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The beginning of the science of prayer

Prayer is the first task in Christian life. Prayer is the emergence in the heart of reverent feelings towards God. Ways to cultivate the spirit of prayer.

On the feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the temple, I find it timely to offer you instructions on prayer, the main task of the temple. The temple is a place of prayer and a field for its development. For us, introduction to the temple is an introduction to the spirit of prayer. And the Lord deigns to call the heart His temple, where, entering wisely, we stand before Him, stimulating our ascent to Him, like fragrant incense. Let’s learn how to achieve this!

When going to church, of course, you pray. And when you pray here, it’s true that you don’t leave it at home either. Therefore, it would be superfluous to tell you about our duty to pray when you pray; but I don’t think it’s superfluous to show you two or three rules on how to perform prayer, if not as a teaching, then as a reminder. The work of prayer is the first task in Christian life. If the saying is true in relation to the usual order of affairs: live forever, learn forever; then it is even more applicable to prayer, the action of which should not have an interruption, and the extent of which has no limit.

I remember the wise custom of the ancient holy fathers, according to which, when greeting each other on a date, they asked not about health or anything else, but about prayer, saying: how is it going, or how does prayer work? For them, the action of prayer was a sign of spiritual life, and they called it the breath of the spirit. – There is breath in the body, – the body lives; If breathing stops, life stops. So it is in spirit. There is prayer – the spirit lives; no prayer – no life in the spirit.

Not every performance of prayer or prayer is, however, prayer. – To stand in front of an icon – at home, or here – and bow – is not yet prayer, but an accessory to prayer; reading prayers from memory, or from a book, or listening to someone else reading them is not yet prayer, but only a tool or a way of discovering and arousing it. Prayer itself is the emergence in our hearts of one after another reverent feelings towards God – feelings of self-abasement, devotion, thanksgiving, glorification, petition, diligent prostration, contrition, submission to the will of God, and so on. All our concern should be that, during our prayers, these and similar feelings fill our soul, so that when the tongue reads prayers, or the ear listens, and the body makes bows, the heart is not empty, but there is some kind of feeling in it, directed towards God. When these feelings are present, our prayer is prayer, and when not, it is not yet prayer.

It seems that what would be simpler and more natural for us if not prayer, or the aspiration of our hearts to God? And yet, it doesn’t happen to everyone and doesn’t always happen. It must be aroused and the excited one must be strengthened, or, what is the same, a spirit of prayer must be cultivated in oneself. The first way to do this is through reading or listening prayer. Perform prayers properly, and you will certainly arouse and strengthen the ascent in your heart to God, or you will enter into the spirit of prayer.

Our prayer books contain the prayers of the holy fathers – Ephraim the Syrian, Macarius of Egypt, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom and other great prayer books. Being filled with a spirit of prayer, they expressed what was inspired by this spirit in word and conveyed it to us. Great prayer power moves in their prayers, and whoever delves into them with all his attention and zeal will, by virtue of the law of interaction, certainly taste the power of prayer as his mood approaches the content of the prayer. In order for our prayer to become a real means of cultivating prayer, we must perform it in such a way that both the thought and the heart perceive the content of the prayers that make it up. For this, I will indicate three of the simplest methods: do not begin prayer without preliminary, albeit brief, preparation, do not do it haphazardly, but with attention and feeling, and do not immediately after finishing the prayers proceed to ordinary activities.

Even though prayer is the most common thing for us, it is impossible that it does not require preparation. What is more common than reading or writing for those who can read and write? – Meanwhile, however, when we sit down to write or read, we do not suddenly begin the task, but rather hesitate a little before, at least enough to put ourselves in a suitable position. All the more necessary before prayer are preparatory actions for prayer, especially when the previous activity was from a completely different area than the one to which prayer belongs.

So, when starting to pray, in the morning or evening, wait a little, or sit, or walk, and try at this time to sober your thoughts, distracting it from all earthly affairs and objects. Then think about who is the One to whom you turn in prayer, and who you are who now has to begin this prayerful appeal to Him – and accordingly arouse in your soul a mood of self-abasement and reverent fear of standing before God in your heart. This is all the preparation – to stand reverently before God – small, but not insignificant. This is where prayer begins; a good start is half the battle.

Having thus established yourself internally, then stand in front of the icon and, having bowed several times, begin the usual prayer: “Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee!” – “Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of Truth, come and dwell in us,” and so on. Read slowly, delve into every word, and bring the thought of every word to your heart, accompanying it with bows. This is the whole point of reading a prayer that is pleasing and fruitful to God. Delve into every word and bring the thought of the word to your heart, otherwise, understand what you read and feel what you understand. No other rules are required. – These two – understand and feel, fulfilled properly, adorn every prayer with full dignity and impart to it all the fruitful action. You read: “Cleanse us from all filth,” feel your filthiness, desire purity, and confidently seek it from the Lord. You read: “forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors,” and in your soul forgive everyone, and in your heart, ask the Lord for forgiveness to everyone who has forgiven everyone. You read: “Thy will be done,” and in your heart completely commit your fate to the Lord and unquestioningly express your readiness to graciously accept everything that the Lord pleases to send you. If you act this way with every verse of your prayer, then you will have proper prayer.

To be able to do it this way more successfully, do this:

1) have a prayer rule, with the blessing of your spiritual father, – not a big one, one that you could fulfill slowly, during the normal course of your affairs;

2) before you pray, in your free time, read through the prayers included in your rule, fully understand each word and feel it, so that you know in advance what should be in your soul at which word, and even better, if you memorize the prescribed prayers. When you do this, it will be easy for you to understand and feel during prayer. One difficulty will remain: the fleeting thought will continue to run off to other objects. Here’s what you need:

3) you need to use tension to maintain attention, knowing in advance that the thought will run away. Then, when she runs away during prayer, return her; If he runs away again, come back again; – like this every time. But every time you read something while your thoughts are running away – and therefore, without attention or feeling – do not forget to read it again; – and even if your thought wanders off in one place several times, read it several times until you read it with understanding and feeling. Once you overcome this difficulty, another time, perhaps, it will not happen again, or it will not happen again with such force. – This is what you need to do when a thought runs away and dissipates. But it may also be that another word will have such a strong effect on the soul that the soul will not want to extend further in prayer, and even though the tongue reads the prayers, the thought still runs back to the place that had such an effect on it. – In this case:

4) stop, don’t read further; but stay in that place with attention and feeling, nourish your soul with it, or with the thoughts that it will produce. – And don’t rush to tear yourself away from this state; – so if time is pressing, it’s better to leave the rule unfinished, and don’t ruin this fortune. It will overshadow you, perhaps all day, like a Guardian Angel!

This kind of beneficial influence on the soul during prayer means that the spirit of prayer begins to take root, and that, therefore, maintaining this state is the most reliable means of nurturing and strengthening the spirit of prayer in us.

Finally, when you finish your prayer, do not immediately move on to any other activity, but also at least wait a little and think about what you have accomplished and what this obliges you to do, trying, if you are given something to feel during prayer, to preserve it after prayer. However, if someone accurately performs his prayers as it should, he himself will not want to quickly become preoccupied with matters. – Such is the nature of prayer! What our ancestors said when they returned from Constantinople: whoever tastes sweet will not want bitter; this comes true for everyone who prays well during his prayer. And one must know that tasting this sweetness of prayer is the goal of prayer, and that if prayer cultivates the spirit of prayer, it is precisely through this tasting.

If you follow these few rules, you will soon see the fruit of your prayerful labor. And whoever fulfills them without this instruction, of course, already eats this fruit. Any prayer will leave a trace of prayer in the soul – its continuous continuation in the same order will root it, and patience in this work will instill a spirit of prayer. May the Lord grant it to you, through the prayers of our Most Pure Lady Theotokos!

It was I who showed you the first, initial method of cultivating the spirit of prayer – that is, performing prayer in accordance with its purpose – at home in the morning and in the evening and here in church. But that’s not all. Another way, if God helps, I will indicate tomorrow. Amen.
November 21, 1864

Teaching the soul to pray

Experiences of one’s own prayerful attitude towards God. About the skill of intelligent conversation with God. The science of prayerful ascension to God in the soul. Teaching the soul to turn to God frequently. Godly thinking is reverent reflection on divine properties and actions. Ways to teach the soul to ascend in prayer to God.

Yesterday I showed you one way to cultivate the spirit of prayer in yourself, namely: performing our prayers in accordance with their purpose. But here is only the beginning of the science of prayer; we must go further. Remember how they learn, for example, languages. First, they learn words and figures of speech from books. But they don’t stop at this one thing, but try to get there with the help of it, and actually get to the point that they themselves, without the aid of a memorized speaker, conduct a correctly long speech in the language they are learning. This is what we must do in the matter of prayer. We learn to pray according to prayer books, praying through ready-made prayers handed down to us by the Lord and the holy fathers who excelled in prayer. But it shouldn’t stop there; we must further stretch ourselves and, having become accustomed with our mind and heart to turn to God with outside help, we must make experiments in ascending to Him – and our own, to reach the point where the soul itself, so to speak, with speech, enters into a prayerful conversation with God, itself ascends to Him, and reveals itself to Him and confesses what is in it and what it desires.

And this is what the soul must be taught. I will tell you briefly what you must do in order to succeed in this science.

And the skill of praying according to prayer books with reverence, attention and feeling leads to this. For as from a vessel – overflowing – water pours out of itself; So from the heart, filled with holy feelings through prayers, its own prayer to God will begin to flow out of itself. But there are also special rules, directed exclusively towards this goal, which anyone who wants success in prayer will make it a point to follow.

Why is it, tell me, how many years they sometimes pray according to prayer books – and still do not have prayer in their hearts? – By the way, I think it’s because only at that time do some people strain to ascend to God, when they perform the prayer rule; at all other times they will not remember God.

They finish, for example, their morning prayers, and think that in relation to God everything is fulfilled; then all day long it’s just case after case, but they won’t even turn to God; Perhaps in the evening it will come to the thought that again soon you need to go to prayer and perform your prayers. This is why it happens that even if the Lord gives some good feeling in the morning, it is drowned out by the bustle and busyness of the day. That is why there is no desire to pray in the evening – a person cannot control himself in order to soften his soul even a little, and prayer is generally poorly sung and matured. It is this wrong (isn’t it almost universal?) that needs to be corrected; that is, you need to make sure that your soul does not only turn to God when you stand in prayer; but throughout the entire day, as much as possible, she continually ascended to Him and remained with Him. For this:

first, throughout the day you need to cry out to God from your heart more often in short words, judging by the need of your soul and current affairs. You start by saying, for example: “Bless, Lord!” When you finish the job, say: “Glory to You, Lord,” and not only with your tongue, but also with the feeling of your heart. Any passion that arises, say: “Save me, Lord, I am perishing.” The darkness of disturbing thoughts finds itself, cry out: “Bring my soul out of prison.” Wrong deeds are coming, and sin leads to them, pray: “Guide me, Lord, on the path, or do not let my feet become confused.” Sins suppress and lead to despair, cry out in the publican’s voice: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” So anyway. – Or just often say: “Lord, have mercy”; “O Lady Theotokos, have mercy on me,” “O Holy Guardian Angel of God, protect me,” or cry out in some other word. Just make these appeals as often as possible, trying in every possible way so that they come from the heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, we will often make intelligent ascents to God from the heart, frequent appeals to God, frequent prayer, and this frequency will impart the skill of intelligent conversation with God.

But in order for the soul to begin to cry out like this, it is necessary first to force it to turn everything into the glory of God – every one of its deeds, big and small. And this is the second way to teach the soul to turn to God more often during the day. For if we make it a law for ourselves to fulfill this Apostolic commandment, to do everything for the glory of God, even “even pits or pits” (1 Cor. 10:31); then we will certainly remember God in every action, and let us remember not simply, but with caution, lest in some case we act wrongly and offend God in some way. This will make you turn to God with fear and prayerfully ask for help and admonition. Just as we almost constantly do something, we will almost constantly turn to God in prayer, and, therefore, almost continuously go through the science of lifting up prayer in our souls to God.

But so that even this, i.e. doing everything for the glory of God, the soul performed as it should, it is necessary to tune it to this from early morning – from the very beginning of the day, before “a man goes out to his work and to his work until the evening” (Ps. 103:23). This mood is produced by the thought of God. And this is the third way of training the soul to frequently turn to God. Godly thinking is reverent reflection about the Divine properties and actions and about what knowledge of them and their relationship to us obliges us – there is reflection on the goodness of God, justice, wisdom, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, about creation and providence, about the arrangement of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, about the grace and word of God, about the holy sacraments, about Kingdom of Heaven. – Whatever of these subjects you begin to reflect on, this reflection will certainly fill your soul with a feeling of reverence for God. Start thinking, for example, about the goodness of God, you will see that you are surrounded by God’s mercies both physically and spiritually, and unless you are a stone, you will not fall before God in an outpouring of humiliated feelings of thanksgiving. Start thinking about the omnipresence of God, and you will understand that you are everywhere before God, and God is before you, and you cannot help but be filled with reverent fear. Begin to reflect on the omniscience of God, you will realize that nothing in you is hidden from the eye of God, and you will certainly decide to be strictly attentive to the movements of your heart and mind, so as not to offend the all-seeing God in any way. Begin to reason about the truth of God, and you will be convinced that not a single bad deed will go unpunished, and you will certainly intend to cleanse all your sins with heartfelt contrition and repentance before God. So, no matter what property and action of God you begin to reason about, every such reflection will fill the soul with reverent feelings and dispositions towards God. It directs the whole being of a person directly to God and is therefore the most direct means to accustom the soul to ascend to God. The most decent and convenient time for this is the morning, when the soul is not yet burdened with many impressions and business worries, namely, after morning prayer. When you finish your prayer, sit down, and with your thoughts sanctified in prayer, begin to reflect today on one thing, tomorrow on another of God’s properties and actions, and create a disposition in your soul according to this. “Go,” said Saint Demetrius of Rostov, “go, holy contemplation of God, and let us immerse ourselves in meditation on the great deeds of God,” and his thoughts passed through either the works of creation and providence, or the miracles of the Lord the Savior, or His suffering, or something else, thereby touched his heart and began to pour out his soul in prayer. Anyone can do this. There is little work, all you need is desire and determination; and there is a lot of fruit.

So here are three ways, in addition to the prayer rule, to teach the soul to ascend in prayer to God, namely: devote some time in the morning to contemplation of God; turn every deed to the glory of God, and often turn to God with short appeals. – When the thought of God is well accomplished in the morning, it will leave a deep mood for thinking about God. Thinking about God will force the soul to carefully carry out every action, both internal and external, and turn it into the glory of God. And both will put the soul in such a position that prayerful appeals to God will often be expelled from it. – These three are the thought of God, all creation for the glory of God and frequent appeals are the most effective tools of mental and heartfelt prayer. Each of them lifts the soul to God. Whoever sets out to practice them will soon acquire the skill of ascending to believe in God in his heart. Labor in this is like climbing a mountain. The higher someone climbs the mountain, the freer and easier he breathes. So here, the more one gets used to the exercises shown, the higher the soul will rise, and the higher the soul rises, the more freely prayer will act in it. Our soul by nature is an inhabitant of the heavenly world of the Divine. She should have been there in her mind and heart; but the burden of earthly thoughts and passions drags and weighs her down. The methods shown tear it off the ground little by little, and then completely tear it off. When they are completely torn away, then the soul will enter its own region and will sweetly dwell in grief – here heartily and mentally, and then with its very being it will be honored before the face of God to dwell in the faces of angels and saints. – May the Lord vouchsafe all of you with His grace. Amen. November 22, 1864

Continuous Prayer

Constantly turning the mind and heart to God is the goal of prayer work. Prayer is a state of mind. How to become worthy of constant prayer before God in your heart.

I briefly explained to you two types or two degrees of prayer, namely: reading prayer, when we pray to God with other people’s prayers, and mental prayer, when we mentally ascend to God through contemplation of God, devoting everything to God and frequent appeals to Him from the heart.

But that’s not all. There is a third type, or degree of prayer, which constitutes real prayer, and for which the first two serve only as preparation. Namely: a constant turning of the mind and heart to God, accompanied by inner warmth or burning of the spirit. This is the limit to which prayer must reach, and the goal that every prayer worker must keep in mind, so as not to work in vain in the work of prayer.

Remember what the word of God says about prayer: “Watch and pray,” says the Lord (Matthew 26:41). “Be sober, be vigilant”, teaches the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 5:8). “Be patient in prayer, watchful in it” (Col. 4:2); “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17); “praying with all prayer and supplication continually in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18), the Apostle Paul commands, explaining in other places the reason why this happens and should be so, because, he says, “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), and that “The Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Cor. 3:16), – “for Him we cry: Abba Father” (Rom. 8:15). – From these instructions and commandments you cannot help but see that prayer is not some one-time, intermittent action, but is a state of spirit, constant and continuous, just as breathing and the beating of the heart are constant and continuous in the body.

Let me explain this to you with an example. The sun stands in the middle, and all our planets move around it, all gravitate towards it and all are constantly facing it in some direction. But what the sun is in the material world, God is the intelligent sun in the spiritual world. Take your thoughts to heaven, what will you see there? Angels who, according to the word of the Lord, see the face of their heavenly Father. All the disembodied spirits and all the saints in heaven are turned to God, they fix their intelligent eyes on Him and do not want to tear them away from Him, because of the ineffable bliss exuded by this sight of God. But what Angels and saints do in heaven, we must learn to do on earth, to become accustomed to angel-like unceasing prayer before God in our hearts. Whoever achieves this will only become a real man of prayer. How can one be worthy of such a great blessing?!

I will answer this briefly this way: we must work in prayer tirelessly, jealously, and trustingly, striving to achieve, like the promised land, the burning of the spirit with sober attention to God. Work in prayer and – pray for everything, especially pray for this limit of prayer – burning of the spirit – and you will surely receive what you are looking for. This is what St. Macarius of Egypt, who endured labor and tasted the fruit of prayer. “If,” he says, you do not have prayer, work in prayer, and the Lord, seeing your labor and patient labor in it, how earnestly you desire this good, will give you this prayer” (Conversations 19). Work only goes so far. When the fire ignites, about which the Lord says: “The fire has come to burn on the earth, and whatever I want, even if it is already on fire” (Luke 12:49), then work stops, light, free, joyful prayer begins.

Do not think that this obviously means some very high state, unattainable for everyday people. No. It is definitely a high state, but achievable for everyone. After all, everyone sometimes feels a surge of warmth and zeal during prayer, when the soul, having renounced everything, enters deeply into itself and fervently prays to God. This, which happens from time to time, as if an influx of the spirit of prayer, must be brought to a constant state – and the limit of prayer will be reached.

The means to this, as I said, is prayer work. When wood is rubbed against wood, it warms up and produces fire. So, when you rub your soul in the work of prayer, it finally gives the fire of prayer. The work of prayer consists of the proper performance of those two types of prayer, which I have already spoken about, namely, reverently performing our usual prayers with attention and feeling, and then training the soul to often ascend to God through contemplation of God, turning everything to the glory of God and frequent invocations to God from the heart. We pray in the morning and in the evening: the distance is long. If only at this time one turns to God, then, even though one prays fervently, day or night everything will dissipate again, and by the time of prayer the soul will again become cold and empty, as before. Even if you pray fervently again, but if you again become cold and distracted, what good is it?! This will mean – create and destroy, create and destroy; only labor. If now we set ourselves not only the rule of doing prayer in the morning and evening with attention and feeling, but also, in addition to this, to exercise every day in the thought of God, to turn every deed to the glory of God and often cry out to God from the heart with short words of prayer; then we will fill this long interval from morning to evening prayer, and back, with frequent appeals to God, pure prayerful actions. Although this will not be an unceasing prayer, it will be a very often repeated prayer, which the more often it is repeated, the closer it will come to unceasing. All this work stands on the transition to this last one, as a necessary step.

For let us suppose that you do this work every day, tirelessly, tirelessly – look, what should happen in your soul?

From the thought of God will be born the fear of God. For the fear of God is in itself the comprehension by reverent thought and the perception by feeling of God’s endless perfections and actions. From the conversion of all our deeds to the glory of God, remembrance of God, or walking before God, will be born; for walking with God is: whatever you do, remember that you are before God. Finally, from frequent appeals to God, or otherwise from the frequent eruptions from the heart of reverent feelings for God, a constant warm or loving invocation of the name of God will be born. When these three visit the soul: the fear of God, the memory of God, or walking before God, and this is the loving turning of the heart to God, or the loving cherishing of the sweetest name of the Lord in the heart; – then that spiritual fire, which I spoke about at first, will certainly ignite in the heart, and will bring with it deep peace, unceasing sobriety, life-giving wakefulness. Man will then enter into a state beyond which he does not need to desire on earth, and which is the true precursor to the blissful state that awaits everyone in the future. Here what the Apostle said is fulfilled: “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

Achieve these three in your prayer work. They are themselves the reward of labor and together the key to the hidden temple of the Kingdom of Heaven. Having opened the door with them, they go inside, are brought to the foot of the throne of God and from the Heavenly Father are awarded an approving word, touch and embrace, for which all their bones cry out: Lord – Lord! Who is like You? Pray about this in your prayer work and sigh each one: when will I come and appear before Your face, Lord? I will seek Your face, O Lord, I will seek Your face.

To those who want to know how to improve in these three: the fear of God, the memory of God and this loving, unceasing invocation of the name of God – I will answer briefly: start looking, and the matter itself will teach you how to find; adhere to only one law: to put aside everything that hinders them, to diligently pursue everything that is favorable to them. And business will teach this distinction. I will only add the following to this instruction.

When you begin to have yourself in your heart the way a body has itself, embraced on all sides by warmth, or when you begin to behave as someone behaves in front of a big person, with fear and attention, so as not to offend him in any way, despite the permission to walk and act freely, or you see that in your soul the same thing begins to happen to the Lord that happens to a bride to her beloved groom; then know that there is nearby, at the door, the hidden Visitor of our souls, and he will enter and delight in you with you.

And these few signs, I think, are enough as a guide for zealous seekers. However, this is said only for the purpose so that those of you who are zealous in prayer know the final limit of prayer and, having worked little and achieved little, do not think that you have achieved everything – do not weaken because of your work, and thus do not put obstacles in the way of further ascensions in the degrees of prayer. How they put up pillars on big roads so that those walking and driving know how much they have walked and driven, and how much is still left; So in our spiritual life there are a kind of instructions that determine the degree of perfection of life, which are then designated so that those who are zealous for perfection, knowing where they have reached and how much remains to go, do not stop halfway and thus do not deprive themselves of the fruit of their labors, which, perhaps, is there if they make only two or three turns.

I will conclude my word with a fervent prayer, may the Lord grant you understanding about everything, so that you may achieve everything in a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ. Amen.
November 29, 1864

Union of prayer with other virtues

It is impossible to succeed in prayer if you do not take care of other virtues. Prayer must be preceded and accompanied by virtues. What kind of virtues should we surround prayer with?

I told you three times about prayer: both the one when they read prayers with attention, and the one when they themselves ascend to God with their mind and heart, and the one when they constantly stand before God with burning spirit. The Lord showed us different degrees and types of prayer, so that everyone, to the best of his ability, could be a participant in the good of prayer. For the work of prayer is a great work. It, as I said, is both evidence of spiritual life and at the same time its food. That’s why you need to care about perfection in it most of all.

I partially reminded you how to manage what kind of prayer. Now I want to remind you, as a warning, that it is difficult, and even hardly possible, to succeed in prayer if at the same time we do not take care of other virtues. If we liken prayer to a fragrant composition, and the soul to a vessel for it; then we understand that just as a leaky vessel will not retain the aroma, so in the soul, due to the lack of any virtue that becomes incomplete, prayer will not last.

If we liken the person praying to the whole composition of the body, then we will find the next lesson – that just as someone without legs, for example, cannot walk, even though everything else in him is healthy, so it will not be possible to approach God, or reach God in prayer, without active virtues. Delve into the instructions of the Apostles, and you will see that their prayer never stands alone, but always with a whole host of virtues. Behold, the Apostle Paul equips the Christian for spiritual warfare and clothes him with all the armor of God. Look – what are they? The girdle of the loins is truth, the armor is truth, the shoes are the gospel of peace, the shield is faith, the helmet is hope, the sword is the word of God. Here are the guns! And after all of them, as if in some kind of fortress, he places his warrior in prayer, saying: “praying with all prayer and supplication continually in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). And with prayer alone, of course, you can overcome all enemies, but in order to be strong in prayer, you must succeed in faith, hope, knowledge of the truth, truth and everything else. In another place, the same Apostle, as the bride of Christ, adorning the soul with wedding clothes, says: “put on… in the womb of generosity, kindness, humility, meekness and long-suffering, forgiveness of offenses, love, … peace, wisdom in the word of God.” And then, as a crown of kindness, he places on the head a prayer: ” admonishing yourself in psalms and songs and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:12-16). And in many other places in the word of God, prayer is presented in inseparable union with all the virtues, like their queen, after whom they all rush and who draws them all after herself, or even better, like their fragrant flower. Like a flower, in order to appear and attract the eye, it must be preceded by leaves, a trunk with branches and a root; Likewise, prayer, so that it blossoms like a flower in the soul, must be preceded and accompanied by good spiritual dispositions and labors, which in relation to it are: then – like a root, what is faith, then – like a trunk with branches, what is multi-active love, then – like leaves, what are all spiritual and physical feats. When such a holy tree is planted in the soul, then on it, then in the morning, then in the evening, then throughout the day, judging by its properties, the flower of prayer will freely bloom and fill our entire inner temple with fragrance.

I bring all this to you as a reminder, so that none of you might think that I am working in prayer, and that’s enough. No, we must have care and zeal for everything together, and pray, and excel in every virtue. It is true that it is impossible to succeed in virtues without prayer; But it is still necessary to work in good deeds and with prayer, so that prayer has something to provide us with its assistance. And in order to succeed in prayer, you need to pray; but the work of prayer must be used, just like the work of doing good. You must take care of everything and show yourself correct in everything. After all, the same thing happens here as in watches. When does the clock run properly and indicate the time correctly? When every wheel and every other part in them is intact and stands in its place and in its connection. So it is in our internal, spiritual mechanism: the aspiration of the spirit, like an arrow, is true, that is, directly addressed to God, when all other parts of the soul are intact and stand in their own order, in their own, so to speak, virtue.

I will show you exactly what kind of virtues prayer should be surrounded by, or what kind of prayerful and virtuous life a Christian should establish, not in my own words, but in the words of St. Demetrius of Rostov, who briefly depicts this in the following instruction (“God-inspired Christian instruction.” Part 1, p. 288). Please delve into it!

1) When you arise from sleep, your first thought is about God, your first word and prayer is to God, your Creator and Sustainer of your life, who can always kill and give life, strike and heal, save and destroy.

2) Bow down and give thanks to God, who raised you up from sleep, and did not destroy you through your iniquities, but is patiently awaiting your conversion.

3) Make a beginning for the better, saying with the Psalmist: “reh: now I have begun” (Ps. 77:11) and so on. No one makes the path to heaven well, except someone who begins well every day.

4) In the morning, be a Seraphim in prayer, a Cherub in deeds, and an Angel in circulation.

5) Do not waste time in vain, except for the necessary corrections.

6) In all deeds and words and in thoughts, keep your mind in God; Do not write in your mind anything other than Christ; let no image touch a pure heart, unless the image is pure of Christ our God and Savior.

7) Arouse yourself to the love of God in every possible way, as much as you can, especially this discussion with the Psalmist, saying within yourself: “in my teaching a fire will burn” (Ps. 39:4).

8) You deign to unceasingly love God, always look at His presence with your inner eyes, and for this reason, cease from every evil deed and word and thought. Why do everything honestly, humbly and with filial fear do, speak and think.

9) Combine meekness with praise and humility with honesty.

10) Be quiet, humble, honest and useful in your speech: let silence reason with words, even those who speak. But let no idle and rotten word come from your mouth.

11) If laughter happens, just make sure you grin (smile) and then not often.

12) Beware of rage and passion and quarrel: in anger, behave in moderation.

13) Let abstinence always be maintained in eating and drinking.

14) Be lenient in all things, and God will please you, and people will also praise you.

15) Death is the end of everything, for which one should always pray.

You see what a splendid life is indicated for a Christian who prays. It is true that more is said here about prayer, i.e. about mental and heartfelt turning to God, but various virtues are also indicated – and all of them are such that without them even prayer cannot take place: which everyone will experience and learn in practice – just begin to practice in prayer as it should. How will you begin to pray when you are burdened with intemperance, or outraged by anger and vexation, or are not at peace with someone, or are distracted by worries and distraction, etc.? And if you don’t have this, then you must have the opposite, i.e. virtues. Why does Saint John Climacus say about prayer that it is the mother and daughter of virtues.

Hearing this, someone else will think: “What great demands! What a heavy and heavy burden! Where can we get the energy and time for this? But be encouraged, brothers! Very little is needed, but you only need one thing: zeal for God and the salvation of your soul in Him. The soul by nature has a lot of good things, only it is littered with all kinds of bad things. As soon as zeal for salvation and pleasing God is reborn in the soul, all its goodness will immediately gather around this zeal, and a lot of goodness will immediately appear in the soul. Then zeal, strengthened by the grace of God, with the help of this initial good, will begin to acquire everything else and be enriched by it – and everything will begin to grow gradually. Jealousy itself already has the germ of prayer. It will be nourished with natural kindness for the first time, and then it will begin to be nourished by the kindness acquired through labor, and grow and become stronger, and will grow and begin to sing and glorify to God in its heart a blessed and multi-part song of prayer.

May the Lord help you succeed in this. Amen.
December 20, 1864