A Homily on Prayer of the Mind, the Heart, and the Soul (Part 2)

It is necessary for the practitioner of prayer to come to know and see the action of passions and spirits on his blood. Not without reason does Sacred Scripture say that not only “flesh” but “blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). Not only gross bodily sensations of the old man, but also more subtle sensations, sometimes very subtle, arising from the motion of blood, are rejected by God. All the more does this matter need the ascetic’s attention, for the subtle action of passions and spirits on blood becomes clear only when the heart feels within itself the action of the Holy Spirit. Sensation is explained by sensation. Having acquired spiritual sensation, the ascetic suddenly perceives with full clarity the action of blood on the soul, sees how passions and spirits, acting through blood in the most subtle manner on the soul, keep the soul in slavery to themselves. Then he will understand and be convinced that every action of blood on the soul, not only gross but also subtle, is abominable before God, constitutes a sacrifice defiled by sin, unworthy to be placed in the realm of the spiritual, unworthy to be joined to spiritual actions and sensations. Before the manifestation of the Spirit’s actions in the heart, subtle action of blood remains either wholly incomprehensible or little understood, and may even be taken for the action of grace if proper caution is not exercised. This caution consists in not recognizing any heart sensation as correct before the time of purification and renewal by the Spirit, except the sensation of repentance, the saving sorrow for sins, mingled with hope of mercy. From fallen nature God accepts only one sacrifice of the heart, one sensation of the heart, one state of it: “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Ps. 50:19).

The action of blood on the soul is fully evident in the action of the passion of anger and angry thoughts on the blood, especially in people prone to anger. Into what frenzy does a man inflamed with anger fall! He loses all power over himself, comes under the power of the passion, under the power of spirits thirsting for his perdition and desiring to destroy him, using as an instrument of their wrongdoing his very self; he speaks and acts as if deprived of reason. The action of blood on the soul is also evident when the blood is inflamed by the passion of lust. The action of other passions on blood is less obvious, but it exists. What is sorrow? What is despondency? What is sloth? These are various actions on the blood of different sinful thoughts. Love of money and gain of necessity have an influence on the blood: the pleasure which is produced in a man by dreams of enrichment—what is it if not a deceptive, false, sinful play of the blood? Evil spirits, sleeplessly and insatiably thirsting for man’s perdition, act upon us not only through thoughts and fantasies, but also through various touches, feeling our flesh, our blood, our heart, our mind, striving by all ways and means to infuse their poison into us.[1] There is need for caution, need for watchfulness, need for clear and detailed knowledge of the mental path leading to God. On this path there are many thieves, robbers, murderers. At the sight of countless dangers, let us weep before our Lord, and beseech Him with constant weeping that He Himself guide us along the narrow and sorrowful path leading to life. Various inflammations of blood from the action of various thoughts and demonic fantasies constitute that flaming sword which was given to the fallen cherub upon our fall, with which he turns within us, forbidding us entry into the mystical divine paradise of spiritual thoughts and sensations.[2]

Particular attention must be given to the action of vainglory within us, whose action on the blood is very difficult to perceive and understand. Vainglory almost always acts together with subtle sensual pleasure and provides man with the most subtle sinful enjoyment. The poison of this enjoyment is so subtle that many recognize the enjoyment of vainglory and sensuality as a consolation of conscience, even as an action of divine grace. The ascetic deceived by this enjoyment gradually comes into a state of self-deception; recognizing self-deception as a state of grace, he gradually comes under the full power of the fallen angel, constantly appearing as an angel of light, becomes an instrument and apostle of the rejected spirits. From such a state entire books have been written, praised by the blind world and read by people not purified from passions with enjoyment and admiration. This so-called spiritual enjoyment is nothing else than enjoyment of subtle vainglory, high-mindedness and sensuality. Enjoyment is not the lot of the sinner: his lot is weeping and repentance. Vainglory corrupts the soul just as the passion of lust corrupts the soul and body. Vainglory makes the soul incapable of the spiritual movements which begin only when the movements of soul-level passions cease, stopped by humility. For this reason the holy Fathers propose to all monks in general, especially to those occupied in prayer and desiring to make progress in it, holy repentance, which acts directly against vainglory, providing the soul with spiritual poverty. Even with considerable practice in repentance, the action of vainglory on the soul is perceived, very similar to the action of the passion of lust. The passion of lust teaches one to strive for impermissible union with another’s body, and in those who obey it, even by merely delighting in unclean thoughts and fantasies, changes all heart-felt emotions, changes the constitution of soul and body; vainglory draws toward unlawful appropriation of human glory, and, touching the heart, brings the blood into a disorderly, sweet motion—by this motion it changes all the disposition of man, introducing into him union with the crude and dark spirit of the world, and thus estranging him from God’s Spirit. Vainglory in relation to true glory is lust.[3] says Saint Isaac the Syrian, “It views the nature of things with lustful vision.” How much it darkens man, how it makes the approach and assimilation to God difficult, this the Saviour testified: “How can you believe”, He said to vain-glorious Pharisees seeking praise and approval from one another and from the blind human society, “when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (Jn. 5:44). What the venerable John of the Ladder and Nilus of Sorsk call arrogant zeal for a premature seeking of what comes in its own time, can without error be attributed to the passion of vainglory with the necessary concurrence of blood;[4] blood is heated and set in motion by vain-glorious thoughts, and vainglory, in turn, fosters and multiplies deceptive fantasies and inflated opinion about oneself, called by the Apostle the inflation of a fleshly mind, inflating itself without reason (Col. 2:18).

From all that has been said, one can discern the time befitting for mental heart prayer. For engaging in it, mature age is befitting, at which the impetuousness of the passions is naturally tamed in a man. Youth is not rejected when it has the quality of maturity, especially when it has a guide. But for maturity, the mere number of years from birth or from entering the monastery is insufficient; maturity must mainly flow from prolonged preliminary examination of oneself—not arbitrary examination, but examination in the light of the Gospel, in which the new man is depicted and all the shades of the ailments of the old man, through study of the writings of the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Eastern Church, who teach infallibly how to use the light of the Gospel. The more a man penetrates into himself, the more he comes to know himself, the more he knows his passions, their varied action, the means of struggle, his own weakness, the more he strives to destroy in himself the sinful properties implanted by the fall and to acquire the properties shown by the Gospel, the more solid will be the foundation for the edifice of prayer. One should not hurry in laying the foundation; on the contrary, one should take care that it have satisfactory depth and solidity. It is not enough to study the passions with their many-branched offshoots in reading the Fathers’ books; one must read them in the living book of the soul and acquire experiential knowledge of them. It is evident that many years are needed for such practice to be fruitful, especially in our time, when effortless acquisition of spiritual knowledge from a man is rare, when one must seek in books for each such knowledge, and then observe in the books the order, the gradualness of spiritual knowledge, practices, and states. Those who did not sufficiently care for the solidity of the foundation saw many shortcomings and inconveniences in their building, significant cracks and other damage, and often saw the sorrowful destruction of the building itself. Brethren! Let us not hurry; following the counsel of the Gospel (Lk. 6:48), let us dig, go deep, lay in the foundation solid, weighty stones. Digging and going deep is detailed examination of the heart, and solid stones are habits established by long time and practice in the Gospel commandments.

When the Christ-bearer ascetic, to the extent of his strength, masters the motions of blood and weakens its action on the soul: then in the soul little by little spiritual movements begin to arise, subtle divine understandings begin to appear to the mind, drawing it to contemplate them and turning it away from wandering everywhere, concentrating it in itself;[5] the heart begins to sympathize with the mind with abundant compunction. From the action of the spiritual, the action of blood on the soul is finally weakened: blood enters upon the performance of its natural service in the bodily system, ceasing to serve, outside its natural purpose, as an instrument of sin and demons. The Holy Spirit warms the man spiritually, at the same time watering and cooling the soul, hitherto acquainted only with various inflammations of blood.[6] At the appearance of the intellectual Sun of Righteousness, the intellectual beasts depart into their lairs, and the ascetic comes out from the darkness and captivity in which sin and fallen spirits held him, to spiritual practice and progress until the very evening of earthly life, until removal to eternal, never-ending life (Ps. 103:22–23). From the blessed action of the Holy Spirit in a man, first there begins to blow in him an unusual stillness, there appears deadness to the world, to the enjoyment of its vanity and sinfulness, to services in its midst. The Christian is reconciled to all and to everyone through the means of a strange, humble, and at the same time lofty spiritual discernment, not known to and inaccessible to the fleshly and soulish state. He begins to feel compassion for all humanity and for each person in particular. Compassion passes over into love. Then the attentiveness in his prayer begins to deepen: the words of prayer begin to produce a strong, unusual impression on the soul, to shake it. Finally, little by little the heart and all the soul are drawn into union with the mind, and with the soul the body itself is drawn into this union. Such prayer is called

Mental, when it is pronounced by the mind with deep attentiveness, with the sympathy of the heart;

Heart, when it is pronounced by the mind and heart united, whereby the mind as if descends into the heart and from the depths of the heart sends up the prayer;

Soul, when it is accomplished from the whole soul, with the participation of the very body, when it is accomplished from the whole being, whereby all the being becomes as if one mouth pronouncing the prayer.

The holy Fathers in their writings often include under one name mental prayer both heart and soul prayer, and sometimes distinguish them. Thus the Venerable Gregory the Sinaite said: “Pray unceasingly mentally or soulfully.” But now, when the teaching from living lips on this subject has greatly diminished, it is very useful to know the precise distinction. In some mental prayer acts more, in others heart prayer, and in others soul prayer, according to as each is endowed by the Giver of all good things, both natural and gracious; sometimes in one and the same ascetic now one prayer, now another operates.[7] Such prayer is very often and for the most part accompanied by tears. A man then in part comes to know what blessed dispassion means. He begins to feel purity, and from purity genuine fear of God, consuming the dullness of the flesh by a strange, hitherto unknown to man, terror, from the clear feeling of his standing before God, as before God. The Christian enters into a new life and a new struggle, corresponding to his renewed spiritual state: former milk for his nourishment no longer suffices. All his deeds flow together into one—into blessed unceasing repentance. Let him who has ears to hear, understand: what is needful has been said, what is most soul-saving, what is of greatest importance for a true practitioner, though the words are simple. This state was depicted by the Great Pimen in his reply to a question about how should an attentive hesychast conduct himself? The Great one answered: “Like a man who has sunk in mud up to his neck, who has a burden on his neck, and cries to God: have mercy on me.” The deep weeping, the weeping of the human spirit, moved to weeping by God’s Spirit, is an inseparable companion of heart prayer; by spiritual feeling of fear of God, reverence and compunction heart prayer is accompanied;[8] soul prayer is accompanied by these. In perfect Christians both these feelings pass over into love. But even these sensations belong to the class of grace-given ones. They are gifts of God, given in their own time, strange even to the perception of one struggling in the sphere of them, though he struggle rightly. Heart prayer works especially through prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus; soul prayer is prayed by those who have received heart prayer when they engage in prayer-reading and psalmody.

Mental, heart, and soul prayer is commanded to man by God in both the Old and New Testament. “You shall love the Lord your God”, commands God, “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30; Deut. 6:5). It is evident that to attain the fulfillment of the greatest, most exalted of all commandments, one cannot accomplish it otherwise than through mental, heart, and soul prayer, through which the one who prays is separated from all creation, wholly, with all his being, rushes toward God. Being in this rushing toward God, the one praying suddenly becomes united with himself and sees himself healed from the touch of God’s finger upon him. Mind, heart, soul, body, hitherto torn apart by sin, suddenly come together into one in the Lord. Since the union has taken place in the Lord, was produced by the Lord, it is at the same time both the union of man with himself and the union of man with the Lord. At the union, or together with the union, will come the manifestation of spiritual gifts. More precisely: the union is a gift of the Spirit. The first of the spiritual gifts, which also produces the wondrous union, is the peace of Christ. After the peace of Christ will come the whole company of Christ’s gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which the Apostle enumerates thus:[9] “love, joy, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). The prayer of one healed, united, reconciled to himself and with himself, is free from demonic thoughts and fantasies. The flaming sword of the fallen cherub ceases to act: the blood, held in check by power from above, ceases to boil and surge. This sea becomes still, the breath of winds—demonic thoughts and fantasies—no longer act upon it. Prayer, free from thoughts and fantasies, is called—pure, non-wandering. The ascetic who has attained pure prayer begins to dedicate much time to practice in it, often without noticing it himself.[10] His whole life, all his activity is transformed into prayer. Quality of prayer, the Fathers have said, necessarily leads to quantity. Prayer, embracing a man, little by little changes him, makes him spiritual from union with the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says: “He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). To the intimate of the Spirit are revealed the mysteries of Christianity.

The gracious peace of Christ, by which the ascetic is led into pure prayer, is entirely distinct from the ordinary, pleasant composure of men: dwelling in the heart, it binds the disturbing movements of the passions, and takes away fear not by removing what is fearful, but by a blessed, victorious state in Christ, in which what is fearful is not fearful, as the Lord said: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you: not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27). In the peace of Christ there dwells secretly such a spiritual power that by it he tramples upon every earthly sorrow and affliction. This power is drawn from Christ Himself: “In Me you have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). Called forth by heart prayer, Christ sends down into the heart a spiritual power, called the peace of Christ, incomprehensible to the mind, inexpressible in words, incomprehensibly grasped by the blessed experience alone. “The peace of God”, the Apostle says to Christians, “exceeds all understanding, and will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ” (Phil 4:7). Such is the power of the peace of Christ. It is “exceeding all understanding”. This means: it is above all the understanding of created beings—both human understanding and the understanding of angels of light, and the understanding of fallen angels. It, as the action of God, commands with divine authority over thoughts and affections of the heart. At its appearance, all demonic thoughts and the sensations dependent upon them flee away, and human thoughts, together with the heart, come under its all-holy governance and guidance. From this point it becomes their king, and guards them, that is, keeps them untouched by sin, in Jesus Christ. This means: it holds thoughts constantly in the teaching of the Gospel, illuminates the mind with the mystical interpretation of this teaching, and feeds the heart with the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to all who partake of it (Jn 6:33). The holy peace, in its abundant action, imposes silence on the mind and draws both soul and body to its blessed tasting. Then ceases all movement of the blood, all its influence on the state of the soul: there is great stillness. A certain subtle cold blows through the whole man, and mysterious teaching is heard. The Christian, held and guarded by the holy peace, becomes impregnable to enemies: he is clinging to the enjoyment of the peace of Christ, and, delighting in it, forgets not only sinful pleasures, but all earthly pleasures in general—both bodily and of the soul. A healing draught! Divine medicine! Blessed intoxication! Indeed: what other beginning of man’s renewal can there be than the gracious feeling of peace, by which the parts of man, divided by sin, are united again into one! Without this preliminary gift, without this union with himself, can man be capable of any spiritual, divine state, created by the all-good Holy Spirit? A broken vessel, before it is repaired, can it be a container for anything? The feeling in Christ of peace, as indeed of all gracious gifts in general, begins first of all to manifest itself in prayer, as in that activity in which the ascetic is most prepared by reverence and attentiveness to receive divine impressions. Subsequently, becoming as it were a property of the Christian, it constantly accompanies him, constantly and everywhere stirring him to prayer, accomplished in the chamber of the soul, showing from afar his mental enemies and adversaries, repelling and striking them with its all-mighty right hand.

The greatness of the spiritual gift, the peace of Christ, its manifestation in the chosen people of God, the new Israel, Christians, its power to heal souls, its power to sustain the health of souls, the beginning of this gift from the God-man, the bestowal of this gift by the God-man, is described by the holy prophet Isaiah thus: “The Mighty God”, the Prophet says of the incarnate Lord, “Master, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come: I will bring peace upon the princes”—upon Christians who have progressed, overcoming the passions and therefore deserving the name of princes—“peace and health to Him. And great is His dominion, and of His peace there is no end, upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom, to establish it and sustain it with judgment and righteousness, from now and forever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this” (Is 9:6,7). “In His days righteousness will flourish and abundance of peace” (Ps 71:7); “The Lord will bless His people”—Christians—“with peace” (Ps 28:11), “the gentle will inherit the earth and will delight in the abundance of peace” (Ps 36:11). As the Holy Spirit proclaims the Son (Jn 16:14), so the action in man of the Holy Spirit, the peace of Christ, proclaims that the thoughts of man have entered into the all-holy realm of divine Righteousness and Truth, that the Gospel has been received by his heart: “Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed” (Ps 84:11). The action of the peace of Christ in man is a sign of his abiding in the commandments of Christ, outside error and self-deception: on the other hand, disturbance, however subtle, whatever excuses may cover it, serves as a sure sign of deviation from the narrow path of Christ onto the broad way that leads to perdition. Judge neither the ungodly nor the manifest evildoer: “to his own Lord he stands” or “falls” (Rom 14:4). Do not hate either your slanderer, or the mocker, or the robber, or the murderer: they crucify you on the right of the Lord, by the incomprehensible ordering of God’s judgments, so that you, from heartfelt consciousness and conviction, might say in your prayer to the Lord: “I receive what I deserve by my deeds; remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom”. Understand from the afflictions permitted you your unspeakable good fortune, your selection by God, and pray with fervent prayer for those benefactors of yours, by means of whom good fortune is afforded you, by whose hands you are torn from the world and made to die to it, by whose hands you are raised up to God.[11] Feel toward them compassion after the likeness of that compassion which God, Who gave His Son as an expiatory sacrifice for the creation hostile to the Creator, feels toward mankind, the wretched, drowning in sin, knowing that this creation will in its majority mock even this Sacrifice, will scorn it. Such compassion, extending even to love of enemies, poured out in tearful prayers for them, leads to experiential knowledge of Truth. Truth is the Word of God, the Gospel; Truth is Christ. Knowledge of Truth brings into the soul divine righteousness, having cast out the fallen and defiled by sin righteousness of men: the divine righteousness testifies its entrance into the soul by the peace of Christ. The peace of Christ makes man both a temple and a priest of the living God: “His place is in peace” (God’s), “and His dwelling is in Zion. There He broke the strength of the bows, the weapons and the sword, and battle” (Ps 75:3–4).