On the Nature, Significance, and Power of Prayer
1. Prayer is a proof of my rational person, of my being made in God’s image, a pledge of my future deification and blessedness. I am created from nothing; I am nothing before God, having nothing of my own; yet I, by His mercy, am a person—I have reason, a heart, a free will—and through my reason and freedom, I can through heartfelt turning to Him gradually increase within myself His infinite kingdom, gradually multiply more and more within myself His gifts, draw from Him as from an ever-flowing inexhaustible Source every spiritual and bodily good, especially spiritual good. Prayer teaches me that I am the image of God, that with humble and grateful disposition of my soul before God, with my free will, I, infinitely multiplying the spiritual gifts of God, can thus in infinity perfect myself and infinitely increase my god-likeness, my heavenly blessedness to which I am predestined. O! Prayer is a sign of my great dignity, with which my Creator has honored me. But at the same time it reminds me both of my nothingness (from nothing am I, and I have nothing of my own, and therefore I ask God for all things), and of my highest dignity (I am God’s image, I am deified, I can be called the friend of God, as Abraham the father of believers, only if I believe steadfastly in God’s existence, goodness, and omnipotence, and become like Him in this life through deeds of love and mercy).
2. In prayer, petition is against our proud flesh, which attributes everything to itself; thanksgiving is against the insensitivity of our flesh to God’s innumerable benefits; praise is against the carnal person who seeks glory only for himself.
3. God is Truth: and my prayer must be true as is my life. God is Light: and my prayer must be brought forth in the light of mind and heart; God is Fire: and my prayer, as is my life, must burn with flame; God is all-free: and my prayer must be the free outpouring of my heart. What riches of the human spirit: let one but think from the heart of God, let one but desire heartfelt union with God, and He is immediately with you—neither the walls of a house nor prison bars, neither mountains nor chasms can hinder this. Daring conversation of creature with Creator, reverent standing of the soul before Him as before the King and Life-giver who gives life to all; forgetting for the soul of all that surrounds us, food of the soul, air and light, life-giving warmth, purification from sins, Christ’s good yoke, His light burden.
4. Prayer is a constant feeling (awareness) of my spiritual weakness or poverty, sanctification of the soul, a foretaste of future blessedness, angelic blessedness, heavenly rain that refreshes, waters, and makes fruitful the earth of the soul, strength and fortitude of soul and body, refreshment and purification of the mental air, enlightenment of the face, joy of spirit, a golden link binding creature to Creator, boldness and courage in all sorrows and temptations of life, success in deeds, equality with angels, the strengthening of faith, hope, and love. Prayer is correction of life, mother of heartfelt contrition and tears; a strong impulse to deeds of mercy; the safety of life: the destruction of the fear of death; contempt for earthly treasures, a longing for heavenly goods, expectation of the universal Judge, the common resurrection and the life of the age to come; intense effort to escape from eternal torment; constant seeking of mercy and forgiveness from the Lord; walking before the eyes of God; blessed dissolution before the all-creating and all-sustaining Creator; living water of the soul; prayer—the embrace in the heart of all people with love; the descent of heaven into the soul; the embrace in the heart of the All-Holy Trinity, as it is written, “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).
5. Prayer is a constant awareness of my spiritual poverty and weakness, contemplation within myself, in people, and in nature of the works of God’s wisdom, goodness, and omnipotent power, prayer is a constant grateful disposition.
6. When praying, strive with all your might to feel in your heart the truth and power of prayer, be nourished by it as by incorruptible food, water your heart with it as with dew, warm yourself with it as with gracious fire.
7. In prayer and in every deed of your life, avoid suspicion and doubt and diabolical fantasy. Let your soul’s eye be simple, so that your whole prayer, your whole life and deeds may be filled with light.
8. As long as we stand in fervent prayer, so long is there calm and warmth and ease and light in the soul; for then we are with God and in God; but the moment we cease from prayer, then temptations come, various sorrows. O blessed time of prayer!
9. When praying, we must certainly take our heart into our power and turn it toward the Lord. It must not be cold, deceitful, unfaithful, double-minded. Otherwise, what benefit is our prayer, our worship? It is good to hear from the Lord the angry voice: “These people draw near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mt 15:8). Therefore, let us not stand in the church with a soul that is slothful, but let each be burning in spirit, serving the Lord. And people do not much value the services we render with coldness and out of habit. But God desires exactly our heart. “My son, give me your heart” (Prov 23:26); for the heart is the chief thing in a person, their life; more than that—our heart is the person themselves. Therefore, whoever does not pray or serve God with their heart—it is as if they do not pray at all, for then only their body prays, which without the soul is the same as earth. Remember that standing in prayer, you stand before God who knows the hearts of all. Therefore your prayer must be, so to speak, entirely spirit, entirely reason.
10. When praying, be like a babbling child, merging into one spirit with the spirit of the prayer you are uttering. Consider yourself as nothing, accept prayers as a great gift of God. Utterly renounce carnal reasoning and do not listen to it, for carnal “reason puffs up” (1Cor 8:1)—it doubts, fantasizes, blasphemes. If during or outside prayer the enemy troubles your soul with certain blasphemies or abominations, do not despair because of them, but say firmly in your heart: it is for the purification from these and similar sins that our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth; it was in these and similar spiritual weaknesses that the Most Merciful came to help us; and when you say these words with faith, your heart will immediately find peace, for the Lord will purify your heart. Generally, do not despair over any sin as you would over a temptation, but hope in the Savior. O boundless mercy of God! O greatest service of the God-man to us sinners! Even now He helps us with love, cleansing and saving us. Therefore let the power of the enemy be put to shame.
11. The thoughts of a person have an extremely strong influence on the state and disposition of their heart and actions; therefore, so that the heart may be pure, good, calm, and the disposition of the will good and pious, you must purify your thoughts through prayer, reading Holy Scripture and the works of holy Fathers, and reflection on the transience and swift passing and disappearance of earthly pleasures.
12. As close to you as your thought, as close to your heart as faith, so close is God to you; and the more vivid and firm your thought of God, the more vivid your faith and knowledge of your own weakness and nothingness and sense of need for God, the nearer He is. Or as close to the body as the air is, so close is God to the soul. For God is, so to speak, spiritual air, which all Angels breathe, the souls of saints, and the souls of people who live with particular piety. You cannot live without God for a single minute, and truly, each minute you live by Him: “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Act 17:28).
13. The heart’s insensitivity to the truth of words in prayer comes from heartfelt unbelief and lack of feeling one’s sinfulness, and this in turn flows from a hidden feeling of pride. By the measure of your feelings in prayer, a person knows whether they are proud or humble: the more sensitive and fervent the prayer, the more humble they are; the more insensitive, the prouder.
14. Strive to arrive at childlike simplicity in your dealings with people and in prayer to God. Simplicity is the greatest good and dignity of a person. God is perfectly simple because He is perfectly spiritual, perfectly good. And let your soul not be divided between good and evil.
15. Learn to pray, compel yourself to prayer: at first it will be difficult, but the more you compel yourself, the easier it will become; yet at first you must always compel yourself.
16. When you pray, imagine that as though there were only God alone before you, Three in One, and beside Him nothing else existed. Imagine that God is in the world as the soul is in the body, though infinitely higher than it and not confined by it; your body is small, and one small soul pervades all of it. But the world is vast. God is infinitely great, and throughout all creation God fills everything— present everywhere and filling all things.
17. The Savior deigned to become incarnate not only to save us when sins and passions have overcome us, when we are already entangled by them, but also to save us by our prayer even when sin and passion are just beginning to assault us, when they are fighting us. Do not sleep and let your hands fall in despair when passions fight you, but at that very time be on guard, watch, and pray to Christ that He not allow us to fall into sin. A house should not be saved from fire when the flames have already spread everywhere, but especially when the fire is just beginning. So it is with the soul. The soul is a house, passions are fire. “Give no place to the devil” (Eph 4:27).
18. The deceitful one strives to scatter prayer like a heap of sand, to make words like dry sand without connection, without moisture—that is, without warmth of heart. Prayer is sometimes a house built on sand, sometimes a house built on rock. Those who pray without faith, distractedly, with coldness, build on sand—such prayer crumbles on its own and brings no benefit to those who pray; those who build on rock are those who throughout the entire prayer keep their eyes fixed on the Lord and pray to Him as to one living, speaking face to face with them.
19. Let us measure the worth of our prayer by human faith and the quality of our relationships with people. What are we like with people? Sometimes we express our requests, praises, gratitude to them coldly, without heartfelt participation, out of duty or propriety, or we do something for them; sometimes with warmth, with heartfelt participation, with love; or sometimes with pretense, sometimes with sincerity. We are the same and not the same with God! We must always express to God with our whole heart both praise and thanksgiving and petition; we must always with our whole heart do every deed before Him; we must always with our whole heart love Him and hope in Him.
20. Can one pray hurriedly without harming one’s prayer? One can—those who have learned inner prayer with a pure heart. In prayer, the heart must sincerely desire what it is asking for; it must feel the truth of what it is saying—and a pure heart has this, as it were, in its nature. Therefore it can pray even hurriedly and yet please God, for haste does not harm the truth (sincerity) of prayer. But those who have not yet attained heartfelt prayer must pray slowly, waiting for the appropriate echo in the heart of each word of the prayer. And this is not always quickly given to one unaccustomed to prayer’s contemplation. Therefore for such people, the rare utterance of the words of prayer must be an absolute rule. Wait until each word resonates in the heart with its proper echo.
21. As a wicked person coming with a request to a good, meek, and humble person tries to be like that person for better success of their petition, so a Christian, approaching God with prayer to the Lord or to His Pure Mother or to Angels or to Saints—for the success of their prayer must, as far as possible, become like the Lord Himself or His Pure Mother or the Angels or the Saints. And herein lies the mystery of drawing near and the swift hearing of our prayers.
22. Give to God, you who pray, your heart—that loving, sincere heart with which you love your children, your parents, your benefactors, your friends, in which you feel the sweetness of unfeigned, pure love.
23. Sometimes in a prolonged prayer only a few moments are truly pleasing to God and constitute true prayer and true worship of God. The main thing in prayer is closeness of the heart to God, witnessed by the sweetness of God’s presence in the soul.
24. Prayer done by force develops hypocrisy, makes one incapable of any work that requires thought, and makes a person sluggish in everything, even in fulfilling one’s duties. This should convince all those who pray thus to correct their prayer. One must pray willingly, with energy from the heart. Do not pray to God from sorrow, from necessity (by force)—“God loves a cheerful giver” (2Cor 9:7).
25. The greatest gift of God, which we need above all else and which we receive most often from God as a result of our prayer, is peace of heart, as the Savior says: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). And rejoice and consider yourselves rich, having everything, when you receive peace.
26. When asking the Lord or the Pure Mother of God or Angels or saints, you must have such faith as the centurion of Capernaum had. He believed that just as his soldiers listened to him and carried out his words, so even more by the almighty word of the All-good Lord would his request be fulfilled. If creatures with their limited power did what he asked of them, will not the Master Himself fulfill with His almighty power the prayers of His servants who turn to Him with faith and hope? Will not the Pure Mother of God, the Angels, and the holy people—faithful and strong in grace and intercession with God, His servants—fulfill our prayers brought with faith, hope, and love? Truly, with the centurion I believe that if I ask some saint, distinguishing none: give me this—and he will give it; come to me to help—and he will come; do this—and he will do it. This is the simple and strong faith one must have.
27. Outer prayer often happens at the expense of inner prayer, and inner prayer at the expense of outer prayer; that is, if I pray with my lips or read, many words do not settle on my heart, I am divided, I am a hypocrite: my lips say one thing while my heart believes another; my lips speak truth but my heartfelt disposition does not agree with the words of prayer. But if I pray inwardly, with the heart, then not paying attention to the utterance of words, I concentrate on their content and power, gradually training my heart to the truth, entering into that very disposition of spirit in which the prayer words were written, and thus little by little I learn to pray in spirit and truth, according to the words of eternal Truth: he who worships must worship in spirit and truth. When a person prays outwardly, aloud, it is not always possible to follow all the movements of the heart, which are too swift; therefore of necessity one must attend to the utterance, the external form of the word. Thus many readers who read quickly acquire completely false prayer: with their lips they seem as if they pray, they appear as pious, but the heart sleeps and knows not what the lips are saying. This happens because they hurry and do not think with their heart about what they are saying. One must pray for them as they pray for us; they pray for us with the words of holy people, and we must pray for them—we must pray that their words reach their heart and breathe with its warmth.
28. All who come to serve the Lord in prayer, learn to be like Him—meek, humble, true in heart; have no deceit in your soul, no double-heartedness, do not be cold; try to have His Spirit, for whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him—and the Lord seeks in us one who is like Himself, something to which His grace can attach itself. Remember that no word uttered in prayer is ever wasted if it comes from the heart: each word the Lord hears and each word is on His scales. We sometimes think our words only beat the air in vain, sound like a voice crying in the wilderness: no. You must remember that the Lord understands us in prayer, if I may so say—our words—just as perfect pray-ers understand themselves, for man is the image of God. The Lord responds to every desire of the heart, whether expressed in words or not.
29. For a Christian to live a Christian life and not have the life of the spirit completely extinguished in him, he needs home prayer and public prayer, he needs to attend with faith, understanding, and earnestness the worship in the church, as it is necessary to pour oil into a lamp so it burns and does not go out; and since sincere, fervent prayer comes with temperance, then for maintaining Christian life or the fervor of faith, hope, and love, temperance and fasting are necessary. Nothing so quickly extinguishes the spirit of faith in us as intemperance, gluttony, and excess and a scattered, loose life. I fade, I die spiritually when I do not serve in the temple for a whole week, and I burn, I come alive in soul and heart when I serve, compelling myself to prayer that is not formal but truly spiritual, sincere, fervent.
30. Look firmly at God with the eyes of your heart, and during His contemplation ask what you will in the name of Jesus Christ—and it will be done for you. God will be everything to you in a single moment, for He is simple Being, beyond all time and space, and in the moment of your faith, your heartfelt union with Him, He will accomplish for you all that you need for the salvation of yourself and your neighbor, and you will at that moment be yourself a partaker of Godhood through the most sincere communion with Him: “I said, ‘You are gods’” (Ps 81:6). As there will be no gap between God and you at that moment, so too there will be no gap between your word and its fulfillment; you will speak—and it will immediately come to pass, as God spoke and it came to be, He commanded and it was created. This applies both to the Mysteries and generally to spiritual prayer. Yet in the Mysteries all is accomplished because of the grace of the priesthood with which the priest is clothed, because of the Very High Priest—Christ. Whose image the priest bears on himself—therefore even though he bears this office unworthily, even though he is suspicious, little-faithful or mistrustful, nonetheless the Mystery of God is accomplished quickly, in a moment.
31. They say: we quickly grow tired of praying. Why? Because you do not vividly picture the Lord before yourselves—as standing at your right hand. Look at Him constantly with the eyes of your heart, and then you will stand the whole night in prayer and not grow weary. What do I say—a night! You will stand three days and three nights and not grow weary. Remember the pillar-dwellers. They stood for many years in a prayerful disposition of spirit on a pillar and conquered their flesh, which like yours was also inclined to sloth. And you find a few hours of public prayer burdensome, even one hour.