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What is said of the desert? It is not that we love our families less, but the desert more. This is the love of God.
“The desert deserves to be called a temple of our God without walls. Since it is clear that God dwells in silence, we must believe that he loves the solitary expanses of the desert.
"Very often he lets himself be seen there with his saints; he willing meets with people in favorable places such as the desert.”
“In the desert Moses gazed upon God until his face shone with glory. ...
“Someone asked a wise man where he could be sure to find God. The wise man led him to the solitude of the open desert. ‘Behold,’ he said, ‘where God is.’ God is more promptly believed to be there, since he is more easily found there.”
When Moses met God in the desert, God commanded Moses to remove his sandals saying this is holy ground.
"God gave the law in the desert. In the desert God led his people from slavery. ...
"In the desert people collected bread sent down from heaven....
"All these events are recorded as a sign of what happens to us, for the outward appearance of things shines with hidden mysteries...
“In the desert the one who was greater than any man born of woman instituted baptism.
"In the desert he preached repentance.
"In the desert the Kingdom of Heaven was first heard of. Our Lord was led into the desert immediately after his baptism.... If God himself, who is without sin, freely chooses it, how necessary must the desert be for people enslaved to wrongdoing? If the desert was sought by the innocent, how much more eagerly must it be desired by a sinner? ...
Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish in the desert. “Jesus always feds his children with bread in the desert....
"The Lord Jesus was accustomed to go into a desert place to pray... he showed us where he prefers to pray.”
“The cell in the desert truly deserves to be called the ark of strength, the seat of faith, the tabernacle of charity, the treasury of piety, the storehouse of justice.”
"Just as home objects are hidden for safety, “the gifts of desert sanctity are put away in a cell in some desert protected by natural inaccessibility, lest they decay because of exposure to worldliness.” It pleases the Lord to bring his ornament of sanctity from its hiding place when needed.
Dwelling in the desert is worthy of our total devotion, of all our love.
“Where is it possible to celebrate Easter more freely than in a desert cell. Where is it possible to practice the virtues more easily? I am thinking particularly of the virtue of temperance, which is a sort of desert of the heart. ... Where is there a better opportunity to be still and see how sweet the Lord is, than the desert? ... Where is there an easier place to guard the mind and free it for contemplation?
“The new Adam drove off the seducer of the old Adam in the desert."
“Where could the heart be more free of concern in order to devote itself to cleaving to God, than in the desert?...
“What a triumph for the desert that the Devil, who had been victorious in Paradise, should be vanquished in a wasteland.”
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