January 17. Antony the Great. According to theologian Athanasius, when Antony was about 20, the devil afflicted him with boredom, laziness, and phantoms of women, which Antony overcame by waging a war of prayer.
After fifteen years of this battle, at 35, Anthony withdrew from public life and lived in absolute solitude in an abandoned Roman fortress, where people tossed food to him over the wall. Still people found him. Over the years, many people had flocked to the hermit Antony and returned healed of their ailments. The man was gifted with discernment and steadfast faith.
Some people asked the monk to pray, and some simply slept outside his door, believing that they could be healed just by being in his presence. It was never Antony himself who healed them, but God, who was working through Antony. Yet Antony’s faith meant life-changing rescue to everyone who sought him.
The way you live out your faith may be another man’s lifeline.
There was an honorable military officer named Martinian, who was raising a family, and he believed in God. But one day he found his sweet daughter afflicted with an evil spirit.
Horrified, Martinian would have done anything to see his daughter in her right mind again. Antony was the man for the job.
So Martinian hiked into the desert, where Antony lived alone on a mountain near the east bank of the Nile River. Martinian walked and kept walking and eventually came upon the abandoned Roman fort where Antony had lived for nearly twenty years.
Martinian knocked on the door and waited. He listened for any sign of movement from inside, but he heard nothing.
Again, he knocked—longer—and he yelled for the hermit.
Still, there was no answer. Desperate, Martinian resolved to knock until the hermit answered, and he kept knocking and pleading for Antony to come out and pray to God for his little girl.
Finally, though he would not open the door, Antony’s voice rose above the noise of the officer’s pounding.
Martinian stopped and listened.
“Man, why do you call on me?” Antony said. “I also am a man even as you. But if you believe on Christ whom I serve, go, and according as you believe, pray to God, and it shall come to pass.”
Martinian did not protest, as other pilgrims had, but he left immediately. Believing Antony’s instruction, he called out to God and asked Him to heal his daughter.
When Martinian got home, he saw his daughter free from the evil spirit, and he was so happy.
Antony had never seen the girl but found confirming joy in his heart.
“When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.’
“Jesus said to him, ‘Shall I come and heal him?’
“The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, “Go,” and he goes; and that one, “Come,” and he comes. I say to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’
“When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.…’ Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that moment” (Matthew 8:5–10, 13 NIV).
How can you use your own gifts in faith to strengthen someone else today? The way you live out your faith may be another man’s lifeline.
Servants’ Preparation Program. Nashville: Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States, 2002. http://docshare01.docshare.tips/files/2097/20971251.pdf.
“St. Anthony of Egypt: Egyptian Monk.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jan. 12, 2000, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anthony-of-Egypt.
St. Athanasius. “Life of St. Antony.” St. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892. pp. 188–221.