On the feast day of the Entrance into the Temple of the Most-holy
Theotokos,(November21,new calendar) 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.
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.
Translated from the Russian by Rev. Fr. Michael van Opstall – January 2007
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