Chapter 3

Unceasing Prayer

I have explained to you briefly two kinds or degrees of prayer: prayer by recitation, when we pray to God through the prayers of others, and our own mental prayer, when we ascend to God mentally through meditation on God, dedication of all things to God, and frequent invocations from the heart to Him.

But this is not yet all. There is a third kind, or degree, of prayer, which constitutes true prayer itself, and to which the first two serve only as preparation. Namely: the unceasing turning of mind and heart to God, accompanied by inner warmth or burning of the spirit. This is the goal to which prayer must reach, and the aim that every laborer in prayer should keep in mind, so as not to labor fruitlessly in the work of prayer.

Recall what is said of prayer in God’s word: “Watch and pray”, says the Lord (Matt. 26:41). “Be sober, be watchful”, teaches the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 5:8). “Persist in prayer, being watchful in it” (Col. 4:2); “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17); “at all times pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18), commands the Apostle Paul, explaining in other places the reason why this is and why it should be—because, he says, “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), and because “the Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Cor. 3:16)—“through whom we cry out: Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). From these instructions and commandments you cannot fail to see that prayer is not some single, interrupted action, but is a state of the spirit, constant and uninterrupted, like the breathing and beating of the heart in the body, which are constant and uninterrupted.

Let me explain this with an example. The sun stands in the middle, and all our planets circle around it, all gravitate toward it, and all are constantly turned toward it in some way. But what the sun is in the material world, God is in the spiritual world—the divine sun of the mind. Transport yourself in thought to heaven; what do you see there? Angels, who, by the word of the Lord, ever gaze upon the face of their Father in heaven. All bodiless spirits and all the saints in heaven are turned toward God, direct their noetic eyes toward Him, and do not wish to tear them away from Him because of the inexpressible blessedness flowing from this beholding of God. But what the angels and saints do in heaven, we must accustom ourselves to do on earth—to grow accustomed to an angel-like, unceasing prayerful standing before God in the heart. Whoever achieves this becomes a true teacher of prayer. How then can we be deemed worthy of such great blessing?!

I answer this briefly thus: you must labor in prayer untiringly, earnestly, hopefully, striving to reach, as the promised land, the burning of the spirit with sober attention to God. Labor in prayer and—praying about all things, above all pray about this goal of prayer—the burning of the spirit—and truly you will receive what you seek. Thus assures us Saint Macarius of Egypt, who through deed bore the labor and tasted the fruit of prayer. “If,” he says, “you do not have prayer, labor in prayer, and the Lord, seeing your labor and your patient labor in it, how earnestly you desire this blessing, will grant you this prayer” (Homily 19). There is labor only until this goal. When the fire, of which the Lord speaks, is kindled: “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke 12:49), then labor ceases, there begins easy, free, joy-giving prayer.

Do not think that this refers to some very high, unattainable state for worldly people. No. It is truly a high state, but attainable by all. After all, everyone at times feels during prayer an inflow of warmth and zeal, when the soul, having detached itself from all, enters deeply into itself and prays fervently to God. That which sometimes comes, as it were, an inspiration of the prayerful spirit, must be brought to a constant state—and the goal of prayer will be reached.

The means to this, as I have said, is prayerful labor. When wood is rubbed against wood, it grows warm and produces fire. So when the soul is rubbed in prayerful labor, it at length produces prayer fire. Prayerful labor consists of the proper performance of those two kinds of prayer I have already spoken of—the reverent, attentive, and feeling-filled performance of our ordinary prayer recitations, and then teaching the soul to ascend frequently to God through meditation on God, turning all things to God’s glory, and frequent invocations to God from the heart. We pray morning and evening: there is a long distance between them. If we turn to God only in these times, then, however earnestly one prays, during the day or night everything scatters again, and by the time for prayer the soul again becomes cold and empty, as before. Even if one prays again earnestly, but if one grows cold and scatters again, what good is that?! This will mean—to build and to tear down, build and tear down; only labor. If now we resolve not only morning and evening to perform the prayer rule with attention and feeling, but also besides this to practice daily meditation on God, turn every deed to God’s glory, and frequently call to God from the heart in brief prayerful words, then this long interval from morning prayer to evening prayer, and back again, we will fill with frequent turnings to God, pure prayerful acts. Although this will not be unceasing prayer, it will be very frequently repeated prayer, and the more frequently it is repeated, the nearer it will approach unceasing prayer. In every way this labor stands on the threshold of the latter, as a necessary step.

For suppose that you fulfill this labor each day without fail, untiringly—consider what must come about in your soul?

From meditation on God there will be born the fear of God. For the fear of God is in itself the grasping by reverent thought and the reception by feeling of God’s infinite perfections and actions. From turning every deed of ours to God’s glory there will be born the remembrance of God, or walking before God; for walking before God means: whatever you do, remember that you are before God. Finally, from frequent invocations to God, or in other words from frequent outpourings from the heart of reverent feelings toward God, there will be born constant warm, or loving, invocation of God’s name. When these three visit the soul: the fear of God, the remembrance of God, or walking before God, and this loving turning of the heart to God, or loving cherishing of the sweetest name of the Lord in the heart—then the spiritual fire of which I spoke at the beginning will surely be kindled in the heart, and it will bring with it deep peace, unceasing sobriety, living vigilance. The person will enter then into that state, beyond which there is nothing he should wish for on earth, and which is the true foretaste of the blessed state awaiting all in the future. Here is accomplished in deed what the Apostle said: “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

These three are what you should strive for in your prayerful labor. They are themselves the reward of labor and at the same time the key to the hidden temple of the Kingdom of Heaven. Having opened the door with them, we enter within, are brought to the footstool of God’s throne, and from the heavenly Father receive the approving word, the touch and embrace, for which all bones cry out: Lord—O Lord! Who is like You? About this, then, pray in your prayerful labor and sigh daily: when will I come and appear before Your face, O Lord? My face seeks Your face, O Lord, I will seek it.

To one desiring to know how to grow perfect in these three—fear of God, remembrance of God, and this loving unceasing invocation of God’s name—I will briefly answer: begin to seek—and the deed itself will teach how to find; hold fast to one law only: set aside all that hinders them, earnestly pursue all that is beneficial to them. And the deed itself will teach this distinction. I will only add the following to this instruction.

When you begin in your heart to hold yourself as the body holds itself, embraced from all sides by warmth, or when you begin to hold yourself as one holds oneself before a great person, with fear and attention, as if not to offend them in some way, despite the freedom to move and act, or see that in your soul there is beginning to be the same thing toward the Lord as there is with a bride toward her beloved bridegroom, then know that the hidden Visitor of souls is near, at the door, and He will enter and dine in you with you.

And these few signs, I think, are sufficient as a guide for zealous seekers. All this has been said only with the aim that those of you who are zealous in prayer know the final goal of prayer and, having labored a little and achieved something small, not think that you have achieved everything—do not grow weak in labor from that, and thus do not set a barrier to further ascents in the degrees of prayer. As on great roads there are set markers so that those going and riding know how far they have gone and how much remains; so in our spiritual life there are, as it were, signs that determine the degree of perfection of life, and they are marked out so that those striving for perfection, knowing where they have reached and how much remains to go, do not stop halfway and thus do not deprive themselves of the fruit of their labors, which, perhaps, is right there, just two or three more turns away.

I will conclude my discourse with earnest prayer that the Lord grant you understanding of all things, that you all reach the measure of a mature person, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Amen. November 29, 1864.