A Tree in Winter Before the Windows of the Cell

The winter of 1828 I spent at the monastery of the Venerable Alexander of Svir. Before the windows of my cell stood a tree, stripped bare by the frosts, like a skeleton stripped bare by death. Solitude sharpens the senses and sharpens thought; the range of their activity expands. Meanwhile the sea, of which Saint John of the Ladder says that it must inevitably be stirred up, was indeed stirring.[1] The bare tree served as a consolation for me: it consoled me with the hope of the renewal of my soul. “With my voice”—with the voice of my mind, with the voice of my heart, with the voice of my ailing body, with the voice of my infirmities, with the voice of my falls—“I cried out” (Ps. 141:2): “O Lord, hear my prayer” (Ps. 142:1), “give ear to my supplication” (Ps. 141:7), which I send up to You from the midst of battles that shake my mind and heart, from the midst of ailments that weary and weaken my body, from the midst of countless infirmities that encompass my entire being, from the midst of the innumerable falls with which my life is filled. You who heard Jonah praying in the belly of the whale, hear me, who cry to You from the belly of my iniquities, from the belly of hell. From the depths, from the abyss of sins, from the abyss of my lapses and temptations, “I cry to You, O Lord!” O Lord, hear my voice! “Bring out of prison” the prison of passions, “my soul”, pour into it the light of grace! (Ps. 141:8). When You pour into it that light—bright and joyful and life-giving—then will it “give praise to Your name” (Ps. 141:8). — There acts in the soul a confession awakened by grace, surpassing the mind and drowning it in its ineffable sweetness; descending into the inner chamber of the heart, shutting itself in there by inattention to all that is sensory, the mind pronounces Your name, bows before Your name, is nourished by Your name, embraces Your name and is embraced by it. Your name, O Word of God and God, renders all other words superfluous to it! “Deliver me from those who pursue me”—from demonic thoughts and assaults—“for they are stronger than I” (Ps. 141:7), stronger than the will of my soul, stronger than the comprehension of my mind! “My spirit grows faint within me; within me my heart is troubled” (Ps. 142:4). “The sorrows of death encompassed me; the perils of hell found me” (Ps. 114:3).

O Lord! It is not in my own strength that I place my hope: my falls teach me to know my weakness. In You, O Lord, is my hope! Only when You, O Lord, send down Your grace into my heart; only when, dwelling in my heart, You are “the portion of my inheritance” (Ps. 15:5), my sole possession and treasure, shall I be able to dwell “in the land of the living” (Ps. 114:8), in the land of Your holy righteousness. The holy angels of God will rejoice, the ranks of those who have pleased You among men will rejoice, seeing my salvation. “The righteous wait for me until You render to me” (Ps. 141:8) Your mercy—not according to the multitude of my sins, but according to the multitude of Your love for mankind. Amen.