Chapter 4

The Union of Prayer With Other Virtues

I have spoken to you three times about prayer: about the prayer when people read prayers with attention, about the prayer when they themselves ascend to God in mind and heart, and about the prayer when they stand before God unceasing in the burning of the spirit. The Lord has shown us different degrees and kinds of prayer so that everyone, according to the measure of their strength, could participate in the good of prayer. For the work of prayer is a great work. As I have said, it is both the sign and the sustenance of spiritual life. Therefore one must strive above all for perfection in it.

How to succeed in some kind of prayer I have partly told you. Now I wish to remind you, as a warning, that it is difficult, and perhaps nearly impossible, to succeed in prayer if we do not at the same time care for other virtues. If we compare prayer to a fragrant compound and the soul to a vessel for it, we understand that as a fragrant compound will not remain in a cracked vessel, so prayer will not abide in a soul that is broken through the lack of any virtue.

If we compare one who prays to a whole body, we find the following lesson: just as the legless, for example, cannot walk, however sound everything else in them may be, so one lacking active virtues cannot approach God, or reach God in prayer. Heed the Apostolic teachings and you will see that with them prayer never stands alone, but always with a whole multitude of virtues. Behold, the Apostle Paul prepares a Christian for spiritual combat and clothes him in all the armor of God. Look—what are these? The belt around the waist—truth, the breastplate—righteousness, the shoes—the gospel of peace, the shield—faith, the helmet—hope, the sword—God’s word. There are the instruments! And after all of them, as in a fortress, he seats his warrior in prayer, saying: “at all times pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). And surely with prayer alone you can defeat all enemies, but to be strong in prayer, you must advance in faith, hope, knowledge of truth, righteousness and all the rest. In another place the same Apostle, adorning the soul as a bride of Christ with wedding garments, says: “put on tender compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, forgive grievances, love, ...peace, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly through wisdom.” And then, as the crown of beauty, he places on the head prayer: “teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing in your hearts to the Lord with grace” (Col. 3:12–16). And in many other places in God’s word prayer is placed in inseparable union with all virtues, as their queen, after which they all rush and which draws them all after it, or better yet, as their fragrant flower. For a flower to appear and attract the eyes, it must be preceded by leaves, a trunk with branches, and roots; so for prayer to flower as a flower in the soul, there must precede and accompany it good spiritual dispositions and labors, which in relation to it are: sometimes like roots, such as faith, sometimes like a trunk with branches, such as many-faceted love, sometimes like leaves, such as all spiritual and physical ascetic labors. When such a holy tree has been planted in the soul, then on it, now in the morning, now in the evening, now in the course of the day, according to its nature, the flower of prayer will freely bloom and fill with fragrance our entire inner sanctuary.

All this I bring to your remembrance so that none of you think: I labor in prayer, and that is enough. No—you must care for all things equally and be zealous in all—both pray and advance in every virtue. It is true that you cannot advance in virtues without prayer; but you must still labor in doing good together with prayer, so that prayer has something to help you with. And to succeed in prayer you must pray; but the labor of prayer must be used as the labor of doing good is used there. You must have care for all things and show yourself diligent in all. You know, this is the same as in clocks. When do clocks run correctly and accurately show the time? When every wheel and every other part in them is whole, stands in its place and in its connection. So in our inner, soul-level mechanism: the direction of the spirit, like the hand, points truly, that is, directly toward God, when all other parts of the soul are whole and stand in their order, are, so to speak, wrought into virtue.

What virtues specifically should surround prayer, or what kind of prayer-filled and virtuous life should a Christian establish in himself, I will indicate to you not in my own words, but in the words of the holy bishop Dimitri of Rostov, who briefly portrays this in the following instruction (“God-Inspired Christian Instruction,” Part 1, p. 288). I ask you to take heed!

1) When you rise from sleep, let your first thought be of God, your first word and prayer be to God, your Creator and the Sustainer of your life, who is able always to kill and make alive, to strike and heal, to save and destroy.

2) Bow down and give thanks to God, who raised you from sleep, and has not destroyed you for your lawlessness, but in longsuffering awaits your conversion.

3) Begin toward the better, saying with the Psalmist: “I said: now I have begun” (Ps. 76:11), and so on. For the path to heaven no one accomplishes well unless they begin well each day.

4) In the morning be a Seraph in prayer, a Cherub in deeds, an Angel in your conduct.

5) Never waste time, except in necessary tasks.

6) In all deeds and words and thoughts, keep your mind in God; write nothing else in your mind except Christ, let no image touch your pure heart except the pure image of Christ God and Savior.

7) Stir yourself to love of God in all ways, as much as you are able, and especially through this reflection, speaking it with the Psalmist within yourself: “in my meditation a fire shall kindle” (Ps. 38:4).

8) Whom you wish to love unceasingly, on His presence always gaze with inner eyes, and therefore abstain from every evil deed and word and thought. Wherefore do all things honorably, humbly and with filial fear, speak, and think.

9) Let meekness with praise and humility with honor be together.

10) Let your speech be quiet, humble, honorable and profitable: and let silence discern the words you have to speak. But let no idle and corrupt word issue from your lips.

11) If laughter happens, let it be only a slight smile, and even that not often.

12) Guard yourself from anger, hasty temper, and quarreling: even in anger, keep yourself measured.

13) In eating and drinking, temperance must always be preserved.

14) In all things be compassionate, and God will bless you, just as people will also praise you.

15) Death is the end of all things, and one must always pray concerning it.

Do you see what a beautiful life is laid out for the Christian who prays? True, there is more said here about prayer—that is, about the noetic and heartfelt turning toward God—but various virtues are also indicated, and all of them are such that prayer cannot even come into being without them: each person will experience and learn this by their own practice, as soon as they begin to exercise themselves in prayer as they should. How can you pray when you are weighed down by intemperance, or disturbed by anger and vexation, or at odds with someone, or distracted by cares and scattered attention? But if you do not have these failings, then you must have the opposite—that is, virtues. This is why the holy John of the Ladder says of prayer that it is the mother and daughter of the virtues.

Hearing this, someone may think: “What great demands! What a heavy and weighty burden! Where will we find the strength and time for this?” But be encouraged, brothers! Very little is needed, but you need to have only one thing: zeal for God and for the salvation of your soul in him. The soul by nature possesses much that is good, only it is buried under all kinds of degradation. As soon as zeal for salvation and pleasing God is awakened in the soul, immediately all its goodness gathers around this zeal, and much good at once appears in the soul. Then zeal, strengthened by God’s grace and aided by this initial good, begins to acquire all other virtues and become enriched by them—and everything begins to grow gradually. Zeal itself already contains the seed of prayer. At first it will be nourished by natural goodness, but then it will begin to be nourished by the goodness acquired through effort, and will grow and strengthen, and will increase and begin to sing and offer to God in the heart a beautiful and many-faceted hymn of prayer.

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