Chapter 159

On Sluggishness in Prayer

In your letter of January 23 you described what you read in your night rule. It seemed to me then that there was too much reading, and I intended to write to you to shorten your reading and insert noetic prayer in the intervals—prayer spoken mentally from the heart to the Lord with petitions for your spiritual needs.

But in your letter of January 26 you say that you refuse to read in the evening because of eye pain. And you resolve to practice noetic prayer, and in order not to doze, you knit a sock. It seems that reading prayers is being abandoned altogether. This is possible, but you must do away with knitting a sock, and instead, when drowsiness takes hold, walk about the room, or lift something heavy, or, what is much better, take a thicker prayer rope and strike yourself lightly on the shoulders.

When I wrote to you not to shorten prayer time, I wrote because, as it seemed to me, you had begun to grow sluggish in prayer. This is what above all must be avoided. Sluggishness means a weakening or cessation of spiritual movements, which is much to be lamented. But as I see that your zeal for prayer work is alive, I think it right to leave to your discretion both the time and the rule of prayer: arrange both as you find best and most convenient for yourself. Only keep one thing unfailingly: when you stand in prayer, let prayer come from your heart and with feelings toward God—praiseworthy, thankful, and supplicatory with trust—and let nothing extraneous be mixed with this.

(Letter 529. Vol. 3, pp. 224–225)