How to Learn to Pray in This Manner

I suppose that after reading what has been said, you have formed the question: how does one learn such prayer? And here is the answer: learn precisely to always pray this way—that is, not with words alone, but also with the mind and the heart—and you will learn. How did you learn to read? You set yourself to work at it and you learned. How did you learn to write? You started writing and you learned. So you will learn to pray as shown, if you start praying precisely in this way.

You know the words of prayer, of course—you were taught them from childhood. They are contained in our prayer books and liturgical service books of the Church. They are the prayerful outpourings that burst from the hearts of holy men and women when, moved by the Spirit of God, they spoke the desires of their hearts before God. Within them is enclosed the spirit of prayer; you too will be filled with this spirit if you read them as you ought—just as the spirit of any writer is communicated to one who reads him with full attention. Everyone experiences this; I think you have experienced it too.

These prayerful words are gathered in our prayer books, and there is no need for you to labor at collecting them. So, have a prayer book, and at the times appointed for prayer—usually morning and evening—read the prayers set therein, pondering every word, reflecting as depicted therein, and striving to reproduce in your heart the same feelings that are stirring in the prayer you are reading. That is all the wisdom there is! This is what everyone normally does.

That is what everyone normally does—that is true, you will say. But why then do not all have due prayer? Because, while they do it—that is, take the prayer book, stand before the icons, and read—they apply neither their mind nor their heart to it: the mind wanders goodness knows where, and the heart takes pleasure in its own things rather than in prayer. But you, when praying, enclose your mind in the words of the prayer, and receive with your heart what they express—and immediately you will feel the fruit of such prayer-reading.

So you have the prayerful words; you know what it means to understand and feel them; and this is within your power. Consequently, prayer and success in it are in your own hands. Work diligently and you will succeed. I will, however, offer some guidance toward achieving success more easily.

1) Take the trouble, not during the prayer hour but at another free time, to think through and feel the appointed prayers. Having done this, during the prayer-reading you will encounter no difficulty in reproducing within yourself all the content of the prayer being read; in fact, as soon as you begin any prayer, its thoughts and feelings will present themselves to your consciousness, and you will be pronouncing the prayerful words as if they were your own and were coming from your heart, being born within it rather than being put into it from outside.

2) Take the trouble, having thought through and felt the prayers, to commit them to memory. Having done this, you will carry the prayers within yourself. As long as they are in the prayer book, they are outside you; but once you have memorized them, they will be inside you, and no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, you will always have your prayer book with you. Furthermore, by memorizing the prayers, you will imprint the prayerful thoughts and feelings more deeply within yourself than if you had merely reflected on and felt them. From such study a prayerful disposition will form in you—if you not only memorize the words but also dwell in the thoughts and feelings contained in the prayer. And this is the best path to success in the habit of due prayer.

3) When the time for prayer-reading arrives, do not begin at once as soon as you have broken away from ordinary activities, but first prepare yourself: “Stand still a moment in silence, until the senses are quieted,” as the prayer book instructs you, and recall what you are about to undertake and what you are to perform, who you are who are about to pray, and who He is before whom you will be uttering your prayers, and what exactly you ought to say and how. Such preparation is made necessary—in the morning by the dulling of the soul from immersion in sleep and the onslaught of concerns about the day’s upcoming affairs immediately upon waking; and in the evening by the varied impressions of the day, and especially by the striking and arresting events, pleasant and unpleasant. Endeavor to banish everything from consciousness, so that the business of prayer may then occupy your full attention and you may be able to devote the time before you exclusively to it. Striking events, if you do not manage to deal with them, turn into matter for prayer—either of thanksgiving, or of asking for help and deliverance, or of entrusting them and yourself and all that is yours to God’s will.

4) Just before the beginning of prayer-reading, place yourself in the presence of God, so as to be aware and feel it with reverent fear; and arouse in your heart a living faith that God sees and hears you, that He does not turn away from those who pray but looks upon them and upon you with favor during this hour of prayer, and take wing with the hope that He is ready to fulfill and will indeed fulfill your petition, if it is beneficial to your soul.

5) Having thus disposed yourself, utter your prayers, striving with all your strength to be absorbed in them and taking every care that they proceed from the heart as your own, even though they are memorized. Do not allow your attention to turn elsewhere or your thoughts to fly off to one side. As soon as you become aware that this has happened, bring your thoughts back within and begin the prayers again from the point at which your attention turned to something else. Note that attention does not scatter when the heart is in prayerful feelings. Therefore, above all take care for these feelings. Do not allow yourself to rush through the prayer-reading, but lead it all through reverently, as a sacred act, with patience to the end.

6) If during the prayer-reading, while in such a disposition and order, some subject of prayer especially falls upon your heart, captures your attention as closely relevant to your circumstances, and calls forth from you your own prayerful words—do not let this moment pass fleetingly, but stop at it and pray in your own words until the prayerful feeling or need that arose is satisfied.

7) If you take the trouble to perform the prayer-reading in this way, you will carry away from it a prayerful disposition, which take care to preserve as much as possible in its strength. For this purpose, do not rush immediately into your usual occupations, and never think that, having completed your prayer rule, you have finished everything with regard to God and that you can now give free rein to your thoughts and feelings. No—throughout the entire day you must strive to keep yourself as you were during the prayer rule. To maintain this, do not forget that you walk before God and are held by His right hand above the abyss of nothingness; keeping this in mind, perform every deed of yours, great and small, as God wills it, asking His blessing upon it and turning all to the glory of His Name. Acting thus, you will carry through in a good prayerful disposition right until your evening prayer rule. Having performed the evening rule in the same manner, you will sleep the night well. And there you have a full day of good prayerful disposition. Pass day after day in this way, and in a few months—or perhaps even weeks—you will become a strong man of prayer, and prayer, like an unquenchable lamp, will begin to glow unceasingly in your heart.

8) I will add one more small rule—namely, the uninterrupted continuity of this prayerful practice, from its beginning to progress in it… If today you pray well and hold yourself in a prayerful disposition, but tomorrow you give yourself free rein and spend the day in dissipation, then by acting this way you will never succeed in prayer. This will be the same as building and tearing down… And one may reach the point where prayer dies out entirely and the soul becomes unfit for it. Once you have begun, you must patiently persevere in prayer, without weakening or indulging yourself with exemptions and liberties.