“For If We Do Not Have This, All Else Is Nothing”
Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 1 Written by Theophan the Recluse.
Delivered 21 November, 1864
On the feast day of the Entrance into the Temple of the
Most-holy Theotokos, I find it timely to give you instruction in prayer - the
main work of the temple. A temple is a place of prayer and arena of prayer's
development. For us, entry into the temple is entry into a prayerful spirit.
The Lord has the kindness to call our hearts His temple, where we enter
mentally and stand before Him, ascending to Him like the fragrant smoke of
incense. We are going to study how to attain this state.
Gathering in the temple, you pray, of course. And in
praying here, you surely ought not abandon prayer at home. Therefore, it would
be extraneous to speak to you about our duty to pray, when you already pray.
But I do not think that it is extraneous in any way to give you two or three
rules about how to pray, if not in
the way of teaching, then simply as a reminder. The work of prayer is the first
work in Christian life. If in everyday affairs the saying: "live and
learn" is true, then so much more it applies to prayer, which never stops
and which has no limit.
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Let me recall a wise custom of the ancient Holy Fathers:
when greeting each other, they did not ask about health or anything else, but
rather about prayer, saying "How is your prayer?" The activity of
prayer was considered by them to a be a sign of the spiritual life, and they
called it the breath of the spirit. If the body has breath, it lives; if
breathing stops, life comes to an end. So it is with the spirit. If there is
prayer, the soul lives; without prayer, there is no spiritual life.
However, not every act of prayer is prayer. Standing at
home before your icons, or here in church, and venerating them is not yet
prayer, but the "equipment" of prayer. Reading prayers either by
heart or from a book, or hearing someone else read them is not yet prayer, but
only a tool or method for obtaining and awakening prayer. Prayer itself is the
piercing of our hearts by pious feelings towards God, one after another –
feelings of humility, submission, gratitude, doxology, forgiveness, heart-felt
prostration, brokenness, conformity to the will of God, etc. All of our effort
should be directed so that during our prayers, these feelings and feelings like
them should fill our souls, so that the heart would not be empty when the lips
are reading the prayers, or when the ears hear and the body bows in
prostrations, but that there would be some qualitative feeling, some striving
toward God. When these feelings are present, our praying is prayer, and when
they are absent, it is not yet prayer.
It seems that nothing should be simpler and more natural
for us than prayer and our hearts' striving for God. But in fact it is not
always like this for everyone. One must awaken and strengthen a prayerful
spirit in oneself, that is one must bring up a prayerful spirit. The first
means to this is to read or to hear prayers said. Pray as you should, and you
will certainly awaken and strengthen the ascent of your heart to God and you
will come into a spirit of prayer.
In our prayer books, there are prayers of the Holy Fathers
- Ephraim the Syrian, Makarios the Egyptian, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom,
and other great men of prayer. Being filled with the spirit of prayer, they
were able to up that living spirit into words, and handed it down to us. When
one enters into these prayers with attention and effort, then that great and
prayerful spirit will in turn enter into him. He will taste the power of
prayer. We must pray so that our mind and heart receive the content of the
prayers that we read. In this way the act of praying becomes a font of true
prayer in us. I will give here three very simple instructions: 1. always begin
praying with at least a little preparation; 2. do not pray carelessly, but with
attention and feeling; and 3. do not go on to ordinary work immediately after
prayer.
Even if prayer is common for us, it always demands
preparation. What is more common for those who can read and write than reading
and writing? However, sitting down to read or write, we do not immediately
begin, but we calm ourselves before beginning, at least to the point that we
can read or write in a peaceful state. Even more so preparation for the work of
prayer is necessary before praying, especially when what we have been doing before
praying is of a totally different nature from prayer.
Thus, going to pray, in the morning or in the evening,
stand for a moment, or sit, or walk, and strive in this time to focus your
thoughts, casting off from them all earthly activities and objects. Then call
to mind the One to Whom you are praying, Who He is and who you are, as you
begin this prayerful petition to Him. From this, awaken in your soul the
feeling of humility and reverent awe of standing before God in your heart. As
you stand piously before God, all of this preparation may seem small and
insignificant, but it is not small in meaning. This is the beginning of prayer
and a good beginning is half the work.
Having stood up in your heart, now stand before your icons,
make a few prostrations, and begin with the usual prayers: "Glory to Thee,
our God, glory to Thee. O Heavenly King…", and so on. Do not read
hurriedly; pay attention to every word and let the meaning of each word enter
into your heart. Accompany your words with prostrations. With this effort, the
reading of prayers becomes pleasant to God and fruit-bearing. Pay attention to
every word, and let the sense of each word enter into your heart; understand
what you are reading and feel what you are understanding. No other rules are
necessary. These two – understanding and feeling – have the effect of making
prayer fitting, and fruitful. For example, you read: "cleanse us from
every stain" - feel your stain, desire cleanliness, and ask it from the
Lord with hope. You read: "forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors" - forgive all in your soul, and having forgiven everyone
everything in your heart, ask for forgiveness for yourself from the Lord. You
read: "Thy will be done" - completely give up your own will to the
Lord in your heart, and honestly be prepared to meet everything that the Lord
is well-pleased to send to to you with a good heart. If you read each verse of
your prayers in this way, then you will be truly praying.
In order to facilitate the development of true prayer, take
these steps: 1) keep a prayer rule according to the blessing of your spiritual
father - not more than you can read unhurriedly on a normal day; 2) before you
pray, in your free time become familiar with the prayer in your rule, fully
take in each word and feel it, so that you would know in advance what should be
in your soul as you read. It will be even better if you learn the prayers by
heart. When you do this, then all of your prayers will be easy for you to
remember and feel. There is only one final difficulty: your thoughts will
always stray to other subjects, therefore: 3) you must struggle to keep your
attention focused on the words of your prayer, knowing in advance that your
mind will wander.
When your mind does wander during prayer, bring it back.
When it wanders again, bring it back again. Each and every time that you read a
prayer while your thoughts are wandering (and consequently you read it without
attention and feeling,) then do not fail to read it again. Even if your mind
wanders several times in the same place, read it again and again until you read
it all the way through with understanding and feeling. In this way, you will
overcome this difficulty so that the next time, perhaps, it will not come up
again, or if it does return, it will be weaker. This is how one must act when
the mind wanders. On the other hand it may happen that a particular word or
phrase might act so strongly on the soul, that the soul no longer wants to
continue with the prayer, and even though the lips continue praying, the mind
keeps wandering back to that place which first acted on it. In this case: 4)
stop, do not read further, but stand with attention and feeling in that place,
and use the prayer in that place and the feelings engendered by it to feed your
soul. Do not hurry to get yourself out of this state. If time cannot wait, it
is better to leave your rule unfinished than to disturb this prayerful state.
Maybe this feeling will stay with you all day like your guardian Angel! This
sort of grace-filled action on the soul during prayer means that the spirit of
prayer is becoming internalized, and consequently, maintaining this state is
the most hopeful means of raising up and strengthening a spirit of prayer in
your heart.
Finally, when you finish your prayers, do not immediately
go off to any sort of work, but remain and think at least a little about what
you have just finished and what now lies before you. If some feeling was given
to you during prayer, keep it after you pray. If you completed your prayer rule
in the true spirit of prayer, then you will not wish to quickly go about other
work; this is a property of prayer. Thus our ancestors said when they returned
from Constantinople: "he who has tasted sweet things does not desire
bitter things". So it is with each person who has prayed well during his
prayers. One should recognize that tasting this sweetness of prayer is the very
goal of praying, and if praying leads to a prayerful spirit, then it is exactly
through such a tasting.
If you will follow these few rules, then you will quickly
see the fruit of prayerful labor. And he who fulfills them already without this
instruction, of course, is already tasting this fruit. All praying leaves
prayer in the soul - continual prayer in this manner gives it root, and
patience in this work establishes a prayerful spirit. May God grant this to you
by the prayers of our All-pure Mistress, the Theotokos!
I have given you initial basic instruction in the ways of
raising up in yourselves a prayerful spirit, that is, how to pray in a way
appropriate to the meaning of prayer - at home in the morning and the evening,
and here in the temple. But this is not yet everything. Tomorrow, if God helps,
I will teach you a second method. Amen.
Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 2 Written by Theophan the Recluse.
Delivered 22 November, 1864
Yesterday I showed you one method of establishing a
prayerful spirit in yourselves [see homily 1], namely, how to pray in a way
which corresponds to the meaning of the prayers. But this is only the beginning
of the art (science) of prayer and it is necessary to go further. Consider the
study of language, for example. First one studies words and phrases from books.
But this is not sufficient, one must go further, and truly reach the point
where he can correctly form phrases in the given language without the aid of
the textbook. It is the same in the work of prayer. We get used to praying with
prayer books, praying using prepared prayers given to us by the Lord and the
Holy Fathers who were successful in prayer. But we should not stop at that, we
need to continue on, and having accustomed ourselves to making petition to God
for help with our minds and hearts, we must attempt to ascend to Him. We must
strive to reach the point where our soul by itself begins speaking, so to
speak, in a prayerful conversation with God and by itself ascends to Him and
opens itself to Him and confesses what is in it and what it desires.
The soul must be taught how to ascend to God and open
itself to Him. I will briefly instruct you how one should proceed in order to
succeed in this art.
The skill of praying with piety, attention, and feeling
according to a prayer book itself leads to this higher level. In the same way
that water flows out of a bowl that is overfilled, so the soul which is filled
with holy feelings by prayer begins by itself to spill out its prayer to God.
But when pursuing this goal, there are particular steps which each person on
this path must take.
Why is it, you ask, that one can pray for so many years
with a prayer book, and still not have prayer in his heart? I think the reason
is that people only spend a little time lifting themselves up to God when they
complete their prayer rule, and in other times, they do not remember God. For
example, they finish their morning prayers, and think that their relation to
God is fulfilled by them; then the whole day passes in work, and such a person
does not attend to God. Then in the evening, the thought returns to him that he
must quickly stand at prayer and complete his evening rule. In this case, it
happens that even if the Lord grants a person spiritual feelings at the time of
the morning prayer, the bustle and business of the day drowns them out. As a
result, it happens that one does not often feel like praying, and cannot get
control of himself even to soften his heart a little bit. In such an
atmosphere, prayer develops and ripens poorly. This problem (is it not
ubiquitous?) needs to be corrected, that is, one must ensure that the soul does
not only make petition to God when standing in prayer, but during the whole
day, as much as possible, one must unceasingly ascend to Him and remain with
Him.
In order to begin this task, one must first, during the
course of the day, cry out to God more often, even if only with a few words,
according to need and the work of the day. Beginning anything, for example, say
"Bless, O Lord!" When you finish something, say, "Glory to Thee,
O Lord", and not only with your lips, but with feeling in your heart. If
passions arise, say, "Save me, O Lord, I am perishing." If the
darkness of disturbing thoughts comes up, cry out: "Lead my soul out of
prison." If dishonest deeds present themselves and sin leads you to them,
pray, "Set me, O Lord, in the way", or "do not give up my feet
to stumbling." If sin takes hold of you and leads you to despair, cry out
with the voice of the publican, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
Do this in every circumstance, or simply say often, "Lord, have
mercy", "Most Holy Theotokos save us”, "Holy Angel, my guardian,
protect me", or other such words. Say such prayers as often as possible,
always making the effort for them come from your heart, as if squeezed out of
it. When we do this, we will frequently ascend to God in our hearts, making
frequent petitions and prayers. Such increased frequency will bring about the
habit of mental conversation with God.
But in order for the soul to begin crying out in this way,
one must first teach the soul to ascribe everything to the glory of God, all of
its works, whether great and small. This is the second way of teaching the soul
to turn to God more often during the day, for if we apply ourselves to fulfill
the apostolic commandment, that is, do all things for the glory of God, even
"if we eat or drink" ({bible}1 Cor 10.31{/bible}), then we will
ceaselessly remember God in all that we do. Our remembrance of God will be
accomplished not simply, but with care, so that in no case we would act wrongly
and offend God by any deed. This will help us to turn to God with fear,
prayerfully asking for help and understanding. Since we are almost always doing
something, we will always be turning to God in prayer. Consequently, the art of
raising up the heart in unceasing prayer to God will develop within our souls.
In order for the soul to do all things as they should be
done, that is to the glory of God, one must prepare from the early morning,
from the very beginning of the day, before "a man goes forth unto his
work, and unto his labors until evening" ({bible}Ps. 103{/bible}). This
inclination leads to the contemplation of God, and this the third way of
teaching the soul to turn frequently to God. Contemplation of God is the pious
reflection on divine properties and actions, and about our necessary response
to them. It means to reflect on God's goodness, righteous judgment, wisdom,
omnipotence, omnipresence, knowledge of all things, about creation and
industry, about the working of Salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, about grace
and the word of God, about the holy mysteries and about the Kingdom of Heaven.
If you start to reflect on any one of these things, your soul will immediately
be filled with pious feeling toward God. Consider, for example, the goodness of
God, and you will see that you are surrounded by God's mercies, both physical
and spiritual, and that you would have to be a stone not to fall down before
God pouring out feelings of thanksgiving. Consider the omnipresence of God, and
you will understand that you are always before God, and God is before you, and
thus you cannot avoid being filled with pious fear. Consider the knowledge God
has of all things, and you will realize, that nothing inside of you is hidden
from the eye of God, and will set yourself to be strictly attentive to the
movements of your heart and mind, in order not to offend the all-seeing God in
any way. Consider the righteousness of God, and you will believe that not one
evil deed remains unpunished. As a result you will firmly set yourself to
cleansing all of your sins in a heartfelt way before God with brokenness and
repentance. Thus, whatever property or action of God on which you reflect, that
reflection will fill your soul with pious feelings and inclinations towards
God. It will align all of your human substance towards God, and it is therefore
the most direct means of teaching the soul to ascend to God. The most useful and
comfortable time for this is morning, when the soul is not yet burdened with
many worries and work issues. Specifically, the best time is after morning
prayers. Finish your prayers, sit down, and with thoughts cleansed by prayer,
begin to think now about one divine aspect, and tomorrow about another, and
incline your soul to this aspect. "Come", says St. Dimitri of Rostov,
"come, holy contemplation of God, and let us immerse ourselves in
contemplation of the great works of God", and he passed mentally through
the works of providence and creation, or the miracles of our Lord and Savior,
or His sufferings, or something else, and warmed up his heart, and began to
pour out his soul in prayer. Everyone can do the same. The work is small; one
only needs desire and resolve, but the fruits are many.
>Here are three means, other than the prayer rule, by which
one can teach the soul to ascend prayerfully to God: first, dedicate some time
in the morning to the contemplation of God; second, turn every action to the
glory of God, and third, often turn to God with short prayers. When
contemplation of God goes well in the morning, it leaves a deep inclination
toward thinking about God. Thinking about God makes the soul carefully order
all of its actions, interior and exterior, and turn them to the glory of God.
At the same time, this sets up a state in the soul that it often will be moved
by prayerful cries to God. These three: contemplation of God, doing all to the
glory of God, and frequent short prayers are the most active weapons of mental
prayer and prayer of the heart. Each of them raises the soul to God. He who
decides to practice these quickly attains the habit of ascending to God in his
heart. The labor put into these leads to the heights. The higher one ascends on
a mountain, the freer and easier he breathes. Thus it is also here: the more
one does these exercises, the higher his soul ascends, and the higher the soul
ascends, the more freely prayer can act in it. Our soul by nature is the abode
of the higher divine world. Our soul should always be in this world by thoughts
and feelings of the heart. But the baggage of worldly thoughts and passions
leads and pulls the soul down. These methods separate the soul little by little
from the earth, and then completely pull it away. When they have completely
pulled the soul from the earth, then the soul lives in its own region, and will
happily live on high. Here in heart and mind, and later in actual substance it
will be vouchsafed to be before the face of God in the choirs of the angels and
the saints. May God grant this to all of you through his grace. Amen.
Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 3
Written by Theophan the Recluse.
Delivered 29 November, 1864
I have explained to you briefly two aspects or two levels of prayer, namely: prayer which is read, when we pray to God with the prayers of others, and one's mental prayer, where we ascend mentally to God through contemplation of God, dedicating all to God, and often crying out to Him from our hearts.{footnote}See the previous two homilies in this series: homily 1 and homily 2.{/footnote}
But this is still not all. There is a third aspect or level of prayer, which makes up true prayer, and for which the first two aspects are only preparation. This is the unceasing turning of the mind and heart to God, accompanied by interior warmth or burning of the spirit. This is the limit to which prayer should aspire, and the goal which every prayerful laborer should have in mind, so that he does not work uselessly in the work of prayer.
Remember how the Word of God talks about prayer: "Be vigilant and pray," says the Lord ({bible}Matt 26.41{/bible}). "Be sober and bold," teaches the apostle Peter ({bible}1 Pet 5.8{/bible}). "Be patient in prayer, and be bold in it" ({bible}Col 4.2{/bible}). "Pray without ceasing" ({bible}1 Thess 5.17{/bible}). "Pray with all prayer and petition at all times in the spirit" ({bible}Eph 6.18{/bible}), the apostle Paul commands, explaining in other places the reason to be this way. "Because", he says, "our life is hidden with Christ in God, and because the Spirit of God lives in us, in which we cry, 'Abba, Father'." ({bible}1 Cor 3.16{/bible}) From these instructions and commands it is impossible not to see that prayer is not something done once, and in an interrupted way, but is a state of the spirit, constant and unceasing, just like our breathing and heartbeat.
I will explain this to you by examples. The sun is in the middle, and all of our planets go around it, all are drawn in toward it, and all turn some side of themselves towards it. What the sun is in the material world, God is in the spiritual world - the rational sun. Bring your thoughts to heaven, and what will you see there? Angels, who, according to the word of the Lord, ever see the face of their heavenly Father. All bodiless spirits and all saints in heaven and turned towards God, all direct their mental eyes toward Him, and do not wish to turn away from Him, because of the ineffable blessedness which flows from this vision of the face of God. But what the Angels and saints do in the heavens, we should learn to do on earth: get used to the angelic, unceasing standing before God in our hearts. Only he who reaches this state is a true man of prayer. How can we attain this great good thing?
I will answer this briefly as follows: one must labor in prayer without hesitation, zealously, hopefully, trying to obtain a burning spirit through sober attention to God, as if it were the promised land. Work in prayer, and praying about everything, pray even more about this limit of prayer - a burning spirit - and you will truly attain that which you seek. We are assured of this by St. Makarios of Egypt, who labored and tasted the fruit of prayer. "If", he says, "you do not have prayer, work at prayer, and the Lord, seeing your labor, and seeing how you are patient in the labor and wholeheartedly desire this good thing, will grant you this prayer (Conversation 19)". The labor has this as its only end. When the fire is kindled, about which the Lord speaks: "I have come to bring fire upon the earth, and what is it to Me if it were already kindled?" ({bible}Luke 12.49{/bible}) - then the work comes to an end. Prayer becomes easier and freer.
Do not think that we are talking about something very lofty which is an unattainable state for living people. No. It truly is a lofty state, but attainable by all. Does not everyone at some time feel warmth in their hearts in prayer, when the soul separates itself from all things and deeply enters into itself and prays hotly to God? This movement of the prayerful spirit, although it was once only temporary, must be made into a constant state, and it will reach the limits of prayer.
The means to this, as I have said, is the work of prayer. When one rubs two sticks together, they warm up and catch fire. Similarly, when the soul is rubbed in the work of prayer, it eventually leads to prayerful fire. The work of prayer consists of a proper completion of the two types of prayer of which I have already spoken, namely - pious, attentive, and feeling completion of our usual prayers, and then training of the soul to frequently ascend to God through divine contemplation, turning of all things to the glory of God, and frequent crying to God from the heart. We pray in the morning and the evening: there is a great distance between them. If we only turn to God at these times, then even if we pray whole-heartedly, during the day or night, everything will fall apart, and when it is time again to pray, the soul will feel cold and empty, as before. One can pray again whole-heartedly, but if you become cold and fall apart again, what use is it? This is just building and destroying, building and destroying; it is only labor. If now we resolve not only to pray with attention and feeling in the morning and the evening, but also to spend every day in contemplation of God, doing all things to the glory of God, and frequently calling to God from our hearts with short words of prayer, then this long period between morning and evening prayers and from evening to morning prayers will be filled with frequent turnings to God and pure prayerful actions. Although this prayer is not yet unceasing, it is still prayer repeated very frequently, and the more often it is repeated, the closer it comes to being constant. All of this work is towards this final and necessary goal. For if we resolve to do this work every day, without fail, without hesitation, look, what will become of our souls?
The fear of God is born from divine contemplation. For the fear of God is in and of itself the attainment of pious thought and the perception of God's eternal perfection and action. From turning all of our works to the glory of God, we obtain a constant remembrance of God, or in other words, walking before God. Walking before God consists of doing nothing without remembering that you are in the presence of God. Finally, from frequent calling out to God, or from frequent pious movements toward God in our hearts we will constantly call upon the name of God with warmth and love. When these three things: the fear of God, the remembrance of God, or walking before God, and this turning of the heart toward God with love (loving repetition of the sweet name of the Lord in the heart) then certainly the spiritual fire of which I spoke earlier will catch in the heart, and it will bring with it profound peace, constant sobriety, and living boldness. At that point, a man enters into that state where he needs no longer to desire anything greater or unnecessary on earth, and which is truly the beginning of the blessed state which awaits all in the future. Here, in fact, that which the apostle said is fulfilled: "our life is hidden with Christ in God" ({bible}Col 3.3{/bible}).
Add these three things to your prayerful work. They are at the same time the reward for labor and the key to the hidden temple of the Kingdom of Heaven. Having opened the doors, go inside, approach the foot of the throne of God and you will be vouchsafed a good word and an embrace from the heavenly Father, and from the depth of your being you will say: "O Lord, O Lord! Who is like Thee?" Pray about this in your work of prayer, and let each one cry out, "when will I come and appear before Thy face, O Lord? My face has sought Thee; I seek, O Lord, Thy face."
I will briefly answer him who wants to know how these three things: fear of God, remembrance of God, and this loving, constant calling on the name of God, are perfected: begin to seek them, and the work itself will teach you how to find its perfection. Hold to only one law: cast aside everything that gets in the way of these things, and earnestly seek out that which aids them. The work itself will teach you how to tell which things are which. I add to this only the following instruction:
When you begin to be contained in your heart as you are contained in your body, surrounded by warmth on all sides, or when you begin to conduct yourself as you conduct yourself around some important person, that is, with fear and attention so that you would not offend him, regardless of your desire to walk and act freely, or if you see, that your soul is beginning to remain with the Lord as a wife with her beloved husband, then know, that the Visitor of our souls is near, at the doors, and He will enter in and feast with you within yourself.
And these few signs, I think, are enough for zealous seekers. All of this is said only with the goal that those of you who pray wholeheartedly would know the limit of prayer, and having worked only a little and obtained only a little you would not think that you have obtained everything. Do not weaken your labor because of this, and thus put a limit on your further progress in the steps of prayer. Just as markers are placed on the sides of large roads so that those passing by them would know how far they have gone and how far remains, so in the spiritual life there are certain signs which indicate the degree of perfection of a life, which are also there, so that those who are zealous for perfection do not stop halfway and deprive themselves of the fruits of their labor, because they know how far they have come and how far remains to go. The fruit may be only a few turns away.
I conclude my word with the serious prayer, that the Lord would give you reason in all things, that you may become a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. Amen.
{footnotes/}
Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 4
Written by Theophan the Recluse.
Delivered 20 December, 1864
Three times I have spoken to you about prayer{footnote}See
the preceding homilies: 1, 2, and 3.{/footnote}: about how to read prayers with
attention, about how to ascend to God mentally and in your heart, and how to
stand constantly before God with a burning spirit. The Lord instructed us in
various degrees and types of prayer, so that each, according to his strength,
could be a partaker in the goodness of prayer. For the work of prayer is a
great work. It is, as I have said, the testimony of the spiritual life, and
also the food of the spiritual life. Therefore one must work towards perfection
in prayer more than all other things.
I have reminded you how to succeed in each type of prayer.
Now I want to remind you, as a warning, that it is difficult, if not impossible,
to succeed in prayer, if we do not at the same time work on other virtues.
If we compare prayer to a perfume, and the soul to a bottle
for perfume, then we will understand that as perfume does not keep its
fragrance in a container full of holes, also the soul cannot continue to pray
if there is a lack of virtue. If we compare someone who prays to the whole
body, then we see the following lesson: as it is impossible for a man without
legs to walk, even if the rest of his body is healthy, so it is impossible to
approach God, or reach God in prayer, without active virtue. Look in the
apostolic teachings, and you will see that in them prayer does not stand alone,
but together with a whole host of virtues. For example, the apostle Paul arms a
Christian in spiritual battle and dresses him in the full armor of God. Look at
what this is: The belt is truth, the armor is righteousness, the shoes are the
gospel of peace, the shield is faith, the helmet is hope, the sword is the word
of God ({bible}Eph 6.14-17{/bible}). Such weapons! After all of this he places
his warrior in prayer as if in some sort of fortress: "pray at all times
in the spirit with all sorts of prayer and petition" ({bible}Eph
6.18{/bible}). It is, of course, possible for prayer alone to defeat all
enemies, but in order to be strong in prayer, one must be successful in faith,
hope, truth, righteousness, and all the rest. In another place, the same
apostle adorns the soul with bridal clothing as the bride of Christ, saying,
"Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of
mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even
as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on
charity, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your
hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your
hearts to the Lord" ({bible}Col 3.12-16{/bible}). In many other places in
the word of God, prayer is bound up tightly with all the other virtues, as
their queen, after which they all strive, and which draws all of them after
itself, or even better, as their fragrant flower. As it is necessary for a
flower to be covered with leaves as well as having a stem, branches and root,
in order to attract attention, it is also necessary for prayer to be
accompanied by other good spiritual inclinations and labors in order to blossom
like a flower in the soul; faith is the root, active love is like a stem and
branches, and labors of a spiritual-physical nature are like leaves. When such a
holy tree is planted in the soul, then in the morning, and in the evening, and
during the course of the day, according to its state, the flowers of prayer
will freely blossom and fill all of our inner chambers with fragrance.
I remind you of all of this, so that no one would think:
"I labor in prayer, and that is enough". No - one must work and be
zealous for all things together, both praying and working at all the virtues.
It is true that it is impossible to succeed in virtues without prayer, but it
is also necessary to work at the virtues while praying, so that the prayer can
show its cooperation in these virtues. In order to succeed in prayer, one must
pray, but the labor of prayer should be used as the means to virtues. One must
be concerned about all things, and always strive to be on the right side. The
same thing happens in a clock. A clock works properly and shows the correct
time only when all of the gears and other parts inside are complete and in
their correct place, and joined together properly. This is the same in our
inner spiritual mechanism: the striving of the soul will be true like an arrow,
directed straight toward God, when all other parts of the soul are whole and
are established in their correct places, so to speak, put in place by virtue.
I will teach you what sort of virtues should surround your
prayer, or what sort of prayerful, virtuous life a Christian should plant in
himself, not in my own words, but in the words of the holy hierarch Dimitri of
Rostov, who briefly lists these things in the following instructions (from Christian Spiritual Instruction, part 1,
p. 288):
1. When you wake up, let your first thought be about God,
your first word be a prayer to God your creator and keeper of your life, Who is
always able to give life or destroy it, who can strike with illness and heal,
and who can save or destroy.
2. Bow and give thanks to God Who raised you from sleep,
and Who did not allow you to perish in your sins, but with long-suffering
awaited your repentance.
3. Make a start for better things, saying with the
Psalmist: "I said, now I have made a beginning" ({bible}Ps. 76.11{/bible})
For no one completes the path to heaven except he who makes a good beginning
everyday.
4. From the morning pray like the Seraphim, act like the
Cherubim, and be surrounded with angels.
5. Do not waste time any longer. Do only those things which
are necessary.
6. In all deeds and words, keep your mind in God; do not
write anything in your mind except Christ, and let no image touch your pure
heart except the pure image of Christ our God and Savior.
7. Awaken yourself to the love of God in all things,
whenever you are able, especially say to yourself with the Psalmist: "in
my meditation a fire was kindled" ({bible}Ps. 38.4{/bible}).
8. You desire to love God, Whose visitation you always see
and gaze upon with your interior eyes, therefore turn away from all evil deeds,
words, and thoughts. Do, say, and think all things honorably, humbly, and with
the fear of a son.
9. Let meekness with praise and humility with honor be
together.
10. Let your words be quiet, humble, honorable, and useful.
Let silence decide the words that you say. From henceforth, let no empty or
rotten word escape your lips.
11. If something funny happens, allow yourself only a
smile, and this not often.
12. You will fall into prodigality through anger, wrath,
and arguing: keep yourself moderate in anger.
13. Always observe moderation in eating and drinking.
14. Be condescending in all things, and God will bless you,
and people will praise you.
15. You must pray about your death, which is the end of all
things.
See what sort of wonderful life is taught to the praying
Christian. It is true that in one place we have spoken more about prayer, that
is, of mental and heart-felt turning to God, but in another place, other
virtues have been mentioned, and yet without all of them together, it is
impossible to get a foothold in prayer. Let everyone strive in knowledge:
standing in prayer and exercising is according to your instruction. How can you
stand to pray if you are weighed down with intemperance, or carried away with
anger, or if you do not stand in peace, or you are distracted by work and lack
of attention and so on? If we are to avoid these things, then we are to strive
to attain the opposite: that is, virtue. For this reason, St. John of the
Ladder speaks of prayer, saying that it is the mother and the daughter of
virtues.
Hearing this, some might say, "what great demands!
What a heavy burden! Where can I ever find time and the strength?" But be
strong, brethren! Very little is necessary, and one must only take up one
thing: zeal for God and salvation in Him in your soul. By its nature, the soul
has much good in it and it is only misdirected into all evil things. As soon as
zeal for salvation and the pleasing of God is born in one's soul, all of the
goodness gathers around this zeal, and immediately no small amount of good
appears in the soul. Then zeal, strengthened by the grace of God, with the help
of this initial good, begins to find more goodness, and enriches itself with
it, and all begins to grow by degrees. Zeal itself has the beginnings of prayer
already. It is fed at first by natural virtue, and then begins to feed on the works
of virtue that it engendered, and grows and becomes strong, and blossoms and
begins to sing and hymn God with a harmonious and prayerful song in the heart.
May the Lord help you succeed in this. Amen.
{footnotes/}
Translated
from the Russian by Rev. Fr. Michael
van Opstall – January 2007
St. THEOPHAN THE RECLUSE
