Every morning I woke to the call of the muezzin: “Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is better than sleep!” From high atop the minaret that plaintive cry drifted out over the sleeping city of Cairo, coaxing the faithful to rise from their slumber and give praise to Allah. Sometimes I would open my eyes and enter for a few minutes into a space of prayer.

Often I would simply roll over and fall back asleep. But even in my sleep those words haunted me. They stirred my dreams. I knew that the muezzin’s words were true. But it is hard to wake up; harder still to remain awake. 

That is why after leaving Cairo I made my way out into the desert to the monastery of St. Macarius in the Wadi Natrun. Here at the site of the earliest Christian monasteries exists a thriving community of prayer. More than one hundred monks call this place home, gathering daily for the chanting of the psalms, studying, and working in the garden. As a regular part of their life in this place, the monks keep vigil. They rise in the night, either alone in their cells or together in community, to enter the great silence, to stand watch. This is part of what I have come here to learn: how to be vigilant, how to pay attention. 

First, though, I must learn how to wake up. 

Somewhere in a dream I hear the sound of a bell. Where is it coming from? Who is ringing it? What does it mean? I realize it is not a dream. Gradually I emerge from my sleep and remember where I am, what the bell means: it is early Sunday morning at the monastery of St. Macarius. It is time for vigils. I switch on the light and look at the clock on my bedside table. It is 2:30 a.m. I turn off the light and climb deeper under the covers. Do I really want to wake up? 

VIGILANCE. This is an old idea within Christianity, vividly and memorably expressed in Matthew’s Gospel in a phrase as arresting as it is chilling: “Keep awake…for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Mt 25:13). Jesus’ words arise within the context of the story of the ten bridesmaids. Five of them are prepared for the coming of the bridegroom; five of them are not. The latter five—the foolish ones—pay a high price for their inattention. They are locked out of the wedding banquet. The conclusion is abrupt and unequivocal. Nothing less than everything is at stake. Our very destiny, the possibility of enjoying the presence of God now and forever, hinges on our capacity and willingness to remain awake. So, too, with Saint Paul. To a community alive with expectation of the end (the eschaton), Paul says: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.…So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thess 5:2, 6). 

There was a mood of expectancy and hope within those early Christian communities. The times were alive with possibility and danger. The long-awaited fulfillment of time, the turning of the ages, was at hand. Eternity was breaking into the present moment. No wonder, then, that we find among early Christians such insistent attention to the need for watchfulness, vigilance.