Chapter 91
On Unceasing Prayer and Spiritual Practice
91.2.1 May the mercy of God be with you!
91.3.1 I received your October letter and kept meaning to write... It’s good that you wrote again. I write to you with pleasure, but now several matters have come up...
91.4.1 Your description of the order of your life is pleasant to read... The very best remedy for our weaknesses is to have no idle time.
91.5.1 You danced... Did the sky not fall on you?! So it seems this is tolerable in some sense... But what you’ve added to this about the rights of youth, I don’t know whether that can stand firm. Can youth say to death: don’t come near! – But death can come during the dancing... and settle everything... for it settles everything... The soul will arrive from the dance floor to the next world. – Who’s there, they’ll ask? – A dancer! Well, throw it out there. You’re measuring youth by youth... That won’t do. You must measure everything by the final goal. Why do we live? To prepare ourselves for eternal life... How can you fit dancing into that?! and much else besides.
91.6.1 It’s good to spend time in company. There’s a science of self-knowledge in that... But still, you have to make choices... The company you keep is good, as you write... And glory to God.
91.7.1 That you can’t manage the little prayer yet – it’s nothing. It will come in time. Your frequent turning to God during the day, with every task and after each task – that’s a very good thing. – This is part of the general rule – to walk before God. The short little prayers have the same purpose… In them, sacred words express what you express in your own words. But the other, higher purpose of the short little prayer is to deepen thought and feeling toward God. What you have—these appeals—scatters at the first impression; besides, despite the appeals… thoughts swarm in your head… like gnats… To cut off this swarming, you must bind the intellect to one thought, or to the thought of the One… The aid for this is the short little prayer. With its help the intellect is simplified, unified, and grafts or develops feeling toward God… When this feeling comes, the soul will be established in the consciousness of God… and will begin to do everything according to God. With the short little prayer you must hold the thought of God and attention to Him… But to limit yourself to words alone… a clanging cymbal.
91.8.1 A journal is a good thing... But you have only one good side. You should pay more attention to your weaknesses... Otherwise you’ll turn out a braggart.
91.9.1 ‘I don’t know how to pray for long’ – But how then did the apostle command: pray unceasingly!? Remembrance of God with fear of God, love of God with hope, and submission to the will of God make up the interior religious life... Whoever has this in motion... is always with God... And it’s not tedious for him to pray for a long, long time. – You have the seed of this in the way you turn to God for help at every occasion, and then give thanks. Develop this... wider and wider.
91.10.1 Your perplexities about the thoughts in Unseen Warfare come from the fact that you’re looking at the lessons there from the wrong point of view... Unseen Warfare has in view a person who is struggling with the passions and straining to drive out everything bad from himself and to strengthen everything good... When he becomes established in the good and grows strong, then many of the rules will either take on a different form or be set aside. In the period of struggle the law is this: everything that can set in motion the evil lurking within us, whether small or great, must be kept away from our attention, and all the more from our feeling... and we must act the same way toward whatever weakens the practices that help strengthen the good. Go through your notes with this thought in mind, and you’ll see for yourself in what way they don’t hold up... What is written in this book isn’t just for monks, but applies to everyone who wants to purify his heart. What’s in view is not the outward position, but the soul.
91.11.1 You made some remark about self-activity... Everything good is built up in us by the interaction of freedom and grace... Generally it’s expressed this way: begin to labor at something and labor at it... God will see that you sincerely desire what you’re seeking, and He’ll give it... You want to acquire prayer? Labor in prayer, and the Lord will give you prayer... You want to be rid of anger? Labor at it, and God, seeing your zeal, will give you freedom from anger... A person by himself will build up nothing good in himself if grace does not come; and grace gives nothing to a person if the person himself does not labor... Learn this little point by heart.
91.12.1 I won’t write any more for now. I’m sending you some booklets on renunciation of the world.
91.13.1 Be saved!
91.14.1 May the Lord bless you!
91.15.1 Your well-wisher, Bishop Theophan.
91.16.1 .