Chapter 80
On Prayer From the Heart and its Gift
80.2.1 May the mercy of God be with you!
80.3.1 I haven’t answered your two letters, out of slothfulness. Please forgive me—and don’t scold. In your first letter you write well about prayer—namely, that the techniques used in prayer, such as how to maintain attention and what position to give the body and some of its members, are not the essential thing in prayer... but let each person hold himself as is best for him.
80.4.1 The chief concern in prayer is that it should come from the heart. True prayer of the heart is a gift of grace, given through the sacraments of confession or Holy Communion. And once such a gift has been given, it is warmed and sustained by those same sacraments. The distinguishing mark of this gift is the continuity of prayer, which expresses itself as a feeling toward God—sometimes with words of prayer, and sometimes without words.
80.5.1 What grace gives, your own labor can never give. It only prepares you to receive the gift—and once you have received it, it sustains it together with the sacraments.
80.6.1 The holy fathers made it a rule: to compel yourself to prayer—at home, in church, while working, on walks, and in every free moment. That’s all you need to know about prayer.
80.7.1 Should noetic prayer be assigned to the young—to novices?
80.8.1 Prayer without the intellect and heart turned toward God is not prayer. This needs to be explained to a novice. Let him perform prayer from a prayer book, striving in every way to ensure that thoughts and feelings accompany the words. By this labor the novice will become accustomed to the turns of phrase of prayer... and then he will himself begin to accomplish prayer with his own words, when it advances from the heart. But a novice should never be left without a prayer book... except in the case where he became acquainted with noetic prayer to God before his novitiate.
80.9.1 In the second letter – more about a certain young brother... who is falling. Do as the Lord instructs: forgiving and absolving seventy times seven. Does not the Lord say: The one who comes to Me I will never cast out? Therefore receive everyone who comes with repentance... comfort them, encourage them... and impose a penance – a small one, according to their strength... frequent prostrations, even if not many... with the publican’s prayer: God, be merciful to me, a fallen one! Merciful Lord, have mercy on me, fallen one!
80.10.1 The Lord bless you!
80.11.1 Be saved!
80.12.1 Your well-wisher, Bishop Theophan.
80.13.1 And I forgot about spiritual fatherhood.
80.14.1 If it’s better for you that it passed you by, then there’s nothing to think about it. The Lord knows what He is doing.
80.15.1