone we do not care for it gets what is coming to them.” (Oof.)
Second was her explanation that God has no passions, according to this definition, and that this should be a comfort for us.
Because God is without passions, we need not stand in God's presence in fear. The passions of pride and anger, fear of the future, even the passion of vainglory have no place in God….Because God is without passions, God does not see us through a haze of uncontrollable longing that warps even eternal vision. God sees us, and God loves us utterly, as we are loved by no one else.
This leads to her discussion of prayer, which I found astonishingly helpful. Like many people, prayer is hard for me. I often don't want to do it and when I do it, I overthink it. Drawing from the monastics, she offers some helpful ideas on praying with words and without words, but I think this was the most eye-opening passage for me:
We have to set aside any idea that we must be in a good or holy frame of mind in the presence of God. We must be willing to pray when we feel mean or distracted or seriously tempted and even have the intention of giving into the temptation. We must place ourselves trustfully or even distrustfully in God's presence exactly as we are. We must relate to God in our prayer with our whole selves, and not only with our good parts. For most of us, relating to God in this way is something we have to learn over a long time. Not getting discouraged as we grow is itself an act of humility.
There are two final gems I found in this book: The first is Bondi’s emphasis that all of this—loving as God loves, cultivating humility, praying deeply, fighting the passions—is supposed to take a long time. Our whole lives, in fact. She says, “We must not let ourselves for one minute think that Christian love is something that arises in our heart as a gift of God's grace from the moment we become Christian or we set ourselves up for despair or hypocrisy. Love is the goal of the Christian life.”
That is liberating.
Second and last, Bondi argues that this idea of love and its centrality to the Christian life prohibits us from a theology of strength. That is my phrase to describe anytime we ascribe moral value to qualities like physical strength, health, mental capacity, social skills, status or success or even spiritual sensitivity. Some of these things you can work to increase and some you cannot. Either way, they should not be the goal of a Christians (good though they may be as sub-priorities). Too often, I see Christians (including myself) elevating such attributes too highly and judging others according to these standards. If the goal is to love others because they are the image of God and loved by him—and to love others only because of that—then we will not fall into this idolatrous meritocracy.
This was long, but I think the book deserves it. (This is mostly for me anyway, to record and remember what I learned.) It's a quick read and available on Kindle, and I highly recommend to anyone who has ever wondered what exactly this Christian life is supposed to be.
April 29, 2009
I'm working my way through this with joy, tears, laughter, and timidity, for the end is drawing nigh all too quickly. Roberta Bondi frustrates me only in the fact that she is Professor Emiritus at the Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta. If she remained there, I know where I'd be going back to school and whom I would be working to study with.
A gorgeous, historically deep, and formationally thoughtful work concerning the understandings, thoughts, and praxis of the Desert Fathers and early Church. Recommended swiftly and without hesitation to those who desire to have a refreshed and vital newness in their thinking/prayer concerning humility, love, Christian perfection, and living this life as toward and in emulation of Christ.
A gorgeous, historically deep, and formationally thoughtful work concerning the understandings, thoughts, and praxis of the Desert Fathers and early Church. Recommended swiftly and without hesitation to those who desire to have a refreshed and vital newness in their thinking/prayer concerning humility, love, Christian perfection, and living this life as toward and in emulation of Christ.
February 28, 2021
Amazing little book, that is super dense with history (breakdown of writings of the early Christians, many who lived in the dessert), theology and practical insights of truly living this Christian life. Best to be read slow and thoughtful.
I often too quickly read through books on faith because they are often written in terms I've heard my whole life. This book caused me to slow down and consider what she was writing because it was a little different. Highly recommended, especially the part on humility and prayer including one of the best thoughts on historical and current views of Psalms.
I often too quickly read through books on faith because they are often written in terms I've heard my whole life. This book caused me to slow down and consider what she was writing because it was a little different. Highly recommended, especially the part on humility and prayer including one of the best thoughts on historical and current views of Psalms.
June 18, 2020
This will now be my go-to book to hand to people who want to learn about prayer, ask what I believe, or want to start their spiritual journey. Clear, engaging, nearly flawless. I am grateful this book exists.
October 19, 2017
Very powerful book. The chapter on humility alone is worth recommending this book. I can tell this will be a book that I read and re-read.
January 5, 2023
First the positive things about the book. The author rightly points out the essential need for Christians to have Christian community, Christian friends and Christian accountability partners. Even mentors, or what some would call disciplers. She rightly emphasizes the importance of humility as a Christian virtue and how it can facilitate Christian mutual edification and love. So, there are those and a few other nuggets of gold in the book.
Now for the negatives.
When citing early Christian statements the author has a very limited sample size and seems to often commit confirmation bias in citations (apparently) in order to promote her own preconceived notions about Christian virtues and approaches to sanctification and interpersonal relationships. I also get the feeling that she's quote mining to support her own already formulated theology.
When quoting early Christians she favors monastic Christians whose knowledge of Scripture was very limited and lived in obscure places rather than the more well known and more influential Christian teachers who knew the Scriptures fairly well. Why weren't famous church fathers like Augustine, Irenaeus, Ignatius, the Cappadocian fathers (the two Gregorys and Basil) [et al.] quoted? If I recall correctly, Augustine is mentioned only once.
Her quotations of the monastic Christians just goes to show how bad theology, bad orthopraxy and bad orthopathy happens when Christians don't know the Bible. The quotes show what happens when theology, ethics and counselling is done in a way not securely grounded in Scripture. The early Christians she cites are ignorant of biblical law, biblical ethics, biblical motivations, biblical definitions of love, the doctrine of the glory and dignity of God, of biblical justice, mercy, grace, and the distinction and difference between the doctrines of forensic/legal justification and practical sanctification.
Here's an example. On page 49 it says:
//Some of the stories are shocking to us–as they would have been to our own ancient counterparts:
Abba Alonius said to Abba Agathon: "Suppose two men committed murder in your presence and one of them fled to your cell. When the police, coming in search of him, ask you, 'Is the murderer with you?' unless you lie, you hand him over to execution." (Apoth., Alonius 4, p. 35)
The point of this story is not to say that murder is unimportant, for it certainly is. Its true meaning is illustrated by another saying that we meet in Isaac Nineveh.....//
Notice how Biblically ignorant Abba Alonius is of Biblical law and justice in his attempt to teach and promote love. If he really loved people, he'd teach people to make sure murderers don't get away to murder even more people.
The author assumes along with those Biblically ignorant early Christians she cites that God's love must be the EXACT kind God requires of us for each other. Also, that the kind of love that we ought to have for one another is the same EXACT kind of love that God has for humans. When the truth is that God's love and self-imposed duties are not exactly the same as those He demands of His creaures. Moreover, God has prerogatives we creatures don't. While there is a sense in which God loves all humans, not all humans are in a redemptive loving relationship with God and therefore are not fully accepted by God until they have received God's offer of salvation in the Gospel. Because of that, she downplays the Biblical doctrines of God's attitude toward the impenitent and unbelieving. Which is a disposition of disapproval. Not, as she says, of God loving all humans "as they are."
The author and those she cites have no clear distinction between non-Christians and Christians. As if we should expect Christians to love non-Christians in the same way they love their fellow Christians. Non-Christians who don't have the same worldview and so have different motivations and life goals and ethics. That's a recipe for destroying people. If you affirm someone in his (or her) sins and vices, you're making his situation worse. Because the monastics lived in Christian communities [often isolated from non-Christians], they had an under-developed doctrine of how to treat and love non-Christians. Again, what they teach can't always apply to non-Christians. Yet, Bondi conflates all of that into one approach. Maybe Bondi's selective citation doesn't show us the more nuanced and closer to the more truly Christian attitudes these early monastics might have had toward non-Christians.
Both the early Christians Bondi cites and (apparently) she herself have an under-developed doctrine of fallen human nature that's sinful. Their and her theology seem to border on the heresy of Semi-Pelagianism. Also, some of Bondi's comments seem speculative and at times would seem to go beyond what the early Christians she favors citing would have actually said. If so, then she sometimes presents her own views as if they are coming from [or would come from] those early Christians. And so I get the impression that Bondi is superimposing and putting into the mouths of those early Christians her own ideas of God, love, ethics et cetera.
Now for the negatives.
When citing early Christian statements the author has a very limited sample size and seems to often commit confirmation bias in citations (apparently) in order to promote her own preconceived notions about Christian virtues and approaches to sanctification and interpersonal relationships. I also get the feeling that she's quote mining to support her own already formulated theology.
When quoting early Christians she favors monastic Christians whose knowledge of Scripture was very limited and lived in obscure places rather than the more well known and more influential Christian teachers who knew the Scriptures fairly well. Why weren't famous church fathers like Augustine, Irenaeus, Ignatius, the Cappadocian fathers (the two Gregorys and Basil) [et al.] quoted? If I recall correctly, Augustine is mentioned only once.
Her quotations of the monastic Christians just goes to show how bad theology, bad orthopraxy and bad orthopathy happens when Christians don't know the Bible. The quotes show what happens when theology, ethics and counselling is done in a way not securely grounded in Scripture. The early Christians she cites are ignorant of biblical law, biblical ethics, biblical motivations, biblical definitions of love, the doctrine of the glory and dignity of God, of biblical justice, mercy, grace, and the distinction and difference between the doctrines of forensic/legal justification and practical sanctification.
Here's an example. On page 49 it says:
//Some of the stories are shocking to us–as they would have been to our own ancient counterparts:
Abba Alonius said to Abba Agathon: "Suppose two men committed murder in your presence and one of them fled to your cell. When the police, coming in search of him, ask you, 'Is the murderer with you?' unless you lie, you hand him over to execution." (Apoth., Alonius 4, p. 35)
The point of this story is not to say that murder is unimportant, for it certainly is. Its true meaning is illustrated by another saying that we meet in Isaac Nineveh.....//
Notice how Biblically ignorant Abba Alonius is of Biblical law and justice in his attempt to teach and promote love. If he really loved people, he'd teach people to make sure murderers don't get away to murder even more people.
The author assumes along with those Biblically ignorant early Christians she cites that God's love must be the EXACT kind God requires of us for each other. Also, that the kind of love that we ought to have for one another is the same EXACT kind of love that God has for humans. When the truth is that God's love and self-imposed duties are not exactly the same as those He demands of His creaures. Moreover, God has prerogatives we creatures don't. While there is a sense in which God loves all humans, not all humans are in a redemptive loving relationship with God and therefore are not fully accepted by God until they have received God's offer of salvation in the Gospel. Because of that, she downplays the Biblical doctrines of God's attitude toward the impenitent and unbelieving. Which is a disposition of disapproval. Not, as she says, of God loving all humans "as they are."
The author and those she cites have no clear distinction between non-Christians and Christians. As if we should expect Christians to love non-Christians in the same way they love their fellow Christians. Non-Christians who don't have the same worldview and so have different motivations and life goals and ethics. That's a recipe for destroying people. If you affirm someone in his (or her) sins and vices, you're making his situation worse. Because the monastics lived in Christian communities [often isolated from non-Christians], they had an under-developed doctrine of how to treat and love non-Christians. Again, what they teach can't always apply to non-Christians. Yet, Bondi conflates all of that into one approach. Maybe Bondi's selective citation doesn't show us the more nuanced and closer to the more truly Christian attitudes these early monastics might have had toward non-Christians.
Both the early Christians Bondi cites and (apparently) she herself have an under-developed doctrine of fallen human nature that's sinful. Their and her theology seem to border on the heresy of Semi-Pelagianism. Also, some of Bondi's comments seem speculative and at times would seem to go beyond what the early Christians she favors citing would have actually said. If so, then she sometimes presents her own views as if they are coming from [or would come from] those early Christians. And so I get the impression that Bondi is superimposing and putting into the mouths of those early Christians her own ideas of God, love, ethics et cetera.
September 25, 2023
A friend and mentor of mine, Brian Logan, who modeled a vibrant and winsome Christianity, recommended a book I’d never heard of, Roberta Bondi’s “To Love as God Loves.”
Bondi, while struggling with faith, came across the desert fathers and mothers, and in them found exemplars of a beautiful faith. They did not see their self-development as the goal but rather “perfection.” They understood perfection, however, not as an inhuman sinlessness, but rather as becoming great lovers. Love, after all, is not the grim work of a self-righteousness project, but rather taking delight in God, others, and creation.
This had many interesting effects, one was to define humility not as some kind of self-deprecating false inferiority, but rather as knowing that other human beings are as valuable in God’s eyes as ourselves. As we grow closer to God, we experience God’s purifying love for “God’s images” (other people) and a sense of our forgiveness, and thus any contempt we have for the sins and weaknesses of the other others fades. Humility is not self-abnegation, but a type of self-care because it is through the love of God and others that we love our “own souls.”
Another effect is that it expands the meaning of the word “grace.” Grace is not just forgiveness for our wrongdoings, but rather the power to live into that for which we were created—love. Understood this way, we invite God’s work of grace in us through the difficult disciplines of inner discipline, prayer, and work. Prestige, status, and money are relinquished since they almost always come at the expense of others, especially the poor. The desert fathers and mothers retreated from the usual societal arrangements and created a network of reciprocal lovers.
These students of love believed that since we are made to desire love, what gets in the way of this are desires for other things that compete with our truest need. These passions include things like gluttony, avarice (meaning an unwillingness to share resources with others; ouch!), impurity, depression/sadness, acedia, vainglory, and pride. Some of these may seem prudish or old-fashioned, but as Bondi dives into their meanings, they’re still relevant.
With gluttony, for instance, she defines it as “desire for a lot of unnecessary variety in food.” It got me to thinking about the time I invest in making meals for myself. Vainglory is “liking praise or recognition, or needing to be liked so much that our actions are determined by our need.” None of these impediments to love can be vanquished with a quick fix but rooting them out over time can clear the way for love.
Bondi concludes the book with meditations on prayer and God. Prayer is not mostly a list of petitions. Rather, prayer means spending time with, and getting to know, the God who is all love. This God is not a white-haired, lightening-throwing cousin of Zeus, but a God who is surprisingly humble. God is not coercing us in any way or using heavy-handed tactics. Rather God showed us the way of love in Jesus, with all its joy and cost, and invites us to live God’s life of love as part of Christ’s body now.
Bondi, while struggling with faith, came across the desert fathers and mothers, and in them found exemplars of a beautiful faith. They did not see their self-development as the goal but rather “perfection.” They understood perfection, however, not as an inhuman sinlessness, but rather as becoming great lovers. Love, after all, is not the grim work of a self-righteousness project, but rather taking delight in God, others, and creation.
This had many interesting effects, one was to define humility not as some kind of self-deprecating false inferiority, but rather as knowing that other human beings are as valuable in God’s eyes as ourselves. As we grow closer to God, we experience God’s purifying love for “God’s images” (other people) and a sense of our forgiveness, and thus any contempt we have for the sins and weaknesses of the other others fades. Humility is not self-abnegation, but a type of self-care because it is through the love of God and others that we love our “own souls.”
Another effect is that it expands the meaning of the word “grace.” Grace is not just forgiveness for our wrongdoings, but rather the power to live into that for which we were created—love. Understood this way, we invite God’s work of grace in us through the difficult disciplines of inner discipline, prayer, and work. Prestige, status, and money are relinquished since they almost always come at the expense of others, especially the poor. The desert fathers and mothers retreated from the usual societal arrangements and created a network of reciprocal lovers.
These students of love believed that since we are made to desire love, what gets in the way of this are desires for other things that compete with our truest need. These passions include things like gluttony, avarice (meaning an unwillingness to share resources with others; ouch!), impurity, depression/sadness, acedia, vainglory, and pride. Some of these may seem prudish or old-fashioned, but as Bondi dives into their meanings, they’re still relevant.
With gluttony, for instance, she defines it as “desire for a lot of unnecessary variety in food.” It got me to thinking about the time I invest in making meals for myself. Vainglory is “liking praise or recognition, or needing to be liked so much that our actions are determined by our need.” None of these impediments to love can be vanquished with a quick fix but rooting them out over time can clear the way for love.
Bondi concludes the book with meditations on prayer and God. Prayer is not mostly a list of petitions. Rather, prayer means spending time with, and getting to know, the God who is all love. This God is not a white-haired, lightening-throwing cousin of Zeus, but a God who is surprisingly humble. God is not coercing us in any way or using heavy-handed tactics. Rather God showed us the way of love in Jesus, with all its joy and cost, and invites us to live God’s life of love as part of Christ’s body now.
February 7, 2020
This is a short, simple companion to reading the desert fathers. Because the historical and cultural chasm that separates us from the desert fathers/mothers tradition, some of their practices and sayings can sound rather strange and bizzare. Bondi writes as an old friend to the tradition and gives some pointers to anyone with an open mind and heart to receive the gems of these ancient spiritual masters. Bondi advises us against absolutizing the desert fathers' sayings but instead to capture the essence of what they are driving at in some of their rather sometimes shocking statements. For example, the saying 'one hour of sleep a day is enough for the monk who is a fighter' probably goes against the basic rule of modern sleep hygiene. But, taken in context, it is aimed at subduing the body's many compulsions and indulgence so that the will is set free to love.
Indeed, the whole end of the desert fathers' many seemingly superhuman feats is not how far they can stretch their mortal bodies beyond normal breaking points but love. Hence, humility remains the main foundational virtue upon which the whole spiritual quest is built. It is really not in the heroic acts and death-defying stunts where love is nurtured but in the day-to-day small acts of service, hospitality and kindness.
The imagery of the sailboat is a helpful illustration of how the divine and the human come together in a beautiful synergy in the life of sanctification. Human efforts are like the steering of the sail whereas it is the powerful wind of God's grace that propels the boat forward. No desert fathers ever thought that one can make it on his own without the grace of God. Yet, few realize more than they the place of human co-operation and indeed struggles in the economy of real spiritual growth. Hence, even the murderer does not lie beyond the possibility of redemption in so far as he has the ability to cry out 'God, help me!' and yes, 'God has more pity on the murderer struggling to turn his heart and face to God than the thoughtless monk.'(loose paraphrase)
As for the approach to sanctification, Bondi identifies at least two prongs: the subduing of the 'passions' (understood here as the excessive and inordinate desires of the flesh) and a life of prayer. The discussion of the passions is done by giving a brief treatment of the classical seven deadly sins. Prayer is dealt with in the forms of the apophatic tradition - the wordless, imageless prayer of quiet - and the kataphatic tradition - using the psalms, a question, or imagery that reshapes our vision of God around biblical themes.
Overall, a short, easy companion that offers one helpful perspective and approach to harnessing the wisdom of the desert fathers, whose life's quest is to love as God does.
Indeed, the whole end of the desert fathers' many seemingly superhuman feats is not how far they can stretch their mortal bodies beyond normal breaking points but love. Hence, humility remains the main foundational virtue upon which the whole spiritual quest is built. It is really not in the heroic acts and death-defying stunts where love is nurtured but in the day-to-day small acts of service, hospitality and kindness.
The imagery of the sailboat is a helpful illustration of how the divine and the human come together in a beautiful synergy in the life of sanctification. Human efforts are like the steering of the sail whereas it is the powerful wind of God's grace that propels the boat forward. No desert fathers ever thought that one can make it on his own without the grace of God. Yet, few realize more than they the place of human co-operation and indeed struggles in the economy of real spiritual growth. Hence, even the murderer does not lie beyond the possibility of redemption in so far as he has the ability to cry out 'God, help me!' and yes, 'God has more pity on the murderer struggling to turn his heart and face to God than the thoughtless monk.'(loose paraphrase)
As for the approach to sanctification, Bondi identifies at least two prongs: the subduing of the 'passions' (understood here as the excessive and inordinate desires of the flesh) and a life of prayer. The discussion of the passions is done by giving a brief treatment of the classical seven deadly sins. Prayer is dealt with in the forms of the apophatic tradition - the wordless, imageless prayer of quiet - and the kataphatic tradition - using the psalms, a question, or imagery that reshapes our vision of God around biblical themes.
Overall, a short, easy companion that offers one helpful perspective and approach to harnessing the wisdom of the desert fathers, whose life's quest is to love as God does.
June 6, 2023
Love God and love others as we love ourselves. These, the greatest commandments of all, stand in contrast to the legalism of religion and the deconstruction of an internalised spirituality.
'The goal of the Christian life is love; it is not to acquire a set of personal qualities, such as truthfulness. Humility makes it possible to distinguish between legalism and love. It makes us flexible. It puts heart into truthfulness. It makes our forgiveness of ourselves and others possible.'
In an age where we feel the pressure to be and to feel perfect, Bondi's commentary on perfection connects with both the verb, to "make (something) completely free from faults or defects; make as good as possible" and the adjective, of "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be".
This impossibility cannot be what is asked of us - we are inconsistent and ever-changing, and yet we remain worthy of love.
Instead, Bondi suggests that it is an ever-growing capacity to love and be loved by leaning into God's love that is perfect. Because God's love is unlimited, unchanging, and ever present. As we are imago Dei - made in God's image - we too, can never reach the limit of our capacity to love when we are leaning into the One who IS love.
Perfection, then, is growth: 'For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing towards what is better and never placing any limit on perfection" (Gr. OP, p. 122). That we can never "arrive," then, is cause for celebration, not despair, because it grows out of our likeness to God.'
It would be great if more Biblical scripture was added to support Bondi's propositions, and that the book is modernized to account for further changes to our cultural understanding.
'The goal of the Christian life is love; it is not to acquire a set of personal qualities, such as truthfulness. Humility makes it possible to distinguish between legalism and love. It makes us flexible. It puts heart into truthfulness. It makes our forgiveness of ourselves and others possible.'
In an age where we feel the pressure to be and to feel perfect, Bondi's commentary on perfection connects with both the verb, to "make (something) completely free from faults or defects; make as good as possible" and the adjective, of "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be".
This impossibility cannot be what is asked of us - we are inconsistent and ever-changing, and yet we remain worthy of love.
Instead, Bondi suggests that it is an ever-growing capacity to love and be loved by leaning into God's love that is perfect. Because God's love is unlimited, unchanging, and ever present. As we are imago Dei - made in God's image - we too, can never reach the limit of our capacity to love when we are leaning into the One who IS love.
Perfection, then, is growth: 'For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing towards what is better and never placing any limit on perfection" (Gr. OP, p. 122). That we can never "arrive," then, is cause for celebration, not despair, because it grows out of our likeness to God.'
It would be great if more Biblical scripture was added to support Bondi's propositions, and that the book is modernized to account for further changes to our cultural understanding.
March 31, 2022
I trust Bondi's writing on love and humility because her own depth and practice of those very qualities seep from her words. Her charge to know oneself well springs from a voice that rings of years spent in prayerful introspection and study. Her fondness for the 2nd and 3rd century monks also shines through. It is a joyous and cheerful introduction she makes between her reader and the friends she's met in the pages of old tomes. All in all, I wish I could sit at Bondi's dinner table. If her cultivating spirit exudes from pages of a years old used book, then I marvel at what I could learn from her physical presence.
Bondi frames the path to love as the path of learning to see and balance our impulses. When we do this, we can see God, others, and ourselves more clearly, Bondi urges us onto greater freedom. Not freedom to do as our passions and desires crave at all times, but freedom to still act with love towards others despite our natural inclinations towards disgust or self-interest.
I will say that this book is old. Some of the dialogue on depression is certainly outdated and could use some contextualization with the developments in mental health made over the last 30-40 years. But overall, Roberta Bondi is a voice I trust. And it only saddens me that her voice is not as widely known as some of her male contemporaries who also wrote on christian discipleship practices.
Bondi frames the path to love as the path of learning to see and balance our impulses. When we do this, we can see God, others, and ourselves more clearly, Bondi urges us onto greater freedom. Not freedom to do as our passions and desires crave at all times, but freedom to still act with love towards others despite our natural inclinations towards disgust or self-interest.
I will say that this book is old. Some of the dialogue on depression is certainly outdated and could use some contextualization with the developments in mental health made over the last 30-40 years. But overall, Roberta Bondi is a voice I trust. And it only saddens me that her voice is not as widely known as some of her male contemporaries who also wrote on christian discipleship practices.
August 19, 2023
A view into the essence of Christianity through the eyes of the desert dwellers
This book is one of the best revelations of what Christianity was intended to be that I have ever read. Roberta Bondi does a masterful job of distilling the essence of the wisdom that the desert Mothers and Fathers had to offer through their radical lives and the wisdom that can sound so foreign and confusing to us today.
I could not give a stronger endorsement for this book.
This is a much needed perspective in today's Christian world and a great gift to anyone who is serious about wanting to truly be like Christ.
This book is one of the best revelations of what Christianity was intended to be that I have ever read. Roberta Bondi does a masterful job of distilling the essence of the wisdom that the desert Mothers and Fathers had to offer through their radical lives and the wisdom that can sound so foreign and confusing to us today.
I could not give a stronger endorsement for this book.
This is a much needed perspective in today's Christian world and a great gift to anyone who is serious about wanting to truly be like Christ.
February 26, 2018
I probably set the bar too high on this one.
The book’s title and cover caught my eye while perusing at the bookshop at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo.
To love as God loves? That’s what it’s all about, right? Someone could teach me how to do that?
Not enough of the desert fathers in here. Too much apologizing and defensiveness over the patriarchy. Got in the way of overall well meaning message of the book.
The book’s title and cover caught my eye while perusing at the bookshop at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo.
To love as God loves? That’s what it’s all about, right? Someone could teach me how to do that?
Not enough of the desert fathers in here. Too much apologizing and defensiveness over the patriarchy. Got in the way of overall well meaning message of the book.
May 10, 2018
Brilliant Introduction to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, so grateful to have seen the Saints that taught like Jesus did- so much to learn from our Christian past
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March 4, 2020Read in THEO 331 - BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY
March 28, 2021
Spiritually and sometimes intellectually challenging. A book that has helped me grow (I hope) and evolve.
November 10, 2014
A really good book that I would recommend. My first popular introduction to the desert fathers and mothers was Nouwen's Way of the Heart (1982). I think Bondi does a better job of making them relateable for today. The message about growing in love and what real humility is about, mastering the passions, and especially the last two chapters on prayer and God made the reading very worthwhile. I had the hardest time with the chapter on the passions because I see how far I have to go...
After reading this, to go further I suggest praying the Psalms as well as The Life of Antony (Athanasius), The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer (Evagrius Ponticus), The Life of Moses (Gregory of Nyssa) and The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Sebastian Brock). Bondi also has another book To Pray and to Love which I will work through soon.
After reading this, to go further I suggest praying the Psalms as well as The Life of Antony (Athanasius), The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer (Evagrius Ponticus), The Life of Moses (Gregory of Nyssa) and The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Sebastian Brock). Bondi also has another book To Pray and to Love which I will work through soon.
February 24, 2015
Having just finished reading this book for the third time, I am once again struck by the wisdom of the early Christian ascetics and the timeless nature of their lessons that Bondi emphasizes here. This is a beautiful book that not only introduces and acquaints the reader with the tradition of early Christian monasticism, but also provides spiritual and practical advice about how to cultivate love for God and others in the midst of contemporary challenges. Don't let the date of the book fool you, it is still relevant and helpful, even after thirty years in print. I highly recommend this book to those interested in the early church or interested in cultivating their own spirituality.
January 18, 2014
I have read this book a few times over the past few years. It is a quick read, but full of practical information that can be applied in ones own daily life. The book approaches ideas on how to love by looking at attitudes such as humbleness and the passions- both of which we tend to look at quite differently than how they are defined in this book. Early church fathers are used in this book as demonstration.
Each time I read this book I am reminded of where I am lacking in loving others and God as I should.
Each time I read this book I am reminded of where I am lacking in loving others and God as I should.
October 2, 2008
I gave it four stars only because some of the theology was a bit beyond my comfort level. It's not a thick book (few pages), but full of insight into a people I never knew existed. Who were these "desert mothers and fathers"? Why, they were the early Christian church, fled into the desert to avoid persecution. No one ever told me how the church came to be, or who the people were who carried the stories that ended up in our theological canon.
February 17, 2013
I was blessed to have the opportunity to read this volume and then share with others at the "Spirit Streams 2013 Retreat" led by Roberta Bondi. She is an AMAZING woman, Theologian,Historian, Leader, Teacher. This slim volume gives the reader a picture of Christianity before it became all about rules and the law, before the Inquisition. It is practical, and useful as a guide today for deepening one's spirituality as well as historically correct, written in an engaging style.
Currently reading
May 21, 2010The fleshing out of what Christian love is. The book is an introduction to the desert fathers. Written in a way that opens the reader into discussion with people from the early church. Even though these men and women lived at a very different time in history they had many of the problems that we deal with today.
May 20, 2016
This is a summary of the early desert monastics and their emphasis on love, humility and an explanation of 'The passions'. Bondi also describes kataphatic and apophatic prayer and how the two complement one another. Bondi's understanding of the dessert monastics brings to life a picture of people who were moving toward a loving God while simultaneously inspiring the reader in the same direction.
September 11, 2009
This is a great book. Roberta Bondi explores the spirituality of the desert abbas and ammas to discover what they have to say about cultivating hearts full of love for God and others. For such a strange ascetic lot, Bondi manages to picture them as full of grace.
October 7, 2010
All i can really say here is this an incredible book which i will read again asap so i can absorb what i missed the first time . If you never understood the meaning of humility ( like me ) and its impact on a spiritual person's life, again read this book.
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November 11, 2014
Bondi thoroughly understands the world and writings of the early church monastics, and translates their wisdom and stories into a work modern Christians can understand. So lovely and gracious and kind.
January 26, 2015
Excellent, easy-to-read text that does a great job channeling more complicated readings from early Christians. Recommended. I likely read it too fast, but it needs a slower digestion. That is the trouble with graduate school.
March 14, 2008
I've given away all my copies of this book. The wisdom of the early desert monastics really made some powerful impacts on my faith. A short but powerful book.
January 29, 2010
Loved this one and it promped me to read To Love and To Pray which I also liked. Should go back and read these again to see if I would find them as powerful 15 years later.
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