Chapter 150

On the Same Subject (150)

You want to learn noetic prayer. You understand, of course, the Jesus Prayer. A good and most good work! But without the habit of concentrating in prayer it is difficult to succeed in the Jesus Prayer. To become accustomed to such concentration, here is what you should do. Gather from the psalms and other prayer books brief prayerful invocations that approach closely to your inner state, learn them, feel them deeply and pray with them, repeating each one 3, 5 or 10 times, so as to occupy the appointed time with this, and among them insert the Jesus Prayer, and after all add the invocation of the Mother of God and the saints and the commemoration of your living and deceased. You can also add reading from printed prayers, for instance: “Bless, O my soul, the Lord and all that is within me…”, “Praise, O my soul, the Lord”, “At all times” and so forth.

For an example, here is what you should take: the 24 little prayers of Saint Chrysostom, which stand in the prayers before sleep.

Rework the litany of supplication into prayers like this: “Let the whole day be holy, peaceful and sinless for me, O Lord” and so forth. Take psalm 50 from the beginning up to restore to me the joy of salvation… In these verses all the penitential feelings are combined. Learn them and pray with them. In this way your entire prayer rule can be formed, in which there will be no need for either books or candles.

Each prayer will give you more than one spiritual contemplation, and these contemplations will produce or sustain spiritual feelings. So seek, and you will find the prayer that will then flow from your heart like a river. God bless!

(Letter 529. Vol. 3, pp. 225–226)