The Feast of St Anthony | Tuesday 17 January 2023

Today is Tuesday the 17th of January, the feast of St Anthony, in the second week of Ordinary time.

One Hope Project sings, ‘Abba Father’.


Abba Father breathe on me
Wash me in Your glory
When faith is frail You carry me
In Your presence I am free

Today’s reading is from the letter to the Hebrews.


Hebrews 6:10-20

For God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we want each one of you to show the same diligence, so as to realize the full assurance of hope to the very end, so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

When God made a promise to Abraham, because he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and multiply you.’ And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute. In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us. We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Today is the feast day of St Anthony of Egypt. Not the saint of lost items; St Anthony is one of the earliest Desert Fathers, considered to be the Father of all monks and early Christian Monasticism. Is he a saint that you are aware of?


In his sayings, Anthony often speaks of the need to respond to challenges of faith. Entering the desert and the life of a hermit, he obeyed the words of Jesus to ‘sell what you have and give it to the poor’.

In this letter to the Hebrews, the author encourages the community to lose their half-heartedness. To return, in earnest, to the life they have been living, anchored in the person of Jesus. It can be difficult for human beings to be constant. We look to someone greater than ourselves.

As you listen to the passage again, what do you need to hear today to feed or affirm your faith?

Anthony advised ‘Let Christ be as the breath you breathe; in Him put your trust.’ Let your prayer today echo this.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.