Chapter 127

Every Rule is Good

Regarding the rule, I think this way: whichever rule someone chooses for themselves, every one is good—as long as it keeps the soul in reverence before God. Further: read prayers and psalms until the soul is stirred, then pray yourself, expressing your needs, or without anything at all: “God, be merciful to me...” Further: sometimes you can spend the entire time assigned for the rule reading one psalm from memory, making your own prayer from each verse. Further: sometimes you can spend the whole rule in the Jesus Prayer with prostrations. Or else take something from this, that, and the other. God needs the heart (see: Prov. 23:26), and as long as it stands reverently before him, that is enough. Unceasing prayer consists in this—to always stand reverently before God. And in this the rule is only kindling, or throwing wood in the stove.

(Letter 2. Vol. 1, p. 8–9; Letter 509. Vol. 3, p. 189)