Chapter 35
On the Jesus Prayer in the Church
35.2.1 The mercy of God be with you!
35.3.1 Most reverend Mother!
35.4.1 I am guilty before you greatly and very greatly. I ask your forgiveness. But do not think that I have forgotten you! No, I have always remembered you and kept meaning to write. I give thanks to you for your greetings and good wishes at Pascha and on my nameday. May the Lord hear your prayers! I wish you all the best. May the Lord give you wisdom and strengthen you! You did well to decline the G. position.[1] position. Put your community in good order, then make it a monastery... There you’ll be abbess... And how much more joyful it will be for you to hear: mother abbess! when everything around you is the work of your own hands. Don’t be angry with the one who envies you. Her enemy troubles her, but she doesn’t see it; pray for her. As for sisters being drawn away, you should rejoice at that, because it means your sisters are so good that others want to have them with them. Let them go. God will send you better ones. Symeon the New Theologian has become dear to your heart. So read it more often. This will refresh and enliven your inner life. You ask: should one force the mind to practice the Jesus Prayer in church when the soul is peaceful and undisturbed, and when the mind in this stillness is attentive to what is being read and sung? You should stand in the presence of God and in feeling toward God, whatever you may be doing... So also in church. In another letter you wrote: “In church, when listening to the prayers, the Jesus Prayer goes better for me.” This prayer enlivens and sustains attention to God with the corresponding feelings. I’m sending you three more books that came out after the one you received. I’m also enclosing the little booklets I have on hand, five copies of each... May the Lord grant wisdom to the sisters.
35.5.1 May the Lord bless you!
35.6.1 Your well-wisher, Bishop Theophan.
35.7.1 .