An Instruction for the Saturday of the Thirty-Second Week: On Prayer

Beloved brethren! To make progress in the ascetic labour of prayer, to taste in due time, by the ineffable mercy of God, the sweetest fruit of prayer, consisting in the renewal of the whole person by the Holy Spirit, one must pray constantly and must courageously endure the difficulties and sorrows that are joined with the ascetic labour of prayer. This is what the Lord commanded us, as we heard today in the Gospel. “One must always pray and not lose heart” (Lk. 18:1)—that is, not lose hope. People usually lose hope when they experience failure: consequently, the Lord commands us not to lose hope if, while engaged for a prolonged time in the ascetic labour of prayer, we notice no desired success; if our mind, instead of praying attentively, is scattered by various vain thoughts and imaginings; if our heart, instead of being full of compunction, which is almost always accompanied by comforting tears, is cold and hard; if during prayer sudden unseemly and wild passions suddenly kindle in us, if base remembrances are brought to us; if circumstances and people oppose our prayer; if the most bitter enemies of prayer, the demons, attack our prayer. All obstacles encountered in the field of prayer are overcome by constancy in prayer.

The Lord deigned to clothe his teaching about the benefit and fruit of constant prayer in a parable, as He did with many of His other teachings. A parable imprints itself in memory with particular ease, and with it the teaching clothed in the parable is also imprinted. “A judge was in a certain city”, – the Lord said, explaining the necessity of constant and patient persistence in prayer, – “who feared God not and respected no man. A widow was in that city, and she came to him, saying, Give me justice against my adversary,” that is, defend me “from my opponent. And he was unwilling for a long time. But afterwards he said to himself: Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, because this widow troubles me, I will give her justice, lest by her continual coming” that is, unceasing and endless “she weary me.” (Lk. 18:1–5) At first glance, a ruler is presented here who has reached the utmost degree of sinfulness. Many people living a wicked life have lost the fear of God; but while they sin fearlessly before the all-seeing God, whom, in their blindness and hardness, they regard as seeing nothing and even not existing, they are ashamed to sin openly before men and do everything to hide their iniquities from them, and to make men think the best of them. The judge has lost both fear of God and shame before men: nothing now restrained him in his actions; he could be guided solely by his own will. Such a desperate sinner appears to be the judge at first glance; but upon deeper inquiry it becomes clear that, in a mysterious sense, many features ascribed to the judge refer to God229. God cannot fear Himself, and He does not respect the person of man: all men are equal before Him, all are His creations, all are His servants, all equally need His mercy, all are under His complete authority. He is called unjust—that is, unfair—because “He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor repaid us according to our sins. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 102:10, 14). In spiritual rapture from contemplating the ineffable loving-kindness of God, the holy Isaac the Syrian cries out: “Do not dare to call God just, for you see no justice of His toward you. Although the prophet calls Him righteous and upright, yet His Son declared that He is more good and merciful: He is good to the ungrateful and evil (Lk. 6:36). How can He be called just if we read the parable of the payment of labourers? “Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I wish to give to this last one even as to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what is mine? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Mt. 20:1–15) Again, how can God be called just if we read the story of the prodigal son, who squandered all his wealth in debauchery? Because of a single feeling of contrition expressed by the son, the father ran to meet him, embraced him, and restored him to his former honour. The Son of God Himself—none other—testified to this of God; there is no room for doubt about it. Where is God’s justice when Christ died for us when we were His enemies?”

The widow in the parable is given the name of the human soul, separated from God by sin and aware and sensible of this separation. By the city is meant the world as God’s creation. Very few in this city confess their spiritual widowhood; the majority remain outside remembrance of death and God’s judgment, absorbed wholly in temporal cares and pleasures. So few think of eternity and prepare for it that only one such person is mentioned in the entire city. The condition of widowhood is a condition of loneliness, helplessness, a condition inseparable from sorrow, a condition of incessant mourning. Into this condition come, bring themselves, or are brought by God those who have perceived their spiritual widowhood, who have lost communion with the Holy Spirit through sin, who long and strive to renew this communion through repentance, who are dead to God because their communion with Him is broken, who are dead to the world because of their lack of sympathy with it. This condition of soul is necessary for success in the ascetic labour of prayer: God hearkens to the prayers of none but widows—that is, the spiritually poor, filled with awareness of their sinfulness, their weakness, their fallen state; free from pride, which consists in recognizing oneself to possess merits, virtues, and righteousness. Pride is self-deception. Those who recognize themselves to possess merits, virtues, and righteousness are called in the Holy Scripture “the rich”. The rich are those who in reality have no wealth at all, but, deceiving themselves, think they have it and strive to appear rich before men. The vain, proud notions that comprise pride destroy in man that spiritual throne upon which the Holy Spirit usually sits, destroy the only condition that draws God’s mercy upon man. Conversely, from humble notions a throne for the Holy Spirit in man is built, and the condition, pledge, and means of obtaining God’s mercy are established. Pride itself destroys the possibility of progress in prayer; therefore the Scripture says: “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty” (Lk. 1:51–53). The prayer of the proud is destroyed by distraction. They have lost power over themselves: neither their thoughts nor their feelings obey them. Their mind cannot focus on self-examination, from which arises in the soul the feeling of repentance and compunction. One who sows his seed upon rock gathers no fruit; so too the one who prays without compunction, who prays coldly and superficially, departs after completing his prayer, devoid of spiritual fruit, denied access to communion with God. God receives into communion with Himself only the humble.

The ascetic labour of prayer appears entirely different to those who only dream of it, content with the scantiest practice in it, than to those who have carefully taken up the ascetic labour of prayer and have known it through experience. The former regard this labour as the easiest, wholly dependent on man’s will, becoming his possession at any time when he should wish to take possession of it. They suppose that as soon as they set aside their cares and enter into stillness, they will be met there by abundant spiritual pleasure. “We shall be constantly conversing with God,” they think and say, and they compose for themselves various elevated spiritual states—such as the state of clairvoyance, prophecy, wonder-working, and healing of illnesses. Thus ignorance dreams and wanders, guided by the incomprehensible passion of vanity. Experience shows and proves something quite different.

One who enters upon true prayerful ascetic struggle is guided in it by God Himself, with a wisdom incomprehensible to those not initiated into its mysteries. “Prayer,” said the holy John of the Ladder, “contains within itself its own teacher, God, who teaches man to understand prayer, who ‘gives prayer to the one who prays and blesses the years of the righteous’ (1 Sam. 2:9). According to the dispensation of divine wisdom, one beginning the prayer-struggle is at first allowed to taste the consolation that prayer brings. A well-chosen medicine for some chronic illness, upon first touching its surface, immediately and from the first applications brings relief. That same medicine, in continued use, begins to penetrate the body’s constitution, disturbs the illness, and gradually drawing it out, intensifies the pain and sometimes brings the patient into a state of torment. Upon such manifestations, an inexperienced patient may easily doubt the medicine’s benefit; but skilled physicians discern its very benefit in these very phenomena. Precisely the same occurs with prayer. When a Christian occupies himself with it constantly and earnestly, it little by little will begin to reveal to him the passions within him, of whose very existence he knew nothing. It will lay bare before him in a striking picture the fall of human nature and its captivity. When the Christian then determines to rise from that fall and free himself from captivity, those spirits who have enslaved us to themselves will come, and with obstinacy will rise up against the prayer that labors to grant the Christian spiritual freedom. This serves as proof of prayer’s actuality, as the same great teacher of monks said: “We conclude about the benefit of prayer from the opposition of demons that we encounter in performing it, and about its fruit we conclude from our vanquishing the enemy” (Homily 28, Chapter 61). In the involuntary contemplation of our fall and in the struggle with our passions and evil spirits, divine Providence most often, and often for a very long time, holds ascetics for their essential benefit. Seeing the passions constantly arising within themselves, seeing the constant predominance over themselves of sinful thoughts and imaginings brought by spirits, the ascetic acquires spiritual poverty, which is commanded by the Gospel, dies to the world, and becomes a true widow in the spiritual sense; and from the intense feeling of widowhood, orphanhood, solitude, and homelessness, he begins with particular shamelessness and persistence to importune the Judge who does not fear God and is not disgraced before men—to weary the Unwearied One. Though this Judge, being God, does not fear God, yet since the soul, made a widow through sin and fall in relation to Him, brings labor to Him: ‘He will execute vindication for her against her enemies’—both of the body and against her adversaries—the evil spirits. How is this vindication, this protection, accomplished? By the gift of the Holy Spirit to the ascetic exhausted by prayer-struggle: ‘Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened… Your Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him’ (Lk. 11:9–13), thus the Lord assures us. But to obtain the gift, we are commanded to ask, to seek, to knock persistently at the spiritual doors of God’s mercy. It is not beneficial for us, even harmful, to obtain spiritual wealth quickly and without labor: having obtained it easily, we shall not be able to keep it; it may serve us as an occasion for vainglory, for contempt and condemnation of our neighbors, which leads the ascetic to grievous falls that usually follow pride and serve as punishment and instruction for those possessed by that most ruinous passion which cast down from heaven the fallen angels. For this reason, God leaves the ascetics of prayer to languish for a long time in unresolved struggle with passions and spirits, midst hope and hopelessness, midst frequent victories and defeats. ‘Through correction for iniquity you have disciplined man,’ says the great practitioner of prayer, ‘and you have wasted away his soul like a spider’s web’ (Ps. 38:12). In this difficult time, ascetics thoroughly learn through experience knowledge of the diverse passions and demonic devices, thoroughly learn the Gospel commandments, which become their possession through prolonged and careful study. In this difficult time, ascetics thoroughly prepare themselves to receive and preserve divine grace. ‘Will not God execute vindication for His chosen ones,’ the Gospel parable concludes with these words, ‘who cry to Him day and night, and He is patient with them. I tell you, He will execute vindication for them speedily’ (Lk. 18:7–8). God’s patience is called here the prolongation of the struggle with sin, permitted to God’s chosen ones by none other than God Himself. Vindication or protection is called swift, because even during the struggle God constantly sustains His chosen ones; and after the struggle ends and man is renewed by the Holy Spirit, such blessedness is poured into him that he immediately forgets all the anguish of struggle; it appears to him as if it had taken place in the shortest space of time. ‘We are filled with Your mercy in the morning, O Lord, and we rejoice and are glad’—thus those confess to the Lord who have been assured that their prayer was heard, who have beheld in their souls the appearing of spiritual morning after the darkness of night—‘all our days we are glad, for the days in which You humbled us, the years in which we saw evil’ (Ps. 89:13–15). But the struggle is so heavy that the prayer-cry of the chosen constantly intensifies because of it; because of it, it does not cease day or night; the interval between prayers is eliminated, and the servants of God begin to importune God with uninterrupted prayer and weeping, produced by that humble understanding of themselves that arises from the sight of their sinfulness. ‘All day I go about mourning,’ says the holy prophet David, ‘for my sides are filled with burning, and there is no healing in my flesh. I am troubled’ by my passions and evil spirits, ‘and I am brought very low’ (Ps. 37:7–9). ‘How long, O Lord, will You forget me? How long will You hide Your face from me?’ How long will You be patient? How long will You not execute Your vindication over my enemies? ‘How long shall I take counsel,’ because of my bewilderment, many and fruitless ‘counsels in my soul, and sorrows in my heart day and night? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?’ (Ps. 12:2–3). ‘My enemies have seized my soul! They surround me like a lion ready to pounce, and like a young lion dwelling in the hidden places. Arise, O Lord, confront them, and cast them down; deliver my soul from the wicked’ (Ps. 16:9, 12–13). ‘My God! In You I have hoped; let me not be put to shame forever, nor let my enemies rejoice over me: for all who wait on You shall not be ashamed’ (Ps. 24:1–2).

When the Lord ended the parable with the promise “to execute vindication speedily”, to the one who will “cry to Him day and night”, He then said: “Yet when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Lk. 18:8). For what reason are these words spoken? They are spoken, according to the interpretation of the Fathers, for the following reason. The Lord, having enumerated the signs that will precede His second coming, gave teaching on prayer, which is especially necessary in these difficult and calamitous times, and just as on another occasion for the same reason He said: “therefore keep watch at all times, praying, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that are about to happen, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk. 21:36). “Yet when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” This means: will He find those who truly believe, who prove their faith by deeds, especially by true and actual prayer, whose ascetic struggle is founded on faith and accomplished while constantly relying on faith? Such a turn of phrase, by its usage in Scripture, is equivalent to the following: the Son of God, coming to earth, will scarcely find anyone, or will find very few indeed, who would possess true faith and the prayer-progress dependent on it and manifesting it. But at that very time such progress is needed especially! “The end of all things is at hand,” says the holy Apostle Peter, “therefore be prudent and sober for your prayers” (1 Pet. 4:7). There will be no progress in prayer, no true practice of prayer: all humans will be occupied with material development, with making that earth condemned to burning into their paradise; in self-deception they will reckon temporal life eternal, they will reject and mock care for preparation for eternity. For those whose thoughts are wholly directed to earth and occupied by earth, there is no God. The one who rises to God through pure and frequent prayer acquires living faith in God, through it sees Him, and flies, winged, through all the reversals and calamities of earthly life. He will see “vindication against his enemies”, and will rejoice not only in the forgiveness of his sins, but also in his cleansing from sinful passions. This state the holy Fathers call holiness, blessed dispassion, Christian perfection. In this state he will be counted worthy to “escape all” the calamities, “that are about to happen, and to stand before the Son of Man”, when he shall be summoned before Him both by death and by that trumpet which shall gather the living and the dead for judgment before the Son of God. Amen.

Commentary of the Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria; The Ladder, Homily 28 and so forth.

Homily 90

Homily 28, Chapter 64

Discourse on Abba Philemon. Philokalia, vol. 4

The Ladder, Homily 28, Chapter 28

St. Macarius the Great, Homily 4, Chapter 19

Commentary of the Blessed Theophylact

According to the Blessed Theophylact”