What ought I to do?

Icon of Saint Pambo of Nitria

“Abba Pambo asked Abba Anthony, ‘What ought I to do?’ and the old man said to him, ‘Do not trust in your own righteousness, do not worry about the past, but control your tongue and your stomach.’” -Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Abba Anthony the Great, paragraph 6)

“Do not trust in your own righteousness.” How simple, but difficult this is to follow. We are told by society that we can only trust in ourselves. Abba Anthony tells us something different. He tells us that we should not trust in our own righteousness. So what should we trust in? We should trust in the great Mercy of Christ. Whatever “righteousness” we might have is a gift of grace from God. We cannot do anything good in our own power.

“Do not worry about the past.” Our minds are filled with memories of the past. The good, the bad, and the ugly. These memories are often times sources of great anxiety and sorrow. This should not be so. We should entrust the past to God’s mercy and live in the present.

“… but control your tongue and your stomach.” This is all but lost to us. We fast on the days mandated by the Church, but other than that, we indulge ourselves. We only have control over our stomachs when it is obligatory under pain of sin. We do not fast for love of Christ. We do not control our tongue out of love of Christ. We say whatever comes to our minds, no matter what it might be. What folly! We should learn to control our tongues to only speak when it is prudent and charitable to do so.

Abba Anthony and Abba Pambo, pray for us!