Resurrection of the Lord Catholic Church

Feast date: Jan 17

On his Jan. 17 feast day, both Eastern and Western Catholics celebrate the life and legacy of St. Anthony of Egypt, the founder of Christian monasticism whose radical approach to discipleship permanently impacted the Church.

In Egypt's Coptic Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which have a special devotion to the native saint, his feast day is celebrated on Jan. 30.

Anthony was born around 251, to wealthy parents who owned land in the present-day Faiyum region near Cairo. During this time, the Catholic Church was rapidly spreading its influence throughout the vast expanses of the Roman empire, while the empire remained officially pagan and did not legally recognize the new religion.

In the course of his remarkable and extraordinarily long life, Anthony would live to see the Emperor Constantine's establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire. Anthony himself, however, would establish something more lasting – by becoming the spiritual father of the monastic communities that have existed throughout the subsequent history of the Church.

Around the year 270, two great burdens came upon Anthony simultaneously: the deaths of both his parents, and his inheritance of their possessions and property. These simultaneous occurrences prompted Anthony to reevaluate his entire life in light of the principles of the Gospel– which proposed both the redemptive possibilities of his personal loss, and the spiritual danger of his financial gains.
 
Attending church one day, he heard –as if for the first time– Jesus' exhortation to another rich young man in the Biblical narrative: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Anthony told his disciples in later years, that it was as though Christ has spoken those words to him directly.

He duly followed the advice of selling everything he owned and donating the proceeds, setting aside a portion to provide for his sister. Although organized monasticism did not yet exist, it was not unknown for Christians to abstain from marriage, divest themselves of possessions to some extent, and live a life focused on prayer and fasting. Anthony's sister would eventually join a group of consecrated virgins.
 
Anthony himself, however, sought a more comprehensive vision of Christian asceticism. He found it among the hermits of the Egyptian desert, individuals who chose to withdraw physically and culturally from the surrounding society in order to devote themselves more fully to God. But these individuals' radical way of life had not yet become an organized movement.

After studying with one of these hermits, Anthony made his own sustained attempt to live alone in a secluded desert location, depending on the charity of a few patrons who would provide him with enough food to survive. This first period as a hermit lasted between 13 and 15 years.

Like many saints both before and after him, Anthony became engaged in a type of spiritual combat, against unseen forces seeking to remove him from the way of perfection he had chosen. These conflicts took their toll on Anthony in many respects. When he was around 33 years old, a group of his patrons found him in serious condition, and took him back to a local church to recover.
 
This setback did not dissuade Anthony from his goal of seeking God intensely, and he soon redoubled his efforts by moving to a mountain on the east bank of the Nile river. There, he lived in an abandoned fort, once again subsisting on the charity of those who implored his prayers on their behalf. He attracted not only these benefactors, but a group of inquirers seeking to follow after his example.
 
In the first years of the fourth century, when he was about 54, Anthony emerged from his solitude to provide guidance to the growing community of hermits that had become established in his vicinity. Although Anthony had not sought to form such a community, his decision to become its spiritual father – or “Abbot”– marked the beginning of monasticism as it is known today.
 
Anthony himself would live out this monastic calling for another four decades, providing spiritual and practical advice to disciples who would ensure the movement's continued existence. According to Anthony's biographer, St. Athanasius, the Emperor Constantine himself eventually wrote to the Abbot, seeking advice on the administration of an empire that was now officially Christian.

“Do not be astonished if an emperor writes to us, for he is a man,” Anthony told the other monks. “But rather: wonder that God wrote the Law for men, and has spoken to us through his own Son.”

Anthony wrote back to Constantine, advising him “not to think much of the present, but rather to remember the judgment that is coming, and to know that Christ alone was the true and Eternal King.”
 
St. Anthony may have been up to 105 years old when he died, sometime between 350 and 356. In keeping with his instructions, two of his disciples buried his body secretly in an unmarked grave.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV, who plays the daily online puzzle Wordle, is not the only papal puzzle lover.

His predecessor and namesake, Pope Leo XIII, was also passionate about wordplay, anonymously publishing riddles in Latin.

Going by the pseudonym "X," the Italian-born Pope Leo used to craft poetic puzzles for a Roman periodical at the turn of the 19th century.

The modern-day Pope Leo from Chicago, however, is a fan of the New York Times' popular online word game in which players get six chances to guess a five-letter word. 

During a live link-up with thousands of young people taking part in the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis and millions more online Nov. 21, Pope Leo was asked about and shared his gaming strategy.

"I use a different word for Wordle every day. So there is no set starting word in case you're wondering," he said, laughing. His older brother, John Prevost, has said the two of them also play the multiplayer game, Words with Friends, online regularly and compare scores.

So while Pope Leo XIV likes to play word games, his 19th-century predecessor liked to create them.

Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903, created lengthy riddles, known as "charades," in Latin in which readers had to guess a rebus-like answer from two or more words that together formed the syllables of a new word.

Eight of his puzzles were published anonymously in "Vox Urbis," a Rome newspaper that was printed entirely in Latin between 1898 and 1913. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published an article about this historical detail in 2014.

According to the article, any "Vox Urbis" reader who submitted the correct answer to the riddle received a book of Latin poetry written by either Pope Leo or another noted Catholic figure.  

The identity of the mysterious riddle-maker, however, was eventually revealed by a French reporter covering the Vatican for the daily newspaper Le Figaro.

Felix Ziegler published his scoop Jan. 9, 1899, a year after the puzzles started appearing, revealing that "Mr. X" was, in fact, the reigning pope, the Vatican newspaper said. 

In the pope's hometown, Carpineto Romano, which is about 35 miles southeast of Rome, students at the middle school named for him published 26 of the pope's Latin puzzles in a book titled, "Aenigmata: The Charades of Pope Leo XIII." It includes puzzles that teachers and pupils found, but which had never been published before.

One example of the pope's Latin riddles talked of a "little boat nimbly dancing," which sprang a leak as it "welcomed the shore so near advancing."

"The whole your eyes have known, your pallid cheeks have shown; for oh! the swelling tide no bravest heart could hide, when your dear mother died," continues the translation of part of the riddle-poem.

The answer, "lacrima," ("teardrop") merges clues elsewhere in the poem for "lac" ("milk") and "rima" ("leak" or "fissure").

Pope Leo XIII, who headed the universal church from 1878 to 1903, was a trained Vatican diplomat and a man of culture.

He was even a member of an exclusive society of learning founded in Rome in 1690 called the Academy of Arcadia, whose purpose was to "wage war on the bad taste" engulfing baroque Italy. Pope Leo, whose club name was "Neandro Ecateo," was the last pope to be a member of the circle of poets, artists, musicians and highly cultured aristocrats and religious. 

The pope was also passionate about hunting and viniculture. Unable to leave the confines of the Vatican after Italy was unified and the papal states brought to an end in 1870, he pursued his hobbies in the Vatican Gardens.

He had a wooden blind set up to hide in while trapping birds, which he then would set free immediately.

He also had his own small vineyard, which, according to one historical account, he tended himself, hoeing out the weeds, and visiting often for moments of prayer and writing poetry.

Apparently, one day, gunfire was heard from the pope's vineyard, triggering fears of a papal assassination attempt.

Instead, it turned out the pope had ordered a papal guard to send a salvo of bullets into the air to scare off the sparrows who were threatening his grape harvest.

Pope Leo XIII has the fourth-longest pontificate in history -- at 25 years -- after being nudged out of third place by St. John Paul II, who was pope for more than 26 years. St. Peter is considered the longest-reigning pontiff at 34 years. 

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