Chapter 113
On Noetic Prayer for Laymen
113.2.1 In an article published in issue 33 of the Domestic Conversation, certain thoughts appeared that have caused you perplexity. I consider it my duty to clarify them both for you and for your readers.
113.3.1 You say that noetic prayer is scarcely possible for laymen. “How could we ever attain to noetic prayer?” you write. But if you do not have noetic prayer, then you have nothing at all: for only noetic prayer is true prayer, pleasing and acceptable to God. It must form the soul of both domestic and church prayer, so that whenever it is absent from them, the prayer rules have only the name of prayer but are not prayer itself. What is prayer? The lifting up of intellect and heart to God for glorification, thanksgiving, and petition for necessary goods. So the essence of prayer is noetic ascent to God in the heart. When the intellect stands in awareness before the face of God and, filled with reverent fear, begins to pour out its heart before Him—that is noetic prayer![1] External prayer, whether domestic or church, provides it only with words, or form; But the soul, or the very substance of prayer, each person carries within themselves, in their own intellect and heart. Our entire church order, all the prayers composed for domestic use, are filled with noetic turning toward God. Whoever performs them should not stop at their external form alone, but should pass through it inwardly, and according to what is hidden within them, should attune their own interior life. Without noetic prayer no one can exist. In it one can make only this distinction: there is noetic prayer alongside vocal or external prayer—whether domestic or church prayer; and there is noetic prayer in itself, without any external form of word or bodily posture. And the last is also binding for laypeople. The Saviour commanded: Go into your room and pray in secret. This room, as the hierarch Dimitry of Rostov says, and as the nature of the matter itself shows, is the heart. To whom did the apostle command to pray unceasingly? To all Christians. Therefore, to laypeople as well. But to pray unceasingly is impossible in any other way than through noetic prayer, in the heart. What is this hidden person of the heart that the other apostle speaks of? About our spirit, standing before God, receiving power from Him and accomplishing all in His presence—which is precious in His sight.[2] Therefore, noetic standing before God is obligatory; and if it is obligatory, then no one has the right to say that it is scarcely possible. God does not command the impossible. It’s difficult—yes, that’s true. But to say it’s impossible is unfair. But of course everything good is difficult, and prayer especially so—it is the source of all good for us and our faithful support. Someone will ask: how is this to be done? Very simply: cultivate fear of God. Fear of God, as a feeling, will draw your attention and awareness to the heart; and as fear, it will hold your attention and awareness standing in the heart before God. There you have it—noetic standing before God, and prayer! As long as the fear of God remains in the heart, noetic standing before God will not depart from the heart. So here is one thing—the all-powerful means for noetic prayer! But you’ll say—work distracts us! They won’t distract you if you only have the fear of God. It is not work that hinders noetic standing before God, but idleness and evil work. Set aside what is evil and empty, keep only what is obligatory—and not according to worldly obligation, but according to the Gospel’s obligation—and you will see that fulfilling your duties not only does not turn the intellect and heart away from God, but draws them toward Him.[3] Both are of the same kind and require the same ordering of the soul. Whatever you undertake from this circle, you will always turn to God to ask for His help and to dedicate your work to the glory of God. Rising in the morning, establish yourself more firmly before God in your heart through your morning prayers, and then go out to your work, entrusted to you by God, without withdrawing your feeling and awareness from Him. And this will be what is written in the second point: ‘Remaining in God with your intellect and heart, fulfill with the powers of your soul and body the duties laid upon you.’ Those who think that the essence of noetic prayer consists in sitting somewhere in hiding and contemplating God in that way misunderstand it. The prophet David expressed its essence: I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.[4] So hiddenness does not constitute the essence of noetic standing before God, and a multitude of activities does not hinder it.
113.4.1 You write that solitude is scarcely possible for laymen. There are two kinds of solitude: one complete and constant, when someone withdraws to a hermitage and lives alone; the other is partial, occurring at certain times. The first is indeed not the work of laymen; but the second is both possible for them and even something they already have. Everyone finds some time when he is alone, even if he doesn’t deliberately arrange hours of solitude for himself. Turn those hours—or that hour—to the benefit of your spiritual edification. Instead of empty daydreaming, turn inward and examine your deeds—are they done well, and can they be pleasing to God if you set Him before you? Anyone, no matter how busy, can set aside such hours each day if he truly cares about the salvation of his soul. If people don’t set aside such time, it’s because they don’t have this concern, or it’s not strong enough to outweigh all their other cares. But for someone who doesn’t care, there’s no point in writing down the means to establish a saving way of life. In this way, you need to set aside solitary hours every day. And when it comes time for preparation for Communion, you should set aside all your work for the entire period of preparation, so that your preparation for Communion may be fully salvific for the soul. This is what was meant, with regard to laymen, in pointing to solitude as a means to a life pleasing to God and leading to salvation. But there is one more thing you must keep in mind: there is, besides external solitude, an interior solitude. Outside there may be noise and turmoil, but a person can be alone in his heart with himself. When someone’s heart is troubled by something, even if he is in the most cheerful and talkative company, he hears nothing and sees nothing. There, at his own heart, he sits with his affliction. Everyone knows this from their own experience. If this happens in worldly affairs, why shouldn’t something similar happen in the spiritual order? There are afflictions here too, and they are even stronger and deeper than all worldly ones. When affliction settles upon the heart in this order of life, what will be able to draw a person’s awareness out of his solitary dwelling in his own heart?[5] Here is solitude of another kind—the kind that comes even to laymen as soon as concern for the salvation of their soul visits them! The fear of God penetrates the soul then and assures it most sincerely that even if it gained the whole world, it would not be able to ransom itself when it comes time to answer for the course of the life it has lived. This most sincere conviction penetrates the whole soul and produces in it such a painful concern for the one thing needful that the soul no longer wants to look at anything else. She is wholly one with this one thing of hers, even though outwardly and externally she may be occupied with much.[6] This is the kind of solitude that is possible even for laypeople!
113.5.1 You say that having a spiritual father with whom one could consult at any time about all the circumstances of one’s external and interior life is impractical for laypeople. It’s true—such people are becoming rarer, those to whom one could turn with full confidence for counsel about spiritual life. Somehow everyone limits themselves to propriety of conduct and the faithful performance of duty, and they don’t think it necessary to pay attention to what is happening in the heart during all this. Outward life takes precedence over interior life. Yet it cannot be said that the venerable have altogether disappeared.[7] Those zealous for interior life have always been rare among the spiritual living in the world; but they have always existed, they exist now, and they will exist in the future. But those who begin to be troubled about their salvation develop a sensitivity by which they seek out a worthy spiritual father.[8] To this we must add that at the outset we have guidance in the order of the Church, which any spiritual father can point out, and does point out. So God has ordained it that no one will be left without proper guidance. This guidance can be further enriched by reading the holy Fathers, conversation with those of like mind, and even by your own experience. All of this together makes up the guidance without which there is no way to get by in the spiritual life. Even a small thing can trouble the soul. A soul that fears God becomes troubled and, praying to God for understanding, hastens to a spiritual father—and it often happens that from an unexpected quarter comes the most reassuring explanation of the matter. The spiritual life is God’s life; God guards it. Of course, you can’t rush into following just anyone without discernment; you need to exercise your own judgment too. But if your judgment wavers, there’s nowhere better to turn than to your spiritual father. In outward life too there are such tangled complications that it’s hard to figure out how to act rightly in a given situation; how much more so in the interior life. Go to your spiritual father—one, another, a third—and you’ll find someone who will set your mind at rest. If someone hasn’t yet reached a thing through his own experience, then the science of God will do the work.[9]
113.6.1 Bishop Theophan.