Chapter 96
On Wordless Prayer
96.2.1 Christ is risen!
96.3.1 May the Lord send joy to your spirit—and establish it in you forever!
96.4.1 Our Father Archimandrite is traveling again to Moscow and Petersburg. I’m writing with him, not knowing whether he’ll find you at home.
96.5.1 You ask about the prayer of the poorest prayer book user.[1]
96.6.1 How do I pray?! In every way I try, during the hour of prayer, to be convinced that God, who is omnipresent, is here too, where my consciousness is, and that He sees and hears not only the word, whether spoken or not, but also every movement of thought, and especially feeling. But I avoid every image, difficult as that is. When prayer comes with feeling, then there is no labor at all in maintaining imagelessness in prayer—this makes it clear that imagelessness in prayer is the real work—and that to attain this one must strive for the prayer of the heart—and so, descend from the head into the heart. How to attain this is written out in the letters concerning Speransky’s letters… (I asked Askochensky to get them to you. Did he?)
96.7.1 Likewise—one must not imagine in one’s soul either the Theotokos, or the saints, or the angels. And they too should pray in the same conviction that they are heard. How are they heard? Why reason about it? They are heard, and that’s all.
96.8.1 Let’s say there is this distinction... that for works of the intellect images are needed; and they are present in Scripture concerning God Himself and all divine things. And imagination is a faculty of the intellect – a cognitive one. Imagination – the faculty of forming and holding images – is a menial faculty... the very lowest! For this reason alone, it shouldn’t be allowed to appear with its images in the higher realm, such as prayer is... Intellectual contemplation is lofty... and the spiritual activity manifested in prayer is even higher... How can imagination possibly reach there... Here’s where it’s fitting: Friend, how did you get in here?!!
96.9.1 So when you get angry, imagine away, but when you pray, drive away all images. If you allow images, there’s a danger – you’ll start praying to a fantasy. Can you say that the image you hold in your intellect expresses the truth? There you are, you can’t... therefore, you must learn imagelessness... but there’s only one way – the prayer of the heart... The intellect without images can hardly exist.
96.10.1 It wouldn’t be bad to compile a little book on prayer for the people... but this subject – you must leave it out. I think that when someone from the people prays with feeling, he has no images... In any case, it’s better not to speak about this. God enlightens minds, and when someone in prayer draws near to Him, He Himself will teach him how to hold the intellect in prayer.
96.11.1 I remember something said about an elder who always represented God in images. When they explained to him that he shouldn’t do that, he said: you’ve taken my God away from me... But they hadn’t taken God away from him, only his fantasy.
96.12.1 By the way – a Paterikon is being published in *Dushepoleznoe Chtenie*, and it seems similar to ours... Compare them... Also: Troitsky has written a good article on the sources of the history of Eastern monasticism. But it seems he hasn’t seen the Paterikon you have. Could you show it to him?
96.13.1 I wish you every blessing from the Lord.
96.14.1 Your intercessor, Bishop Theophan.
96.15.1 April 16.