Chapter 109

Reading From a Book Greatly Scatters Attention

Remember that the matter is not in words and bows, but in raising the mind and heart to God. You could speak everything that is written for you and perform all the prescribed bows, and yet never think of God or think of Him carelessly with a scattered mind and wandering attention. And consequently, not pray while fulfilling the prayer rule. The result will be prayer that is sin before God. God forbid! With fear and trembling you must perform the work of God, and hold this in mind. By all means strive so that wherever there is a word, there too is the mind, or, as the holy ladder-bearer says, to enclose the mind within the words of prayer. When approaching prayer, you must establish yourself in attention before God and not depart from Him.

Reading prayers from a book greatly scatters attention. It is better to commit them to memory. Likewise, leafing through to find this or that troparion and kontakion must also scatter attention. Try to do this: memorize the morning and evening prayers, understanding them and feeling what is said in them. Then read them as though they flow from your heart. From the Psalter too, choose the psalms that are understandable and close to your heart, and memorize them. Read them too during prayer from memory in order. And read them also while walking somewhere or doing something.

Read the daily Gospel after prayer, with reflection and drawing from it what is needful for yourself. Compose a prayer list following the pattern of a printed one (in the Prayer Book Psalter), according to your needs and circumstances, and recite it from memory. Convert all acathists into bows; do not read them from a book, but mentally turn to those for whom you have appointed them, and perform the bows. Because you are not reading the words, add an extra bow.

The less you need to rely on a prayer book, the better. Strive above all to dwell in the remembrance of God and the remembrance of death. A broken spirit is a sacrifice to God (Ps. 50:19). Then count that you have prayed well when you leave prayer with contrition and complete self-abasement. And during the day, instead of counting beads, strive to stand mentally before God with the Jesus Prayer. As the Angels always stand before the face of God, so must we strive. They offer the sacrifice of praise, and we — the sacrifice of contrition.

(Letter 89. Vol. 1, pp. 71–73)