Readings for the Spiritual Life

Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Four-Part Four)

As we have said, the regular practice of “self-examination,” questioning one’s conscience, is a necessary part of prayer. To confess our sins we have to know them.

Self-examination should start with running through the events of the day in one’s mind. What things do we wish we hadn’t done? What things are we ashamed of? What actions and words have we felt it necessary to make excuses for? Consider each case you can recall and what you did wrong.

Then, go through your day again. Almost certainly other people have been annoyed with us or resentful of things we have said or done to them. It is possible we were in the right and they were wrong to be angry or sulky, but we are usually far too willing to assume that is the case. Is it possible we could have been kinder or less insistent to be right—and to have others admit it?

Next, we would do well to consider the ways in which we have spent our money or taken our pleasures: eating, drinking, smoking, entertaining ourselves, gambling, and so forth. There may be nothing necessarily wrong with such pleasures, but have we, in all honesty, behaved as we would expect Christ to behave in our circumstances?

Then, let us recall how we have served God today. Have we treated Him with respect and reverence? Would the Lord Jesus say to us “well done!” at the end of our day?

By the time you’ve done such a self-examination, I doubt many of us will entertain illusions that we are on the verge of sainthood. If we should think we are still doing rather well, then we might want to consider reading the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount (St Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5, 6 & 7). Even more revealing to most of us are “My Duty towards God” and “My Duty towards My Neighbor” found in the Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer (pp 579-580). Unless we are being plainly dishonest with ourselves and God, we ought to be forming a fairly accurate picture of the fact we are all of us sinners, and regular and frequent ones!

All this is helpful to prayer. We are beginning to tell the truth to God.

Posted October 6, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Four-Part Three)

We have seen the necessary place of repentance to true and honest prayer. That being so, it comes as no surprise that the Church is full of people who are sinners and who admit it. Hospitals are full of people who know they are ill; no one would be surprised that almost all of them are aware of the fact. They are there to get well. No one would say hospitals are morbid; we would say they are essential to health. In the same way penitence is essential to goodness and godliness.

Human nature, of course, is quite incredibly stubborn. The vast majority of us are quite unwilling to admit ever having done anything wrong. Even at the point of death, knowing that they have only a few hours in which to make amends, many will insist that they have lived basically virtuous, even blameless, lives. Even those with the most sordid histories of malice and immorality will claim that they have done no serious harm to anyone or anything for which they should feel real shame. Clergy are used to hearing this sort of thing, but next door neighbors and friends would often be quite speechless if they knew how altogether oblivious of their own true nature most people are. Take heed! Most of us fall very much into this class. Human nature strongly resents criticism, even self-criticism.

The starting point for all penitence, then, is to admit that one is a sinner, because we all are, and from that point go on to uncover within oneself in what ways we are sinners. What are my sins? We call this process “self-examination,” and it is quite an exacting job. We have to learn the art of penetrating our own defenses. Be warned! Self-examination is not a pleasant experience! But we shall never make much progress in prayer unless we carry out a more-or-less detailed examination of our conscience on a regular and on-going basis. Most books on prayer and spiritual growth call on us to do this towards the end of every day.

Posted September 29, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Four-Part Two)

God loves us and always seeks us out. The trouble is that we are not always prepared to seek Him out. We want to live our lives in our own way. As long as that is so, we put ourselves before Him. That makes it difficult to have an honest and straightforward relationship with Him. We are like a angry son who continually disputes with and disobeys his father; he can hardly approach and ask for favors (though that’s just what we often do!). For their relationship to be honest and healthy, he has to acknowledge his part in their ruptured relationship.

Unlike human fathers, God is infinitely loving and completely forgiving. It isn’t that He doesn’t care how appallingly we behave. Quite the contrary. He loves us too deeply to let us ruin ourselves and mar His image in us by imperfection. He may have to punish us severely at times, but He never punishes us for spite or to retaliate. Everything, even his punishments and disciplines, are always for our good. He wants to free us from our foolishness, to save us from the dangerous consequences of our sins. He is always ready to forgive us—for anything. The barriers between us and God are all of our making, not His. What is necessary for us is a change of heart, a renewed mind. This comes from what the Bible calls repentance.

Since prayer is essential to our relationship with God, penitence is an important part of our prayer—because sin is, sadly, so much a part of our lives. Although Christianity is often accused of a “morbid preoccupation” with sin, it is not so. We might as well say that a man who goes to the dentist to have a decayed tooth removed has a morbid preoccupation with a tooth-ache. We are concerned about sin just insofar as is necessary to rid ourselves of it. We all sin just as we all get dirty. Few of us get pre-occupied with dirt. We take a bath. Repentance and forgiveness are the necessary baths of the Christian soul, and quite necessary to honest and straightforward prayer.

Posted September 22, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Four-Part One)

A good many people who would like to pray don’t pray because they feel in all honesty they can’t. They will frankly tell you they have never bothered very much about God, and when the time comes that they feel a need or desire to pray, they would be afraid to start saying their prayers. If you have avoided speaking to your neighbor for twenty years, you can’t very well go and ask him to lend you his car for the week-end. At the very least, regardless of your need, you’d be ashamed to do it; so, too, many people would be ashamed to start saying their prayers.

You have to sympathize a great deal with people in this position. To start to pray in such circumstances may seem almost contemptible if you put it like that. But then, you shouldn’t put it that way!

God isn’t our next-door neighbor; He’s our Father and our King. He commands us to pray at all times. St Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.” When God commands its always best to obey, regardless of the reason we choose to ignore Him. None of us, or any of our situations, can ever be improved by turning away from prayer, by relying on ourselves rather than God.

If we feel it rather humiliating to come to Him just because we want something, it will be very good for us. We deserve to eat humble pie for our past disobediences, and we’ll be the more grateful to God for asking us in on those terms. We may very well come to understand, through our embarrassment, that God accepts us and that He always has. Perhaps that sense of shame will cause us to continue to pray when He no longer seems to be immediately necessary for us.

Don’t fall into the evil temptation of believing that God will not or does not love you. We may be too proud to come to Him, but He is not too proud to come to us. “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out,” our Lord said. He lived and died to show us that He meant every syllable.

Posted September 15, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Three- Part Four)

We are all of us concerned, most of the time, not to let God interfere with our lives. We want to run them our own way, and we quite intentionally shut God out. Of course, we don’t say this to ourselves and were someone so rude as to actually point this out, we would feel offended; nonetheless, it is sadly true.

God has purposely given us the ability to shut Him out. Theologians call this free will. His only alternative would have been to make us puppets, who do just what we’re made to do without life or love or personality. In such a case, we would be things and not people.

God made us with free will, and He obviously does not want to take it away from us. It would spoil not only us, but all He had made. We would be merely zombies or robots, neither very lovable. What can He do about people who will not live as He made us to? One thing He can do is let other people influence them. One of us cannot take away the free will of another (though we often try to), but we can influence one another profoundly. Prayer is one way we can do this. We can pray for one another; this is called intercession. Of all the different ways we try to influence another person, it is one of the most effective. At the same time, it is one of the greatest privileges God offers us.

Consider: we are all individuals, but we are also members of a family, of a nation, of a trade or profession, a club, a social class and so on. We cannot get away from one another, try as we may. God has made us to fit together like the pieces of an intricate jig-saw puzzle, and indeed, much of our lives are spent trying to fit ourselves into the right place in this jig-saw.

If you lose one piece of the puzzle, the other nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces are less than they otherwise would be. The puzzle is incomplete. Anyone looking at it can tell what the picture is, but the single missing piece makes the whole less.
Now if these lifeless bits of colored paper and cardboard affect one another so, it’s not difficult to see how much more human beings, with their infinitely complex relationships, affect one another. God has made us so: “No man is an island.” Our own experience teaches us the same truth: the hidden ties that bind us one to another run deeply in us. Intercession is part of this hidden human mystery.

Posted September 1, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Three- Part Three)

We are meant to ask God for our needs without hesitation or embarrassment. He is our Father, and He expects to provide for us, and even teaches us to go to Him for our most basic needs. Jesus Himself, in the Lord’s Prayer, us to pray “Our Father…give us this day our daily bread.” It is worth noting, though, it’s bread He provides, not caviar. He wants us to have healthy bodies and souls, not pampered ones. He obviously wants us to depend on Him day to day, not only when we have pressing need or fearful situation. It would be extremely bad for us to have such a supply of anything that we felt independent of God: in such a circumstance, some of us might forget Him altogether.

But may I draw attention particularly to a further point about this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer? It does not say, “Give me this day my daily bread,” but “Give us this day our daily bread”—give not only to me but to everyone else as well. It is a most important point. Our prayers on behalf of other people ought always to take precedence over our petitions to God for our own worldly, material needs.

Most people have already some notion of this. At all events, they like to have someone praying for them, even if they are not eager to pray for others, or even themselves!

What good does it do for us to pray for other people? One thing it does not do, and which we ought not want it to do, is to cajole God—or even less to bully Him—into doing something He did not intend to do. Occasionally, we feel bitterly towards God because He seems unwilling to help someone whom we believe He ought to help. It is hard to avoid the felling that either God is very hard-hearted, or else He is not really all-powerful. Oddly enough, we are often more ready to accept God’s refusal of something we want for ourselves than of something e want for other people. We seem to think we have to put God under an obligation by unselfishly praying for someone else’s good.

When we find ourselves thinking this way, do let us try to remember that God is the Creator and Father of the person we are praying for, just as He is our own Creator and Father. However much we think we care for another person, our thought for them our prayers for them do not take up much of our time proportionately. Yet God has cared for them twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, ever since He made them. It is astoundingly presumptuous of us to think that because we have suddenly decided to take an interest in them, God ought at once to defer to our views. He knows much better than we do the needs of the person we are praying for and is doing everything for their good—everything the person will let Him do. We can all stand in the way of God’s will—and so the Lord taught us also to pray “Thy will be done.” By these words He tells us we can go against the will of God. He will never force His will on us.

Posted August 25, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Three- Part Two)

God is our Father; we restate that profound truth, even if we don’t really understand it, every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. He loves us and wants us to grow in grace, sharing His life with us. Prayer is the conversation of our life with Him. We grow in Him through prayer; He shapes us into His likeness.

A loving parent will sometimes let a child have its own misguided way, so it may see for itself the results of its own naughtiness or silliness. If we grown-ups pray hard enough and long enough, we too may sometimes get our own way, only to discover what we wanted turns out to be a very bitter fruit.

God is a Person—and incalculably more complete person than any of us—and He made us persons so we could share with Him a personal relationship. He isn’t like a slot machine into which you put a quarter to win a jackpot. He treats us as persons, His sons and daughters, and deals with us differently according to different circumstances. His love is constant, but shows itself in different ways at different times. If we think about our children and the personal relationship we have with them, we can see the same principle at work—though we always love them, we deal with them differently according to the circumstances.

When we teach a tiny child to walk, we hold him up and take great care that he doesn’t fall down and hurt himself. One nasty bump can discourage him for weeks. But a tousle-headed ruffian of seven is quite a different proposition. When he falls and skins his knee, we may tell him just to be a little more careful. If we molly-coddle him he won’t grow up.

So God answers our prayers so as to meet our needs. When He allows us to fall, we would do well to recognize that He does so for our own good. God doesn’t treat us severely for His entertainment, but for our benefit, just as an earthly father would.

Posted August 18, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Three- Part One)

If we wish to make real progress in our prayers it will be much better, as we have seen, if instead of using prayers out of a book which very often we don’t really mean, we pray to God in our own words. That presents a real difficulty for most people. They tend to use a book or prayers which they know by heart simply because they do not know what to say otherwise. They become tongue-tied, largely because they are not at all confident that they know the sort o things to say to God.
What o we want to say?

Most of us find it easier to say our prayers when we want to ask for things. It is not the highest form of prayer, but there is nothing to be ashamed of, provided that we are not just being selfish in our asking. If we can easily and without embarrassment ask God for our needs, then we can gradually acquire the habit of bringing everything to Him, all our fears and ambitions and worries and hopes and wants. There is nothing we cannot say to God.

I have stressed the reverence which we owe to God. He is the Lord and Creator of the Universe, but we must never forget He is at the same time our Father. He loves us with an infinite love, and He has created us to be His sons and daughters. Our children do not need a phrase-book to tell them what to say to us! If we consider at what it really means when we say God is our Father, we will come to see what there is to pray about.

God loves us perfectly. He loves us far more than our earthly parents, who certainly love us very much. Everything He does for us is for our good (even if we don’t always see that and may even disagree!). People who try to pray often feel that God must have deserted them when things go wrong. He hasn’t. He never does. God always answers our prayers. If we think otherwise, it is because we re forgetting that there are always at least two answers to every request: “Yes” and “No.” He may be saying, “Wait and see.” As St Augustine says, “When God does not give us what we wish, it is so He can give us what we need. Indeed, if we knew things as they truly are, we would cherish it all the more when we do not receive our requests, knowing He has in store for us something much better than that for which we asked.”

Sometimes He lets us take a hard blow, and we hate it; but it is always for our ultimate good. When He answers our prayer in that way, we will later come to see what a loving answer it was.

Posted August 11, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part Six)

While habits of prayer are necessary for our practice of prayer, they can raise concerns. Habit is intended to assist our prayer, not dictate to it. There are ways in which the very words we pray can be a hindrance. It is not uncommon for people who bring a proper and devout approach to their prayers find themselves cramped by the fact that they know only four or five prayers by heart and find it difficult to move beyond them.

If we use prayers out of a book or which we know by heart, they should be prayers we can truly say, prayers which we really mean. Prayers we used as children, apart from the Lord’s Prayer, do not usually mean much to an adult. We need new prayers to match the changing circumstances of our lives. Far better to scrap our memorized prayers altogether and speak to God in our own words, even if we find them clumsy, than to continue using words that no longer express our real needs and aspirations.
It is worth remembering, though, that in formal settings—say in a law court, making public statements or even speaking at a wedding reception—there are codes of etiquette regarding how we say what we say. Some formal terms of address remind us of the importance of the occasion and the dignity of the people to who we speak. The time-hallowed forms of address to God, “Lord God Almighty,” “Eternal Father,” “most merciful God” and so on all serve to inculcate a right attitude on the part of those who use them.

The test of all prayer, of course, is whether it genuinely expresses the intentions of the person praying. Whatever words we use, we must be ourselves. We must be prepared for God to see us as who we are. We must be open to Him, allowing Him to see us, and know us, through and through. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, the great seventeenth-century Anglican divine, put it most succinctly: “Be a whole man, all one piece.”

Our body, mind and soul are meant to work together in our prayer. Thus our time of prayer is integrated into every area of our life. Every aspect of our personality is intended by God to be brought into line with the true purpose for which we were created. We were made to serve God with our whole self in everything that we do.

Posted August 4, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part Five)

We need to find a time and place to pray, a place we can have quiet and privacy. There are places in which it is not easy to remember that God is everywhere present. He is ,of course, but if it’s hard for us to find His presence, to recollect ourselves, it will be difficult to pray. We need to be, so to speak, “at home” with our prayers: in a place we are used to, at ease in, with no distractions that will distract us unnecessarily from prayer. A regular time and place for prayer builds good habits of prayer.

In our own room, our own place of prayer, a picture of our Lord or a crucifix hung on the wall can add immeasurably to the atmosphere, and keep our mind on what we are there for. In a church, many people find it a great help to recollection to pray kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

A small point worth mentioning is that it is often better not to shut our eyes when we pray. Children are usually told to shut their eyes (to help them concentrate and not get distracted), but most adults have imaginations far too lively for that to be the best way to concentrate. Sometimes it may be, but often shutting our eyes merely sets us off thinking about everything under the sun, just as it does when we can’t get to sleep in the middle of the night. At times like that a crucifix or a small statue of our Lord or our Lady can be a great asset.

It also helps our concentration if we make arule of always kneeling to pray. The attitude of our body is nearly always closely bound up with our attitude of mind. Just as a job-seeker does not slouch and shrug in the presence of a prospective employer, so a Christian will be likely to take a more reverent approach to God if he kneels. It is the natural position of humble obedience.

In the same way, it is not a very good idea to lean against furniture—and especially to lay our bed—when we pray. The bed is so cozy, warm and inviting that it draws us to sleep, not prayer! Kneeling upright takes a bit of effort and does help keep us alert and respectful. Some slight discomfort may be a help to keep our minds focused on what we are doing.

In the end, of course, it’s our attitude of mind which matters, but we need to be humble enough not to despise simple ways of coming to terms with our sometimes self-indulgent inclinations.

Posted July 28, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part Four)

Clearly, as we’ve seen, the first stage in learning to pray, is to form good habits. We need practice, and we won’t get it unless we make a regular time for praying each day. A child learning to play the piano or the violin is expected to practice for at least half an hour every day. It does not seem unreasonable to ask an adult to spend at least twenty minutes every day learning to pray. When you think of it, it isn’t even polite to give Him less of your time than you spend in reading the daily paper.

I don’t mean to say you have to give this twenty minutes to prayer all at the same time. It will be much more valuable if you spend, say, five minutes in the morning when you first get up, five minutes at night before you go to bed, and the remaining ten minutes at some time during the day when you can be on your own for a little while. What matters is that these over time become a habit, because good habits are almost as hard to break as bad ones. If you set a definite time in your day when you habitually say your prayers, you will have a habit working for you rather than against you.

It will help you to not only if you pray at the same time every day, but also in the same place. It isn’t easy to put gardening and cooking and reading novels and your bank balance and worrying about your children out of your head, but if you have a definite time and place to be with God, it helps keep your mind on what you are there to do. William Law, the great Anglican divine (died 1761), put it like this:

“If you were to use yourself (as far as you can) to pray always in the same place; if you were to reserve that place for devotion, and not allow yourself to do anything common in it; if you were never to be there yourself but in times of devotion; if any little room, or (if that cannot be) if any particular part of a room were thus used, this kind of consecration of it, as a place holy unto God, would have such an effect upon your mind…as would very much assist your devotion. For having aplace thus sacred in your room, it would in some measure resemble a chapel or house of God. This would dispose you to a spirit of prayer when you were there. It would raise such sentiments as you have when you kneel before an Altar, a place of deepest communion with God.”

Posted July 21, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part Three)

We are creatures of habit. Remember that we share many of the characteristics of the lower animals, and however our minds and souls develop, we still learn many things as they do. Like them, we learn much by repetition, by habit, and by continually making a fresh start when we forget what we have learned before. The need for repetition and habit plays as important a part in prayer as in learning the multiplication tables.

It’s quite true that any one of us can pray (after a fashion) anywhere and anytime. But to pray well, to pray effectively, we have to learn how. It isn’t easy, it takes time: a lifetime spent learning to pray would be a lifetime well-spent.
The French writer on the spiritual life, Chemart, puts it most graphically:

“Let us persevere constantly in standing at the palace gate of the great Monarch; let us bear ourselves humbly in His presence, assured that He sees and watches us. Let us count ourselves honored in being admitted to stand before Him, though we hold ourselves unworthy to say a word. Let us think ourselves thrice happy if after many hours, days, months or years we can perform some small duty for Him, obtain a look, a word or a good thought from Him. Let us not be astonished if we do badly at prayer and find ourselves distracted. If we are willing to spend several years acquiring the mechanical arts or learning one of the humane sciences, can we seriously expect to become practitioners of prayer with little, irregular and undisciplined effort? Prayer is the art and science of the saints. How long have we been practicing and persevering daily in our prayers? How much effort have we put towards instructing ourselves in its lessons? What have we done to obtain from God the gift of the spirit of prayer? What sacrifices or austerities have we undergone to attain it? Go owes none of us the gifts of prayer, yet, to those who seek, who persevere, He lavishes His gifts far beyond our deserving or expecting.”

Clearly, we see by Chenart’s words, the first stage in learning to pray is to form good habits of prayer.

Posted July 14, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part Two)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

We talk a great deal about human souls, but often we don’t have a very good idea what we mean by the word “soul.” The word we use now that comes closest to saying what it means is “personality.” Forget anything you have ever heard about God having a collection of souls in Heaven which He attaches to the bodies of human babies when they are born. Very early on, the Church recognized this as a false idea. Our personality is something which did not exist before our conception.
A newborn baby has not much intelligence, nor much personality. It lives mostly by instinct, as an animal does. The baby drinks its other’s milk, without knowing why. Gradually, the child’s instincts give way to habits, the difference being that habits have to be learned by training, conscious or unconscious. Instincts seem to be a part of the nature of all animals, human or quadruped. Instincts remain with us throughout our lives.

Personality slowly develops. It isn’t easy to define, but it obviously has to do with purpose. A man with a personality is a man with a purpose. He impresses us because he isn’t easily knocked down or done in. He sees a thing and goes for it, and his while make-up gives us an impression definiteness and strength and predictability.

Personality is, in fact, bound up with free will. A man who acts with an overriding purpose is a man of personality, while we say that those of feeble purpose, who are easily diverted from their goals, have weak personalities. We can say then, that a man’s soul grows as a living body directed by an intelligent free will which he applies to his actions. He is made by God and given life by Hi for a specific purpose.

All this has a direct bearing on prayer. When we come into God’s presence, we need to know who we are and Who He is. When we remember we are but dust, we realize many of the things we say to God are rank impertinence at least, or plain stupid at best! He is our Maker, very different from us. We are just things He has made, and if we tell the truth, we cannot even begin to tell Him what He should do with us. Prayer begins with knowing Who It is we are intending to talk to.

Posted July 7, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer
(Chapter Two- Part One)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

Prayer is a natural human activity. Anyone can pray. Everyone should pray. No one, absolutely no one, can get along properly without praying. Yet people commonly say “I want to pray, but I simply can’t. I guess I’m not as religious as I should be.” People who say this sort of thing have mistaken notions of what a Christian is. They think religion is for people whose feet are firmly planted in the air.

We all know some Christians who are like that, but I’m none too sure they are really the sort of Christians our Lord had in mind. Our Lord Jesus Christ was thoroughly down-to-earth. So were His apostles. He taught them their faith should be a down-to-earth sort of faith, seeing things as they really are. If we mean to be His disciples, to pray as He taught them to pray, we need to see things as they really are, too.

We aren’t by nature heavenly creatures. We’re of the earth, earthy, even though we have a heavenly destiny. God didn’t create us as angels, and the Church has never taught that He did. Read the story of creation at the beginning of the Bible. You’ll see that, at bottom, it doesn’t say anything really different from thoughtful scientists. Mankind, (Adam, that is) was formed from the dust of the ground. Human beings draw life from the stuff they eat, which springs from the earth. We are made of earth and water, as Scripture teaches.

When we die, we return again to the dust, as the Bible and Prayer Book teach us. We are different from the dust God made us from because He breathed life into our dust. The life we have comes from God, without it, we wouldn’t live. Like vegetables and animals we are made of earth and water, but God has made us higher than they. Unlike them, like the angels, we have intelligence and free will. Yet we are neither animals nor angels. We are human beings, with souls. Because we are, we are creatures meant to pray.

Posted June 30, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer (Chapter One-Part Five)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

While we can all grow in our life of prayer, it’s safe to say that if you are in the habit of saying your prayers regularly, you should continue. Any change you make in your routine of prayer should be made only gradually. The Church has hammered out its teaching on prayer through centuries of hard-won experience.
It is the intention of this small work to hold to those teachings which they Church has passed on through the centuries. One’s best hope of praying well lies in relying upon the Church’s experience rather than in following what seems to be bright, new ideas (which are probably not much more than tawdry old ones long ago rejected).

We are individuals, each at a different stage of our spiritual lives. While the experience of our Christian ancestors provides a sure guide for our own prayer, in prayer we make that experience ours.

We can all grow in prayer. Our practice of prayer can improve. What seems quite satisfactory for our prayer today may in the future be unfulfilling. It’s quite sad to be told by people that they can’t quite seem to pray anymore, only to learn that they’re still trying, often in middle age, to say the same prayers they were taught at their mother’s knee or in confirmation classes.

An adult man would look silly wearing a schoolboy’s clothes, but we don’t think it odd if he clings—unthinkingly—to the same prayers he said as a child. His soul has grown, his personality has matured, much as his body has continued to grow and change. It should come as no surprise that we outgrow our childhood prayers. As we grow, life changes and our relationship with God changes as we do. Our prayer should change to keep up with the other changes of our life.

We must approach God with a willingness to be instructed by Him. We come to Him, then, with a humble and obedient attitude. We don’t demand anything of God, not even more profound prayer! That forgets who we are and Who He is. We must put ourselves in His loving hands, with an unwavering confidence in His love, ready to follow His commandments, however difficult they may be.

Spend a minute or two when you first start your prayers thinking over what your attitude toward God ought to be. Remember how infinite is His love for you, think on His power as Maker and Creator of the vast universe, and realize how utterly dependant on Him you are. If at times your prayer never progresses beyond a pondering of these realities, your time has been very well spent.

Posted June 24, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer (Chapter One-Part Four)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

When you are going to pray, St Ignatius of Loyola advises, don’t start at once by kneeling down. Start with a moment’s silence. Remind yourself that, when you kneel, you will be knelling in the Presence of the Creator of all worlds. Don’t rush into His Presence tired and breathless from what you were just doing, or with the idea that you have only a few minutes to spend with Him anyway. Think how you would conduct yourself on a visit with the President of the United States in the White House.

“We should make our petitions,” says St Teresa of Avila, the Spanish mystic, “like beggars before a powerful and rich Emperor; then, with downcast eyes, humbly wait. Our Lord wishes us at such a time to offer Him our petitions and to place ourselves in His Presence. He knows what is best for us.”

We do not come before God as equals for a casual conversation. We do not even come before Him as to a wise counselor who will give us good advice. We come before Him ass Lord of all, Who knows all and Who, in His infinite wisdom, can never be misled or mistaken.

We can go to any one of our friends for advice, and when they’ve given their opinion, we can take it or leave it. We cannot do that with God. We do not ask for His advice; we ask for His commands.

We must realize, though, that God is not an earthly monarch. God’s commands, and the actions of His Holy Spirit, are loving and gentle. God won’t argue with us. If He did, His almighty power would simply crush us, and that is far from His purpose. Unless we come to obey, we shall get nothing from our prayers. Why should we expect otherwise? We are not doing God a favor by praying to Him; we are receiving the highest favor a human being can receive. So before you pray, remember what you are doing, and to Whom you are speaking. He is the One Who made you, the One to Whom you will someday return, and He is waiting for you to pray.

Posted June 16, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer (Chapter One-Part Three)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

Two people who are in love can be together by the hour enjoying each other’s company just holding hands and never saying a word; and the less we prattle at God when we are with Him in our prayers, the better our prayers are likely to be. In his great treatise “On Prayer,” Father Pierre de Caussade says:

“We must rid ourselves of the error of numbers of people who do not think they are praying unless they are continually in meditation, or piling prayer on prayer, or reciting litanies. These things clothe our prayer, but they are not the essence of prayer. The attention of the heart (of which most people are rarely aware) is the one thing needful without which spoken prayers will never be more than a vain noise of words."

What spoils prayer for most of us is that, right at the outset, we approach the matter with a set of false assumptions. Think what it means to pray. We are coming into the Presence of the Lord of all creation. The “attention of the heart” of which Fr de Caussade speaks, means first and foremost, we must approach God with respect, with what we are taught in our Catechism is “holy fear.”

Have you ever tried to get an interview with a congressman or senator? It usually isn’t very easy. The Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State would be even more inaccessible, and few of us will ever have a meeting with the President of the United States. Yet, by merely kneeling down, you can have the undivided attention of the King of kings, God Almighty, for as long as you wish. God isn’t limited to time and space like us. He can, so to speak, spend all eternity just listening to your prayers, and still have all eternity for everybody else, too.

Being our loving Father, He is prepared to listen to our words. Now if we were to meet with the President, we would spend some time preparing for such a meeting. We would bear in mind what we wanted to say and even how we would say it. We would approach our meeting with purpose and intention—a goal. With this in mind, how do you prepare to pray?

Posted June 9, 2012


Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer (Chapter One-Part Two)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

Prayer is indispensable for all of us. Whether we like it or not (or believe it or not), God has made every one of us to be His children, His friends. We can’t do anything to alter that. God is not a car manufacturer, not an impersonal Master Mechanic, but our personal Creator and our Father.

In a human family, nothing can alter the fact that a man or boy is the son of his father, and a good father always cares about his son, however much of a black sheep he may turn out to be. God is the perfect Father, no less; and He will not send us away of refuse to help us if we fall short of His plans for us. He will continue to do all He can for us—all we will let Him do for us—as long as we live.

We human beings are so obstinate and self-centered that we find it difficult to believe that God is always concerned for our well-being. We don’t understand how God truly desires what is best for us when we don’t believe that what happens in our lives comes from His hand.

Everyone has tried praying at one time or another. Some of us have made a regular habit of it for years. Some have tried it for a time (even a long time) and then given it up. Some have prayer just two or three times in their lives—in a crisis, perhaps—or in a moment of intense fear or distress. At the least, we have all had some experience of prayer.

Have you personally found prayer much of a success? Many people haven’t, even among those who pray regularly. The trouble very often is that we have lost sight of what prayer is, and what it is for. When we were young, someone probably told us “Praying means talking to God.” When we tried it, though, we discovered that the conversation is one-sided! When we think of it, we realize that however easy a definition it may be for children, it isn’t really all that accurate; to an adult, it may even be more a hindrance than a help. Praying is being, consciously and intentionally, with God.

Posted June 2, 2012

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Living with God-Thoughts on the Practice of Prayer (Chapter One-Part One)

by the Rev E W Trueman Dicken, 1957

Why should we trouble ourselves to pray? Most people don’t pray and are not noticeably the worse for it. Does it matter whether we pray or not?
To even begin to answer the question, we need to understand the purpose of prayer. So let us first consider that.

We live in a world which God has made. We can’t escape from that truth, nor from Him. We are a part of His design, and He wants us here or He would not have put us here. If a man designs something—and automobile, for example—he does it with a purpose. He knows what each part is for and he doesn’t put in gears or wires or switches which have no useful purpose. If we use the car in the way he intended, all the parts will work and we will get the results we want—we’ll drive it where we want to go.

When we buy a car there may be a good deal about it we don’t understand. If we misuse it, whether intentionally or through ignorance, it will break down. We must run the car according to its maker’s instructions for us to be able to drive it.
In the same way, we can live in God’s world any way we please: we all have free will. But if we want to make anything worthwhile of living in the world, we must follow God’s instructions. If not, we’ll break down.

A car maker gives you a book to tell you how your car works and how to take care of it. God has given us a book, too—the Bible. We can’t manage without it any more than the man who maintains his own car can manage without the manufacturer’s book.
The really keen motorist isn’t content just to read the handbook. He keeps his knowledge fresh and up-to-date by reading car journals and technical books; the Christian needs to do the same. He needs to read about Christianity, God and His Church, the lives of the saints, and the Book of Common Prayer itself. The more we read, the better equipped we are to live in God’s world.

But God is much more personal, much more interested in us than any car manufacturer. It is not enough for us to simply know about Him. We need to know God by direct, personal contact and there’s only one way of doing it. We must be with God, consciously and intentionally with Him. In a word, we must pray.

Posted May 26, 2012

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What If This Present Were the World's Last Night?
by John Donne-for the Third Week of Advent

WHAT if this present were the worlds last night?
Marke in my heart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucified, and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amasing light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell.
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,
Which pray'd forgivenesse for his foes fierce spight?
No, no; but as in my idolatrie
I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty, of pity, foulnesse onely is
A signe of rigour: so I say to thee,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd,
This beauteous forme assures a pitious minde.

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Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self—3
for November 13-20

When we consider how intensely self-conscious is the age in which we live, and the amount of time most people spend on themselves one way or another, it is amazing to realize that most of us are so lacking in self-knowledge that very often our latest acquaintance could tell us things about ourselves we would refuse to believe, but are undoubtedly true.

This realization comes powerfully upon us when we seek to draw close to God: we are overwhelmed with a sense of not knowing who it is we are offering to God. I do not know who I am. How am I to advance in a life of prayer? What are the struggles of soul in which I am to engage? In my attempt to approach God, I make the distressing discovery that I don’t really know who I am.

We know well one or two prominent sins which have dogged our life’s path for years, and against these we struggle bravely and are aware God is helping us with His grace. But while we regret these sins and weaknesses, we are hardly terrified by them. They are visible, tangible, we know what they are and we have some experience struggling with them face to face. These are not the things we fear.

As we attempt to grow in our lives with God, it is the increasing sense that there is so much of ourselves we don’t know. Why, for example, is there an antagonism in our souls towards God? We tell ourselves that we want to serve God and love Him, with all our minds and hearts, but this animosity, this sense that I am torn in my allegiance to Him, remains a deep and unhappy truth. I come to see there are forces within me, a life of which I know nothing, habits have grown and desires encouraged of which I understand little.

When our souls begin to awaken to God, they also waken to a sense of ignorance as to who we are. We begin to understand that we can make little progress in our life with God without knowledge of ourselves. How are we to grow?—Fr Basil Maturin, SSJE, 1915

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Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self-2
for November 7-14

There are few things more surprising, when we come to think of it, than our ignorance of ourselves. More than ignorant for ignorance only means a lack of knowledge, but we go beyond that. Many of us are not only ignorant of a great part of our own character, but we often imagine ourselves to be quite different than we are. It seems almost impossible that we should be so, did we not know it to be only to true of others.

How is it possible for a man to close his eyes to the most obvious and pressing facts about himself, facts involving the most serious consequences, which are perfectly evident to everyone except himself. We are often amused by hearing others give their opinion of themselves and their gifts and abilities; amused and sometimes amazed, that their estimate of themselves is so utterly different from that of those who have but a passing knowledge of them. We hear of people boast of gifts that everyone but themselves knows they do not possess. On the other hand, others, of great power and influence, are sometimes tormented with a morbidly low estimate of their own capacity. We easily see this in others, yet do not consider that we might be mistaken in our judgment of ourselves. Most of us, at some time in our lives, have been accused of some fault in our character which we have repudiated at the time with some indignation begotten of the sincere conviction that the accusation was untrue and yet perhaps years afterwards we realize that we were ourselves mistaken and the criticism was quite correct.

How is such a thing possible? Listen to two friends discussing and criticizing one another. What is more common than the tone of protest or repudiation with which some fault or virtue is discussed? Yet we do not feel naturally inclined to say “Surely the man must know himself better than his friend can know him. If he says he hasn’t that gift or fault, who can know better whether he has or not better than himself?”

We do not say this because experience has proved to us how often the critic is right, but because we have seen how often his companion is wrong—in his own evaluation of himself!

Indeed, in what we’ve observed thus far, it is possible to have a very deep knowledge of human character in general and yet be profoundly ignorant of one’s own character. We look with the same eyes, yet the eyes which pierce so easily thorough the artifices and deceptions of others become clouded, and the vision disturbed, when they turn inward and examine self. Moreover, it is to be remembered has nothing to do with cleverness or intellectual insight, but is largely, if not entirely, moral. –Fr Basil Maturin, SSJE, 1915

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Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self—1
for October 30-November 6

There are two spheres of knowledge in which everyone who is endeavoring in the spiritual life must be making some advance: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self. We can all readily perceive the necessity of growth in the knowledge of God as essential to any development of the spiritual life. The connection is obvious. “This,” says our Lord, “is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.” Holiness consists of friendship with God. If we would in any sense be friends of God, we must have at least that desire for holiness without which such friendship would be impossible; the growth in the knowledge of God is the deepening of this friendship. “If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.”

But the knowledge of self is as necessary for the spiritual life as is the knowledge of God. The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the deeper our knowledge of self, and if we would attain to any knowledge of God, there must be some knowledge of self. When Isaiah saw the Lord’s glory in the Temple, there was at once a deepening sense of his own sinfulness. “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of Hosts.” The soul is created in the image of God, and it cannot approach His presence without perceiving how unlike it is to Him in Whose image it is made. To know God is to know self. To have no knowledge of God is to walk in darkness, to have no standard by which to gauge and measure oneself. Those who shut God out of their lives are able to live in stupid if not happy ignorance of what a failure their lives are. –Fr Basil Maturin, SSJE, 1915

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AN ANCIENT IRISH PRAYER FOR THE DAY AND THE NIGHT

High King of Heaven,
My soul's Healer:
Keep me at even,
Keep me at morning,
Keep me at noon,
On rough courses faring,
Through soft meadows passing,
Across rushing streams wading,
Be my Help and my Shield,
My Courage this day,
My Safety this night.
I am tired, stray, and stumbling,
Cover Thou me from snare and from sin.

-from the Carmina Gadelica

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THE LORICA OF ST PATRICK

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

The “Lorica of St Patrick” (lorica is type of breastplate used by Roman legionnaires) is an ancient prayer-poem written by St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. Its strong Celtic images make it a powerful and unforgettable prayer. Each of the verses, with its “bindings,” is like the Roman lorica, which required the tying of many leather straps to get a snug fit and ensure protection. St Patrick composed the Lorica about AD 450.


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BE THOU MY VISION

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Be all else but naught to me, save that Thou art;
Be Thou my best thought in the day and the night,
Both waking and sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, be Thou my true word,
Be Thou ever with me, and I with Thee Lord;
Be Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son;
Be Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
Be Thou my whole armor, be Thou my true might;
Be Thou my soul's shelter, be Thou my strong tower:
O raise Thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
Be Thou mine inheritance now and always;
Be Thou and Thou only the first in my heart;
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, Thou heaven's bright sun,
O grant me its joys after victory is won;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be Thou my vision, O Ruler of all.

This prayer was written about AD 580, by St Dallan Forgaill in Ireland. St Dallan was a son of Irish nobility who renounced his titles and position to take up the life of a monk. After going blind (the result, it was said, of too much reading!), he began composing prayers in the poetic style of the Irish bards. The above, “Be Thou My Vision” is probably the best known of all his work; its words are particularly moving when it's remembered that "Be Thou My Vision" was the work of a blind man. It was set to the music of the Irish tune Slane and has become increasingly popular as a hymn over the last century. Prayer, poem or hymn, it’s a powerful invocation of God in the best tradition of Celtic spirituality.

To hear St Dallan's prayer as a hymn, look to the right side of this page.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Twenty-Five: ON THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

STRIPPED of all knowledge, lacking in every good thought or deed, without memory from the past or wish for the future, as useless as a worn-out rag, unfeeling as a stone in the path, corroded as a worm-eaten mushroom in the woods, mortal as a fish on the shore and grieved to tears over this wretched plight of yours, thus you will stand in prayer before the Almighty, your judge and Creator and Father, your Savior and Master, the Spirit of Truth and Giver of Life; and like the Prodigal Son you will stammer out of the depths of your impotency: Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son (Luke 15:21).

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

You know your impotence and let yourself lie like a grain of dust before the Almighty, and out of your wretchedness grows love to your fellow men as those created by the Lord and aglow with Him. He in His unfathomable Being takes notice of them; it is enough for you to offer everything for them.

The strange thing has now come to pass that the deeper you pressed into your own heart, the farther and higher you climbed out of yourself. The outward conditions of your life are the same: you wash dishes and care for the children, you go to work, draw your salary and pay your taxes. You do everything pertaining to your external life as a person in a society, since there is no chance of leaving it. But you have resigned yourself. You have given away one thing in order to receive another.

... And if I have Thee, what more do I ask on earth? Nothing, answers St. John Climacus, but ceaselessly praying, silently to cling to Thee. Some are enslaved by riches, others by honor, still others by acquiring possessions; my only desire is to cling to God.

Prayer, with all it contains of self-renunciation, has become your real life, which you keep up as though only for the sake of prayer. Walking with God (Genesis 6:9) is from now on the only thing that has real value for you, and it includes all heavenly and earthly events. For him who bears Christ within himself there is neither death nor illness or any earthly clamor; he has already stepped into eternal life, and that embraces everything.

Night and day the heavenly seed sprouts in your heart and grows, you know not how. The earth produces of itself, your heart's soil, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear (Mark 4:27-8).

The saints speak of something they call the inextinguishable light. It is a light not of the eye but of the heart that never ceases to walk in purity and clearness. It swiftly leaves the darkness behind, and constantly strives towards the day's height. Its constant quality is to be continually purified. This is the light of eternity that can never go out, and that shines through the veil of time and matter. But the saints never say that this light is given to them, but that it is given only to those who have purified their hearts in love for the Lord, on the narrow way which they have freely chosen.

The narrow way has no end: its quality is eternity. There every moment is a moment of beginning-the present includes the future: the day of judgment; the present includes the past: creation; for Christ is timelessly present everywhere, both in hell and in heaven. With the coming of the One, plurality disappears, even in time and space. Everything happens simultaneously, now and here and everywhere, in the depths of your heart. There you meet what you sought: the depth and height and breadth of the Cross: the Savior and salvation.

Therefore, if you wish to save your soul and win eternal life, arise moment by moment from your dullness, bless yourself with the sign of the Cross and say: Let me, Lord, make a good beginning, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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Chapter Twenty-Four: ON AN INTERPRETATION OF ZACCHAEUS

LIKE Zacchaeus you have now climbed up into a tree to see the Lord (Luke 19). You have done so not only by your power of thought or in a mystical, mental way. You are a human being and you have a body: therefore like Zacchaeus you have made use of your strength of limb and of earthly things to climb up from the ground. And if you have done so with understanding and quiet calculation, in consciousness of your own body's weight and limitations, but without fear or foolishness or side glances, you have also been fortunate enough to raise yourself so high that you can catch, over the milling mob of mankind, that is, your earthly impulses, a glimpse of Him you sought.

You observe that as you have begun to get a clearer sense of your own darkness, you are no longer drawn so strongly as before to entertainment and social life, and you have received, as it were, a little glimpse of your inner humanity as it really is. You think, perhaps, that up to now your heart has most resembled a nutshell of a boat rocking about without destination or helmsman; now the voyage has taken on goal and meaning, and happily so. None the less you are the same little nutshell of a boat on the wide sea; if you have voyaged aright you now see for the first time clearly how weak and small the boat is.

If only we show our good intention, the Lord is always Himself our Guide, says Archbishop Theophylact from Bulgaria. Jesus tells Zacchaeus: Make haste and come down; (that is, humble yourself), for today I must abide at thy house (Luke 19:5). House here can be understood as the heart. Truly, says the Lord, you have climbed up into a tree and conquered a part of your earthly desires because you wanted to see me, that is: you wanted to be able to perceive me when I passed that way in your heart. But make haste now to humble yourself lest you sit there thinking you are better than others, for it is in the heart of the humble that I must dwell. And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully (verse 6).

Zacchaeus, chief of the publicans, now received Christ, and the first thing he did was to give away all that he possessed. For half of his goods he gave straightway to the poor, and the remainder surely was quickly expended to repay fourfold those from whom he had demanded too much. He also is a son of Abraham (verse 9): he has heard the Lord's voice and has gone from his country and from his father's house (Genesis 12:1), where selfishness and passions ruled.

Zacchaeus knew that the heart which receives Christ must empty itself of everything else: it must offer all it has of illegitimately acquired riches: the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (I John 2:16). He understood that he who is rich here is poor there, for to be physically rich is the same as being spiritually poor, explains John Chrysostom: for if the rich man were not so poor, he would never be so rich.

As impossible as to unite health and sickness is to reconcile love and wealth, Isaac the Syrian points out, for he who loves his fellow men gives away unconditionally all that he possesses: such is the nature of love. But without love there is no possibility of entering the kingdom of God. This Zacchaeus observed also.

But the less you possess, the simpler is your mode of life. All excess has been thrown away, and the heart gathers itself together at its core. Little by little it tries to get into the kernel, where the stairs to heaven are to be found.
Then prayer, too, becomes simpler. Prayers gather around the center and enter it. There in the depths is seen the only prayer that is needful: the prayer for mercy.
For what can a sinner, and the chief among them (I Timothy 1: 15) desire other than that the Lord might have mercy on him? Has he anything to give? Does he have strength of his own, a will of his own, any composure o f his own? Can he undertake anything by himself? Does he know anything? Does he understand, does he perceive anything, that he, who owns nothing, can call his own?

He owns nothing: for sin is nothingness, that which does not exist. Sin is emptiness, darkness, denial. There the sinner rests, in that nothingness.
As such he sees himself, and the less he himself possesses, the richer he is: for the emptied room within him is filled not with perishable goods, but with the fullness of eternal life, its light and its affirmation-love and mercy. It is the Lord who dwells as guest in his house.

But how can he, this sinner, merit the Lord's arrival? How can he ever imagine that the Lord will look upon him in his darkness? However he tries to cleanse himself, however he struggles and works, however he follows the commandment of the Gospel and watches and fasts and in every way endeavors to deny himself for the Lord's sake, he sees himself even so fall back into ill humor and quarrelsomeness, lovelessness and laziness, impatience and ingratitude and all imaginable vices. How can he ever expect the Lord to come into such a room?

Therefore he prays: Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on me, a sinner. For truly I have tried to do what it was my duty to do to serve Thee: I have ploughed the field of my heart that Thou gavest me to tend, and I have fed the cattle there (Luke 17:7-10), but I am only Thy humble servant and without Thee I can do nothing. So have mercy on me and fill me with Thy grace.

Through work he increases his faith (Luke 17:5), through prayer he gets strength to work.

Thus work and prayer live closely together, until they flow together and become one. His work becomes to pray, and his prayer is his work. This is what the saints call spiritual activity, the prayer of the heart, or the Jesus Prayer.

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Chapter Twenty-Three: ON TIMES OF DARKNESS

THE weather shifts from cloudy to clear and then back to rain: thus it is with human nature. One must always expect clouds to hide the sun sometimes. Even the saints have had their dark hours, days and weeks. They say then that "God has left them" in order that they may know truly how utterly wretched they are of themselves, without His support. These times of darkness, when all seems meaningless, ridiculous and vain, when one is beset by doubt and temptations, are inevitable. But even these times can be harvested for good.

The dark days can best be conquered by following the example of St. Mary of Egypt. For forty-eight years she dwelt in the desert beyond Jordan, and when temptations befell her and memories of her former sinful life in Alexandria beckoned her to leave her voluntary sojourn in the desert, she lay on the ground, cried to God for help and did not get up until her heart was humbled. The first years were hard; she sometimes had to lie this way for many days; but after seventeen years came the time of rest.

On such days stay quiet. Do not be persuaded to go out into social life or entertainment. Do not pity yourself, seek comfort in nothing but your cry to the Lord: Haste thee, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord (Psalm 70:1)! I am so fast in prison that I cannot get forth (Psalm 88:8), and other such appeals. You cannot expect real help from any other source. For the sake of chance relief do not throw away all your winnings. Pull the covers over your head: now your patience and steadfastness are being tried. If you endure the trial, thank God who gave you the strength. If you do not, rise up promptly, pray for mercy and think: I got what I deserved! For the fall itself was your punishment. You had relied too much on yourself, and now you see what it led to. You have had an experience; do not forget to give thanks.


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Chapter Twenty-Two: ON THE USE OF MATERIAL THINGS

WE are made up of soul and body; the two cannot be separated in our conduct. Let the physical therefore come to your aid: Christ knew our weakness and for our sake used words and gestures, spittle and earth as media. For our sake He let His power flow from the fringe of His garment (Matthew 9:20; 14:36), from the handkerchiefs or aprons that were carried away from the apostle Paul's body (Acts I9:I2), yes, from the shadow of the apostle Peter (Acts 5:I5).

Therefore use all that is of earth as a staff of remembrance on your troublesome wandering along the narrow way. May the whiteness of the snow and the blue of the heavens, the jeweled eye of the fly and the scorching of the flame, and all of creation that meets your senses, remind you of your Creator; but make use especially of what the Church offers you to help you yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6:19). First of all, the Lord's Holy Communion. But likewise the other mysteries, or sacraments, and the holy Scriptures. And the Church offers you also the holy icons of the Mother of God, the angels and the saints; and prayer before them, and candles and incense, holy water and the gleam of gold, and singing. Receive all this with gratitude and use it all for your up-building and encouragement, improvement and benefit as you travel further.

Give free outlet to your love for the generous Lord of love, kiss the Cross and the icons, adorn them with flowers; if only evil be crushed with silence, the good will be allowed to breathe freely. If what is given in love is received with love, the scope of love is increased and enlarged, and this is the aim of your work. The greater the river, the wider the delta.

Use your own body, too, as an aid in the struggle. Trim it down and make it independent of earthly whims. Let it share your trouble: you wish to learn humility, so let the body also be humble and bow to the ground. Fall on your knees with your face to the earth as often as you can in privacy, but get up at once, for after a fall follows restoration in Christ.

Make the sign of the Cross assiduously: it is a wordless prayer. In a brief moment, independent of sluggish words, it gives expression to your will to share Christ's life and crucify your flesh, and willingly, without grumbling, to receive all that the Holy Trinity sends. Moreover, the sign of the Cross is a weapon against evil spirits: use this weapon often and with reflection.

A house is never built until the scaffolding is raised. Only the strong man has no need of outward support. But are you strong? Are you not the weakest among the weak? Are you not a child?


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Chapter Twenty-One: ON THE AVOIDANCE OF EXTRAVAGANCE

IT is a known fact that a person who practices the piano too zealously gets cramp in his hands, and a too diligent writer exposes himself to writer's cramp. Dejected and downcast, the musician or author, just now so full of hope, must break off his work; in idleness he is exposed to many evil influences.

From this example you should take warning. Fasting, obedience, self-discipline, watchfulness, prayer all make up the constituent parts necessary for practice, and only practice. And any practice should be always undertaken genuinely, quietly taking into account one's own resources of strength (Luke 14:28-32), and without exaggeration at any point. Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer, advises the holy apostle Peter, and through him the Lord (I Peter 4:7).

Drunkenness does not always originate in alcohol and other means of inebriation. just as dangerous is the drunkenness that springs from all too great self-trust and the eagerness that ensues. With an abandoned zeal that expresses itself in exaggerations and extravagances, it sows its sacrifice on the soil of practice. The crop that shoots up out of this is unsound: it bears such fruit as overstrain, intolerance and self-righteousness. No, here it is a matter of not turning aside to the right hand or to the left (Deuteronomy 5:32) and never having the slightest confidence in one's own strength.

If we do not find within us rich fruits of love, peace, joy, moderation, humility, simplicity, uprightness, faith and patience, all our work is in vain, points out St. Macarius of Egypt. The work is carried on for the sake of the harvest, but the harvest is the Lord's.

Therefore, keep watch over yourself and be deliberate. If you notice that you are becoming irritable and intolerant, lighten your load a little. If you have the desire to look askance at others, to reproach or instruct or make remarks, you are on the wrong road: he who denies himself, has nothing with which to reproach others. If you think you are becoming "disturbed" by people or by external circumstances, you have not understood your work aright: everything that at first glance appears disturbing is really given as an opportunity for practice in tolerance, patience and obedience. The humble man cannot be disturbed, he can only disturb. Therefore keep yourself under, hide yourself. Go into your room and shut the door (Matthew 6:6), even when of necessity you find yourself in a large and noisy company. But if this sometimes becomes too hard to bear, go out anywhere where you can be alone, and cry out from your whole soul for help from the Lord, and He will hear you.

Think of yourself always as like a wheel, advises Ambrose: the more lightly the wheel touches the earth, the more easily it rolls forward. Do not think of or speak of or concern yourself with earthly matters more than is necessary. Remember, too, that a wheel that is completely in the air cannot roll.


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Chapter Twenty: ON FASTING

FASTING, neither above nor below your ability, will help you in your vigil. One should not ponder divine matters on a full stomach, say the ascetics. For the well-fed, even the most superficial secrets of the Trinity lie hidden. Christ Himself set the example with His long fast; when He drove out the devil He had fasted for forty days. Are we better than He? Behold, angels came and ministered unto him (Matthew 4:11). They are waiting to minister to you, too.

Fasting tempers loquacity, says St. John Climacus. It is an outlet for compassion and a guard upon obedience; it destroys evil thoughts and roots out the insensibility of the heart. Fasting is a gate to paradise: when the stomach is constricted, the heart is humbled. He who fasts prays with a sober mind, but the mind of the intemperate person is filled with impure fancies and thoughts.

Fasting is an expression of love and devotion, in which one sacrifices earthly satisfaction to attain the heavenly. Altogether too much of one's thoughts are taken up with care for sustenance and the enticements of the palate; one wishes to be free from them. Thus fasting is a step on the road of emancipation and an indispensable support in the struggle against selfish desires. Together with prayer, fasting is one of humanity's greatest gifts, carefully cherished by those who once have participated in it.

During fasting, thankfulness grows toward him who has given humanity the possibility of fasting. Fasting opens the entrance to a territory that you have scarcely glimpsed: the expressions of life and all the events around you and within you get a new illumination, the hastening hours a new, wide-eyed and rich purpose. The vigil of groping thought is replaced by a vigil of clarity; troublesome searching is changed to quiet acceptance in gratitude and humility. Seemingly large, perplexing problems open their centers like the ripe calyces of flowers: with prayer, fasting and vigil in union, we may knock on the door we wish to see opened.

Here we find the reason that fasting is often used as a measuring-stick by the holy Fathers: he who fasts much is he who loves much, and he who has loved much is forgiven much (Luke 7:47). He who fasts much also receives much.

The holy Fathers recommend "moderate" fasting: one ought not to allow the body to be weakened too much, for then the soul, too, is harmed. Nor ought one to undertake fasting too suddenly: everything demands practice, and each one should look to his own nature and occupation. To choose among different kinds of food is to be condemned: all food is God-given, but it is advisable to avoid such kinds as add to the body's weight and appetite: strong spices, meat, spirituous drinks and such foods as are solely for the palate's enjoyment. For the rest, one may eat what is cheap and most easily available, they say. But by "moderate" they mean one meal a day, and that one light enough not to fill the stomach to satiety.


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Chapter Nineteen: ON THE BODILY AND MENTAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF PRAYER

IT is important, while practicing prayer in this way, not to give the body free rein. A prayer in which the body is not distressed and the heart grieved is like an incompletely developed fetus, says St. Isaac the Syrian, for such a prayer has no soul. And it carries within it the seed of self-sufficiency and pride that makes the heart consider itself not only among the called but even among the chosen few (Matthew 22:14).

Beware of this kind of prayer; it is the root of many errors. For if the heart is bound to the carnal, your treasure also remains in the carnal, while you think, even so, that you hold heaven in your carnal embrace. Your joy becomes impure and expresses itself in lack of control and the urge to prattle and instruct and convert others without being appointed by the Church to the calling of teacher. You interpret Scripture according to your carnal mind and cannot bear to be contradicted, and engage in hot arguments for the sake of your opinion, all because you have neglected to discipline your body and thereby humble your heart.

True joy is quiet and constant, wherefore the apostle urges us to rejoice evermore (I Thessalonians 5:16). It proceeds from a heart that weeps over the world's (and its own) turning from the Light; true joy is to be found in grief. For it is said: Blessed are they that mourn (Matthew 5:4) and Blessed are ye that weep now with your carnal self for ye shall laugh with your spiritual (Luke 6:2 I). True joy is the joy of consolation, the joy that wells up in the knowledge of one's own weakness and the Lord's mercy, and that does not need the bared teeth of laughter to express itself.

Think also of this: the person who is bound to earthly things may rejoice but may also be upset or disturbed or grieved over earthly things: his mind is exposed to continual changes. But the joy of your master (Matthew 25:21) is enduring, for God is unchangeable. Thus control your tongue at the same time as you discipline your body with fasting and strictness. Talkativeness is a great enemy of prayer. A spate of fluttering words stands in the way of the words of prayer. This is the reason that we shall render account for every careless word we utter (Matthew 12:36). One does not bring the dust of the road into a room that one wishes to keep clean; thus keep your heart free from gossip and chatter about the events of the day that is past.

The tongue is a fire, and consider how great a matter a little fire kindleth (James 3:5-6). But if one gives a blaze no air, it dies out: if you do not give air to your passions they are gradually quenched. If you are kindled to anger, be silent and do not let it be noticed outwardly. Only the Lord may hear your confession. Thus you extinguish the burning brand at the beginning. If you are disturbed over the mistakes of another, follow the example of Shem and Japheth: cover them with the mantle of silence (Genesis 9:23); thus you quench your desire to judge before it bursts into flame. Silence can be filled with watchful prayer as a bowl holds water.

But it is not only the tongue that the person who practices the art of watchfulness must control. He must look to himself (Galatians 6:1) in every detail, and his care must extend to the depths of his being. Deep within he finds immeasurable store-rooms, where memories and thoughts and fantasies stir about and must be restrained. Do not stir up a memory that will cover your prayer with mud, do not root around in the soil of your old sins. Do not be like the dog that returneth to his vomit (Proverbs 26:11). Do not let your memory linger on private matters that can reawaken your desire or set your imagination going. The devil's favorite wrestling-place is precisely our imagination; through it he draws us to further intercourse with him, to consent and action. In your though t-world he sows doubt and worry, attempts at logical re asoning and proof, fruitless questions and self-found answers. Meet all such things with the words of the Psalm: Away from me ye wicked (Psalm 1 119:115).


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Chapter Eighteen: ON PRAYER (part 3)

PRAYER does not stop when morning devotions are over. Now it is a matter of maintaining prayer the whole day through, no matter what the day's complications. Bishop Theophan advises the beginner to choose a suitable short sentence of prayer from the Psalter, for example, O Lord, make haste to help me, or Create in me a clean heart, O God, or Blessed art Thou, O Lord, or some other. The Psalter offers a wide choice of such more or less brief prayers. Later, as the day goes on, one may keep this prayer in mind and repeat it as often as possible, mentally or in a whisper or, better still, aloud as soon as one is alone and unheard. In a bus or an elevator, at work and during meals, constantly, as soon as one has opportunity, one recaptures the prayer and fixes all his attention on the content of the words. Thus the day is filled until the evening reading from the prayer book in the quiet moments before going to bed. This practice is also suitable for those who do not have the privacy that is necessary for regular evening and morning devotions, for it can be carried out wherever and whenever one wishes. Inner solitude is in such cases a substitute for the external solitude that is lacking.

Frequent repetition is important: with frequent wing-beats a bird soars up over the clouds; the swimmer must repeat his strokes countless times before he reaches the desired shore. But if the bird ceases to fly, it must be content to dwell on the earth. And close beneath the swimmer lurk dark and threatening depths.

Pray in this way hour after hour, day after day, without growing weary. Pray simply, not with pathos nor with all manner of questions: do not be anxious for tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). When the time comes, you will get your answer.

Abraham set forth without wondering curiously: What does the land look like, that Thou wilt show me? What is awaiting me there? He simply set out and departed as the Lord had spoken unto him (Genesis 12:4). Do likewise. Abraham took all his possessions with him, and in that respect you ought to do as he did. Take everything you have, your whole being with you on your wandering; leave nothing behind that could bind your affection to the land where many gods are worshipped, the land you have left.

It took Noah a hundred years to build his Ark; log upon log he dragged to the construction. Do as he did; drag log upon log to your construction, patiently, in silence, day after day, and do not inquire about your surroundings. Remember that Noah was the only one in the whole world who walked with God (Genesis 6:9), that is, in prayer. Imagine the crowding, the darkness, the stench, that he had to live in until he could step out into the pure air and build an altar to the Lord. The air and the altar you will find within you, explains St. John Chrysostom, but only after you have willingly gone through the same narrow gate as Noah.

In this manner do all that the Lord commands you to do (Genesis 6:22), and build with all prayer and supplication (Ephesians 6:18) the bridge that takes you away from your carnal self and its divided interests to the wholeness of the Spirit. With the coming of the Only One into your heart, plurality vanishes, says Basil the Great. Your days become whole, secured by Him who holds the whole world in His hand.


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Chapter Seventeen: ON PRAYER (part 2)

A PERSON who resolves to begin regular morning exercises usually does so not because he already has physical fitness but in order to get something he does not have. Once one has something he can be anxious to keep it; previous to that, he is anxious to get it.

Therefore, begin your practice without expecting anything of yourself. If you are fortunate enough to sleep in a room by yourself, you can quite literally and without trouble follow these ancient instructions on prayer:

"When you awake, before you begin the day, stand with reverence before the All-Seeing God. Make the sign of the Cross and say:

"In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

"Having invoked the Holy Trinity, keep silence for a little, so that your thoughts and feelings may be freed from worldly cares. Then recite the following prayers without haste, and with your whole heart.

"God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Thereafter your other prayers, beginning with the Our Father. It is better to read a few of them quietly than all of them impatiently.

They rest upon the gathered experience of the Church; through them you enter a great fellowship of praying folk. You are not alone; you are a cell in the body of the Church-that is, of Christ. Through them you learn the patience that is necessary not only for the body but also for the heart and mind, for the building up of your faith.

The complete and correct prayer is one in which the words of the prayer are accepted by both thought and emotion; attentiveness is therefore needful. Do not let your thoughts wander; imprison them again and again, and always begin anew from the point where you left off praying. You may read from the Psalter, in the same -way, especially if you do not have a prayer book. Thus you learn patience and watchfulness.

A person standing at an open window hears the sounds from outside; it is impossible not to do so. But he can give the voices his attention or not, as he himself wishes. The praying person is continually beset by a stream of inappropriate thoughts, feelings and mental impressions. To stop this tiresome stream is as impracticable as to stop the air from circulating in an open room. But one can notice them or not. This, say the saints, one learns only through practice.

When you pray, you yourself must be silent. You do not pray to have your own earthbound desires fulfilled, but you pray: Thy will be done. It is not fitting to wish to use God as an errand boy. You yourself must be silent; let the prayer speak.

Your prayer must have four constituent parts, says Basil the Great: adoration, thanksgiving, confession of sin and petition for salvation. Do not be concerned with or pray for any private matters, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

He who cannot make his will and hence his prayer coincide with God's will, will meet obstacles in his undertakings and constantly fall into the enemy's ambush. He becomes discontented or angry, unhappy, perplexed or impatient or troubled; and in such a state of mind no one can remain in prayer.

A prayer offered while one has any cause to reproach a fellow man is an impure prayer. There is only one whom the praying person may and must reproach, and that is himself. Without self-reproach, your prayer is as worthless as it is while you are reproaching someone else in your heart. Perhaps you ask: How can one learn this? The answer is: One learns it through prayer.

Do not fear the drought within you. The life-giving rain comes from above, not from your own hard soil below, which brings forth only thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18). Do not wait, therefore, for any "state," for ecstasy or rapture or other desire-laden experiences. Prayer is not for the sake of enjoyment. Be afflicted and mourn and weep (James 4:9), remember your mortality, and call upon the Lord for mercy. The rest depends on Him.

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Chapter Sixteen: ON PRAYER (part 1)

FROM the foregoing we understand that by prayer the holy Fathers are not referring to occasional prayer, morning and evening devotions and grace at meals, but for them prayer is synonymous with unceasing prayer, the life of prayer. Pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17) is to be taken as a literal command.

Understood in this way, prayer is the science of scientists and the art of artists. The artist works in clay or colors, in word or tones; according to his ability he gives them pregnancy and beauty. The working material of the praying person is living humanity. By his prayer he shapes it, gives it pregnancy and beauty: first himself and thereby many others.

The man of science studies created things and appearances; the man of prayer presses through to the Creator of created things. It is not warmth that induces his love, but the wellspring of warmth; not the functions of life, but the origin of life; not his own ego but the source of consciousness in an ego: the Creator of it.
The artist and the scientist must put in much labor and toil before they reach maturity. The skill they desire they never attain. If they were to wait for divine inspiration every time they go to work, they would never learn the principles of their profession. The violinist must practice perseveringly in order to be initiated into the secrets of his sensitive instrument. How much more sensitive is the human heart!

Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you (James 4:8). It is for us to begin. If we take one step toward the Lord, He takes ten toward us He who saw the Prodigal Son while he was yet at a distance, and had compassion and ran and embraced him (Luke 15:20).

Some time you must take the first uncertain steps-if you wish at all to draw near to God. Do not be anxious about your clumsy beginning; do not yield to shyness and uncertainty, and the mocking laughter of enemies, who try to persuade you that you are behaving ridiculously and that the whole thing is only a child of fantasy and meaningless. Know that there is nothing the enemy fears like prayer.

The child's desire to read increases as he learns to read; the further one gets into a language, the better he speaks it and the more he likes it. Enjoyment increases with proficiency. Proficiency comes with practice. Practice becomes more pleasant as proficiency increases.

Do not suppose that it is otherwise with prayer. Do not wait for some extraordinary divine inspiration before setting to work. Man is created for prayer just as he is created to speak and to think. But especially for prayer; for the Lord God put man into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it (Genesis 2:15). And where will you find the Garden of Eden if not in your heart?

Like Adam, you ought to weep for the Eden of which you were deprived because of your, incontinence. You were clad in fig leaves and garments of skin (Genesis 3:21), that is your perishable substance with its suffering. Between you and the narrow way to the tree of life lay the dark flames of earthly desires, and only to him who conquers these desires will it be given to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God (Revelation 2:7).

How hard it is to win such a victory! Adam broke only one of the Lord's commandments; daily and hourly you break them all, says St. Andrew of Crete. From your position as a hardened, constant criminal your prayer must go forth, in order to reach the heights.

The hardened criminal often is not conscious of his guilt; he is hardened. So it is with us. Do not let yourself be frightened by the hardness of your own heart. Prayer will gradually soften it.

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Chapter Fifteen: ON PRAYER

IT follows from this that prayer is your first and incomparably most important means of fighting. Learn to pray, and you vanquish all the evil powers that could imaginably assail you.

Prayer is one wing, faith the other, that lifts us heavenward. With only one wing no one can fly: prayer without faith is as meaningless as faith without prayer. But if your faith is very weak, you can profitably cry: Lord, give me faith! Such a prayer seldom goes unheard. The grain of mustard seed, says the Lord, grows into a great tree.

The person who wants sunshine and air opens the window. It would be folly to sit behind drawn curtains and say: There is no light; there isn't a breath of air! Let this picture show you clearly how prayer works. God's power, or grace, is always and everywhere accessible to all, but one cannot get one's share of it without wanting it and acting accordingly.

Prayer is action; to pray is to be highly effective. For every kind of effectiveness needs practice. It is by speaking a foreign language that one learns it, and by praying one learns to pray.

Without prayer you can never expect to find what you are seeking. Prayer is the beginning and the basis of all striving towards God. The first gleam of light is lit by prayer; prayer gives the first hints of what you are seeking, and it awakens and sustains the desire to go further.

Prayer is the foundation of the world, St. John Climacus has said, and another saint has likened the universe to a bowl in which the Church of Christ rests, but the Church is held together by prayer. Prayer is humanity's intercourse and encounter with God. It is the bridge on which man crosses over from his carnal self with its temptations, to the spiritual, with its freedom. It is a wall of defence against troubles, a weapon against doubt; it annihilates affliction and bridles anger. Prayer is food for the soul and light for the mind, it bears in the present the joy that is to come. For him who truly prays, prayer is the verdict, the tribunal, and the judge's throne, not waiting for the Last judgment, but now, in the next moment, in the heart.

Prayer and watchfulness are one and the same, for it is with prayer that you stand at the gate of your heart. The watchful eye reacts immediately to the slightest shifting in the field of vision; so also does the heart that is steadfast in prayer.

The spider may be another example for you. In the middle of his web he sits and feels the smallest fly and kills it. Likewise prayer watches in the middle of your heart: as soon as a trembling makes it known that an enemy is there, prayer kills it.

To leave off praying is the same thing as deserting one's post. The gate stands open for the ravaging hordes, and the treasures one has gathered are plundered. The plunderer does not need long to accomplish his work: anger, for example, can destroy everything in a single second.


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Chapter Fourteen: ON HUMILITY AND WATCHFULNESS

WHOEVER engages in inner warfare needs at every moment four things: humility, the greatest vigilance, the will to resist and prayer. It is a matter of dominating, with God's help, the "Ethiopians of thought," thrusting them out by the door of the heart, and crushing at once those who dash your little ones against the rocks (Psalm 137:9).

Humility is a prerequisite, for the proud man is once and for all shut out. Vigilance is necessary in order immediately to recognize the enemies and to keep the heart free from vice. The will to resist must be established at the very instant the enemy is recognized. But since without me ye can do nothing (John 15:5), prayer is the basis on which the whole battle depends.

A little example may be of guidance to you. By being vigilant you discover an enemy approaching the door of your heart, for example, the temptation to think an evil thought of a fellow man. Immediately your will to resist is awakened and you thrust out the temptation, but at the very next moment you sustain a setback in the form of a self-satisfied thought: My, but I was alert! Your apparent victory became a horrible defeat. Humility was missing.

If, on the contrary, you give over the battle to your Lord, the tendency to self-satisfaction falls away and you stand free. Soon you observe, too, that there is no weapon so powerful as the name of the Lord.

The example shows how unremittingly the warfare must be carried on. In a swift stream the evil impulses flow in, and they must be checked as quickly as possible. These are all the fiery darts of the wicked of which the apostle speaks (Ephesians 6:26), and that come flying without cessation. Without cessation, therefore, must also be our cry to the Lord. Our fight is not a fight against. flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:22).

The impulse is the beginning, the saints explain. Then intercourse follows, when we enter further into what the impulse brings with it. The third step is already consent, and the fourth is the committed sin. These four stages can succeed each other instantly, but they can also give way by degrees so that one can manage to separate them. The impulse knocks like a salesman at the door. If one lets him in, he begins his sales talk about his wares, and it is hard to get rid of him even if one observes that the wares are not good. Thus follow consent and finally the purchase, often against one's own will. One has let himself be led astray by what the evil one has sent.


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Chapter Thirteen: ON PROGRESS IN DEPTH

THE external rudiments lead us now to the welfare that goes on in the depths. As when one peels an onion, one layer after another is removed, and the innermost core, out of which growth reaches up toward the light, lies revealed. There, in your own innermost chamber, you will glimpse the heavenly chamber, for they are one and the same, according to St. Isaac the Syrian.

When you strive now to enter your inmost depths, you will be aware, beside your own true face, of what St. Hesychius of Jerusalem calls the gloomy faces of thought's Ethiopians, but what St. Macarius of Egypt likens to a crawling serpent that has nestled there and wounded your soul's most vital organ. If now you have slain this serpent, he says, you may pride yourself on your purity before God. But if you have not, bow humbly, as a needy sinner, and pray to God about all that lurks within you.

How can we make a beginning, then, we who have never penetrated into the heart? We stand outside, but let us knock with fasting and prayer, as the Lord commands when He says: Knock and it shall be opened unto you (Matthew 7:7). For to knock is to act. And if we stand fast in the word of the Lord, in poverty, in humility, in all that the injunctions of the Gospel require, and night and day hammer upon God's spiritual door, then we shall be able to get what we seek. Whoever will escape darkness and captivity can walk out into freedom through that door. There he receives the disposition to spiritual freedom, and the possibility of reaching Christ, the heavenly King, says St. Macarius.


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Chapter Twelve: ON OBEDIENCE

OBEDIENCE is another indispensable implement in the struggle against our selfish will. With obedience you cut off your physical members the better to be able to serve with the spiritual, says St. John Climacus. And again, obedience is the grave of your own will, but from it rises humility.

You must remember that you have of your own free will given yourself over to slavery, and let the cross you wear around your neck be a reminder of this: through slavery you are proceeding towards true freedom. But has the slave a will of his own? He must learn to obey.

Perhaps you ask: Whom shall I obey? The saints answer: you shall obey your leaders (Hebrews 13:17). Who are my leaders, you ask? Where shall I find any, now that it is so utterly hard to discover a genuine leader? Then the holy Fathers reply: The Church has foreseen this too. Therefore since the time of the apostles it has given us a teacher who surpasses all others and who can reach us everywhere, wherever we are and under whatever circumstances we live. Whether we be in city or country, married or single, poor or rich, the teacher is always with us and we always have the opportunity to show him obedience. Do you wish to know his name? It is holy fasting.

God does not need our fasting. He does not even need our prayer. The Perfect cannot be thought of as suffering any lack or needing anything that we, the creatures of His making, could give Him. Nor does he crave anything from us, but, says John Chrysostom, He allows us to bring Him offerings for the sake of our own salvation.
The greatest offering we can present to the Lord is our self. We cannot do this without giving up our own will. We learn to do this through obedience, and obedience we learn through practice. The best form of practice is that provided by the Church in her prescribed fast days and seasons.

Besides fasting we have other teachers to whom we can show obedience. They meet us at every step in our daily life, if only we recognize their voices. Your wife wants you to take your raincoat with you: do as she wishes, to practice obedience. Your fellow-worker asks you to walk with her a little way: go with her to practice obedience. Wordlessly the infant asks for care and companionship: do as it wishes as far as you can, and thus practice obedience. A novice in a cloister could not find more opportunity for obedience than you in your own home. And likewise at your job and in your dealings with your neighbor.

Obedience breaks down many barriers. You achieve freedom and peace as your heart practices non-resistance. You show obedience, and thorny hedges give way before you. Then love has open space in which to move about. By obedience you crush your pride, your desire to contradict, your self-wisdom and stubbornness that imprison you within a hard shell. Inside that shell you cannot meet the God of love and freedom.

Thus, make it a habit to rejoice when an opportunity for obedience offers. It is quite unnecessary to seek one, for you may easily fall into a studied servility that leads you astray into self-righteous virtue. You may depend upon it that you are sent just as many opportunities for obedience as you need, and the very kind that are most suitable for you. But if you notice that you have let an opportunity slip by, reproach yourself; you have been like a sailor who has let a favorable wind go by unused.

For the wind it was a matter of indifference whether it was used or not. But for the sailor it was a means of reaching his destination sooner. Thus you should think of obedience, and all the means that are offered us by the Holy Trinity, in that way.


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Chapter Eleven (Part Two): ON THE INNER WARFARE AS A MEANS TO AN END

Like the prisoner, we are already free in hope, but the fulfillment of salvation lies beyond our earthly life: only there can we say definitely: I am saved. For the command to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48) is impossible of human fulfillment here on earth. Why was it given to us, then? The saints reply: In order that we might begin our work now, but with eternity -before our eyes.

The goal of man's freedom is neither in himself nor in his fellow man but in God, says Bishop Theophan.

For the cry of freedom is: Repent! And the call is given: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28f.). Labor on what? On your own temporal welfare? Are heavy-laden-with what? With earthly cares and concerns? Not in the least, reply the saints. For what does the Lord go on to say: Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, who never thought of my temporal welfare and never was burdened with worldly cares while I wandered on earth.

And what do they get, all those who labor on their salvation and are heavy-laden with the world's opposition, both within themselves and without? Those who take Christ's yoke upon themselves and live as He lived, and therefore learn not from angels nor from men nor from books, but from the Lord Himself, from His own life and light and action within them; who too can say I am meek and lowly in heart and hold no high opinion either of myself or of what I do or say or can do-what do all these people get? They will find rest for their souls. The Lord Himself will give them rest. They will receive freedom from temptations, worries, humiliations, spite, fear, anxiety and everything else that disturbs the human heart.

This is the explanation of St. John of the Ladder. And so it has spread from Christian to Christian. For experience reveals again and again to the new heart the truth that Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light for those who love Him.
But only he that endureth to the end shall be saved (Matthew 10:22), not those who fall away and are lazy. The promise does not concern them.

Therefore we must not grow weary. We must be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:58). Having once begun, we must not cease to perform deeds worthy of our repentance. To rest is the same as to retreat.


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Chapter Eleven (Part One): ON THE INNER WARFARE AS A MEANS TO AN END

BY throwing off the outer bonds, you throw off the inner as well. While you are freeing yourself from external concerns, your heart is freed from inner pain. It follows from this that the hard warfare you are compelled to wage with yourself is exclusively a means. As such it is neither good nor bad; the saints often liken it to a prescribed cure. However painful it may be to follow out, it nevertheless remains only a means to regain health.

Always keep this in mind: you are not doing anything virtuous by your continence. Or can it be considered a virtuous act when a man who, out of his own carelessness, has been trapped deep down in a mine shaft, takes pick and shovel and tries to work his way out? Is it not, on the contrary, quite natural for him to make use of the tools given him by a higher authority to make his way up out of the choking air and darkness? Would not the opposite be stupidity?

From this picture you can gain wisdom. The tools are the implements of salvation, the commands of the Gospel and the holy Sacraments of the Church, that were bestowed upon every Christian at holy baptism. Unused, they are of no profit to you. But used in the right manner they will open your way to freedom and light.
We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22): we must, like the imprisoned victim, give up many opportunities for rest and sleep and enjoyment; we must, like him, watch and employ every moment when others sleep or occupy themselves with trifling things. We do not let the pick and shovel out of our hands: they are prayer, fasting, watching and work to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). Further, if the heart finds such discipline difficult, we must use all our will-power to compel it to submit if we are to get out.

What reward does the prisoner get now? Or does he get any reward at all? Toil itself is his reward. In the love of freedom that he feels, in the hope and faith that placed the tools in his hands. With work, hope and love and faith grow: the more industrious he is, and the less he spares himself, the greater is his reward. He becomes aware of himself as a prisoner among prisoners, in his own eyes he does not separate himself from his comrades: he is a sinner among sinners in the bowels of the earth. But while they, in hopeless resignation, sleep or play cards to while away the time, he goes forth to his work. He has found a treasure but he covers it up (Matthew 13:44); he carries the kingdom of heaven within him: love, hope and the faith that sometime he will reach the fresh air outside. As yet, to be sure, he sees true freedom only in a mirror (I Corinthians 13:12), but in hope he is already free: We are saved by hope (Romans 8:24). But hope that is seen is not hope, adds the apostle, in order that we might rightly understand what is involved. Once the prisoner really reaches freedom and sees it face to face, he is no longer a prisoner among prisoners on earth. Then he finds that he is already in the world of freedom: the freedom in which Adam was created and which was restored to us in Christ.


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Chapter Ten: ON THE SINS OF OTHERS AND ONE'S OWN

NOW that you have thus become aware of your own wretchedness, your insufficiency, and your wickedness, you call upon the Lord as did the Publican (Luke 18:13): God, be merciful to me a sinner. And you add: Behold, I am far worse than the Publican, for I cannot resist eying the Pharisee askance, and my heart is proud and says: I thank Thee that I am not like him!

But, say the saints, now that you recognize the darkness in your own heart and the weakness of your flesh, you lose all desire to pass judgment on your neighbor. Out of your own darkness you see the heavenly light that shines in all created things reflected the clearer: you cannot detect the sins of others while your own are so great. For it is in your eager striving for perfection that you first perceive your own imperfection. And only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected. Thus perfection proceeds out of weakness.

At this point you are granted the result that Isaac the Syrian promises to those who persecute themselves: And your enemy is driven off as fast as you approach.

Of what enemy is Father Issac speaking here? Naturally, of the same one who once took the shape of a serpent and who, ever since, arouses discontent in us, dissatisfaction, impatience and impetuosity and anger, envy, fear, anguish, anxiety, hate, dispiritedness, laziness, dejection, doubt and especially all that embitters our existence and that has its roots in our self-love and self-pity. For who can wish to be obeyed who realizes, with the pangs of love, that he himself never obeys his Master? What reason, then, has he to be disturbed, to become impatient and impassioned, if everything does not go according to his wishes? Through practice he has accustomed himself to wish for nothing, and for a person with no wishes, everything goes just as he wishes, explains the Abbot Dorotheus. His will has coincided with God's will, and whatever he asks, he will receive (Mark 11:24).

Can one very well be envious of a person who does not exalt himself, but who, on the contrary, sees his own condition and finds that everyone else is far more worthy of fame and honor than he? Are fear, anguish and anxiety possible for the person who knows that, come what may, he, like the robber on the cross, is receiving the due reward of his deeds (Luke 23:41)? Laziness leaves him because he is constantly unmasking it within himself. Dejection finds no place, for how can what is already prostrate be cast down? And his hate is directed exclusively towards all the evil in his own life that dims his view of the Lord: he hates his own life (Luke 14:26). But then there is no longer any ground for doubt, for he has tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is (Psalm 34:8): it is the Lord alone who bears him up. His love grows constantly in breadth, and with it his faith.

He has made peace with himself, as Isaac the Syrian says, and heaven and earth have made peace with him. He is gathering the fruit of humility. But this takes place only on the narrow way, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14).


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Chapter Nine: ON THE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD

ST. BASIL the Great says: One cannot approach the knowledge of the truth with a disturbed heart. Therefore we must try to avoid everything that disturbs our heart, that causes forgetfulness, excitement or passion, or that awakens unrest. We must free ourselves as much as possible from all fuss and flutter and ado over vain things. Yes, when we serve the Lord we shall not be troubled about many things, but always keep in mind that one thing is needful (Luke 10:41).

In order to bathe one must first undress. So it is with the heart: it must be set free from the world's outer covering in order to be accessible to the Cleanser. The healthful rays of the sun cannot reach the skin if we do not first uncover it and stand naked. So it is with the Spirit's healing and life-giving power.

Thus: undress. Deny yourself, but without it being too noticeable, everything that contributes to enjoyment and pleasure, comfort or entertainment, everything that is amusing or caresses the eyes, ears, palate or other senses. He that is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30), and what does not build up, tears down. Peel off your every day needs and social habits: do so calmly, deliberately, without too sudden transition, yet thoroughly. Gradually clip off as many strings as possible that bind you to the external world: invitations, concerts, personal property, and especially all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, for it is not of the Father but is of the world, and it wages war against your soul (I John 2:16).

What is the world, then? You ought not to imagine it as something sinful and tangible. The world, explains St. Macarius of Egypt, is the veil of dark flames that surround the heart and shut it out from the tree of life. The world is everything that holds us and satisfies us sensuously: that within us which has not known God (John 17:25). To the world belong our desires and impulses. St. Isaac the Syrian enumerates them: Weakness for wealth and for collecting and owning things of different kinds; the urge for physical (sensuous) enjoyment; the longing for honor, which is the root of envy; the desire to conquer and be the deciding factor; pride in the glory of power; the urge to adorn oneself and to be liked; the craving for praise; concern and anxiety for physical well-being. All these are of the world; they combine deceitfully to hold us in heavy bonds.

If you wish to free yourself, scrutinize yourself with the help of that list and see clearly what you have to struggle against in order to approach God. For friendship with the world is enmity with God, and whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4). Broad vistas are attained only by leaving the narrow valley and the occupations and pleasures characteristic of the valley. No man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24); to sojourn at the same time in the valley and on the heights is impossible.

To ease the upward climb and the more readily cast off the heavy burdens, you can as often as possible ask yourself such questions, for example, as these: Is it for my own or for someone else's pleasure that I am now going to this concert or to the cinema? Am I crucifying my flesh at a cocktail party? Am I going and selling all I possess by taking a pleasure trip or buying this book? Am I keeping under my body and bringing it into subjection (I Corinthians 9:27) by lying down to read? The questions can be altered and added to according to your own habits and their relation to the way of life the Gospel commands. Thereupon you should remember that he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much (Luke 16:10). And do not fear the pain; it helps you out of the narrow valley, where you lived in the passions of your flesh, following the de sires of body and mind (Ephesians 2:3).

With out mercy you should ask yourself such questions continually and incessantly. But ask them of yourself only. Never in any case, not even in thought, of another. As soon as you direct such a question outward to your fellow man and not inward to yourself, you have set yourself on a judgment seat and thereby judged yourself. You have robbed yourself of what you had won by your own continence; you have taken one step forward but ten backward: and then you have reason to weep over your obstinacy, your failure to improve, and your pride.


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Chapter Eight (Part Two-See next section below for Part One): ON GUARDING AGAINST THE RE-ENTRY OF VANQUISHED EVIL

Therefore the Fathers counsel: act with discernment. Of two evils one chooses the lesser. If you are in private, take the poorest morsel, but if anyone is looking, you should take the middle way that arouses the least notice. Keep hidden and as inconspicuous as possible; in all circumstances let this be your rule. Do not talk about yourself, of how you slept, what you dreamed and what happened to you, do not state your views unasked, do not touch upon your own wants and concerns. All such talk only nourishes your self-preoccupation.

Do not change your work, your residence, and the like. Remember: there is no place, no community, no external circumstance that is not serviceable for the battle you have chosen. The exception is only such work as directly serves your vices.
Do not seek higher posts and higher titles: the lower the position of service you have, the freer you are. Be satisfied with the living conditions you now have. And do not be prompt to show your learning or skill. Hold back your remarks, No, it isn't so-and-so, but so-and-so. Contradict nobody and do not get into arguments; let the other person always be right. Never set your own will above that of your neighbor. This teaches you the difficult art of submission, and along with it, humility. Humility is indispensable.

Take remarks without grumbling: be thankful when you are scorned, disregarded, ignored. But do not create humbling situations; they are provided in the course of the day as richly as you need. We notice the person who is for ever bowing and fussily servile, and perhaps say, How humble he is! But the truly humble person escapes notice: the world does not know him (I John 3:I); for the world he is mostly a "zero."

When Peter and Andrew, John and James left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:20) what did their fellow workers say, who were left on the shore? For them the two pairs of brothers vanished; they were gone. Do not be hesitant; do not be afraid of disappearing like them, from this adulterous and sinful generation; what are you hoping to win, the world or your soul (Mark 8:34-38)? Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you (Luke 6:26).


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Chapter Eight (Part One): ON GUARDING AGAINST THE RE-ENTRY OF VANQUISHED EVIL

THE first time you are victorious over self may be a sign to you: Now I am on the way! But do not consider yourself virtuous, only thank God, for it was He who gave you the power; and do not rejoice beyond measure, but swiftly go on. Otherwise the vanquished evil may come to life and conquer you from the rear. Remember: the Israelites received the command from God to drive out all the inhabitants of the land when they conquered the new land (Numbers 33:52f), in order that we might learn from them.

The degree of victory over self is of trifling importance. It consisted perhaps in our skipping our morning cigarette, or only in such an apparently unimportant thing as not turning our head or refraining from meeting a glance. The externally noticeable happening is not the decisive one. The little thing can be big, and the big, little. But always the next phase of the battle is already waiting. We must be constantly prepared. There is no time to rest.

Once again, be silent! Let no one notice what you are about. You are working for the Invisible One; let your work be invisible. If you scatter crumbs around you they are willingly picked up by birds sent by the devil, the saints explain. Beware of self-satisfaction: in one mouthful it can devour the fruit of much toil.



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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander


Chapter Seven: ON THE TRANSFER OF LOVE FROM THE SELF TO CHRIST

IF we move out of our self, whom do we encounter? asks Bishop Theophan the Recluse. He supplies the answer at once: We meet God and our neighbor. It is for this very reason that denying oneself is a stipulation, and the chief one, for the person who seeks salvation in Christ: only so can the center of our being be moved from self to Christ, who is both God and our neighbor.

This means that all the care, concern and love that we now lavish on ourselves is then quite naturally and without our noticing it transferred to God and thereby to our fellowmen. Only so is the left hand kept from knowing what thy right hand doeth, and your alms are actually given in secret (Matthew 6:3-4).

Until this has come to pass, we cannot be filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another (Romans 15:14) in a real, non-material way. Our attempts along this line must be false because they are our own and spring from our will to please ourselves. It is especially necessary to understand this, for otherwise we become easily confused on the road of specious helpfulness and smug well-meaning that leads inevitably to the swamp of self-satisfaction.

Refrain from busying yourself, therefore, with charity bazaars, sewing meetings and other such occupations. Busyness over many things is, in all its forms, chiefly a poison. Look within, examine yourself accurately, and you observe that many of these apparently self-giving deeds spring from a need to deafen your conscience: that is, from your uncontrollable habit of satisfying and pleasing yourself (Romans 15:1).

No, the God of love and peace and complete sacrifice does not care to live in the midst of bustling and ado to please oneself, even if this is carried on perhaps under some kind of pretence. There is one way to make a test: if your peace of mind is troubled, if you become dejected or perhaps a little angry if for some reason you have to give up performing the good deed you had planned, then you know that the spring was muddy.

Perhaps you ask, Why? Those who are experienced answer, external hindrance and opposition meet only the person who has not yielded his own will to God: and for God an obstacle is unthinkable. A truly unselfish act is not mine, but God's. It cannot be obstructed. Only for my own plans, my own wishes-to study, to work, to rest, eat, or do a service to my fellowman--can some external circumstance "get in the way," and then I am grieved. But for the person who has found the narrow way that leads to life, that is to God, there is only one conceivable hindrance, and that is his own, sinful will. If he now wishes to do something but is not permitted to carry it out, how can he grieve? For the rest he is not making any plans (James 4:13-16).

But this is another of the saints' secrets.

Do not be deceived. A Christian ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked (I John 2:6) who did not seek his own will (John 5:30), but, was born on straw, fasted forty days, watched in prayer long nights through, healed the sick, drove out evil spirits, had no place to lay his head, and who finally let himself be spat upon, scourged and crucified.

Think how far you are from that. Ask yourself continually anew: Have I watched in prayer a single night? Have I fasted a single day? Have I driven out a single evil spirit? Have I unresistingly let myself be insulted and beaten? Have I truly crucified the flesh (Galatians 5:24), and not sought my own will?

Keep all this freshly in mind.

For what is denying oneself? He who truly denies himself does not ask, Am I happy? or, Shall I be satisfied? All such questions fall away from you if you truly deny yourself, for by so doing you have also given up your will for either earthly or heavenly happiness.

This obstinate will to personal happiness is the cause of unrest and division in your soul. Give it up and work against it: the rest will be given you without effort.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Six: ON ERADICATING THE DESIRE FOR ENJOYMENT

IT is said that only a few find the narrow way that leads to life and that we must strive to enter by the narrow door. For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able (Luke 13:24).

The explanation is to be found precisely in our unwillingness to persecute ourselves. We overcome after a fashion, perhaps, our serious and dangerous vices, but there it stops. The small desires we freely let grow as they will. We neither embezzle nor steal, but delight in gossiping; we do not "drink," but consume immoderate quantities of tea and coffee instead. The heart remains quite as full of appetites: the roots are not pulled out and we wander around in the tanglewoods that have sprung up in the soil of our self-pity.

Make an onslaught on your self-pity, for it is the root of all ill that befalls you. If you were not full of self-pity you would soon observe that we ourselves are to blame for all this evil, because we refuse to understand that it is in reality a good thing. Commiserating yourself obscures your sight. You are compassionate only for yourself and as a result your horizon closes in. Your love is bound up with yourself. Set it free and evil departs from you.

Suppress your ruinous weakness and your craving for comfort; attack them from every side! Crush your desire for enjoyment; do not give it air to breathe. Be strict with yourself; do not grant your carnal ego the bribes it is restively demanding. For everything gains strength from repetition, but dies if it is not given nourishment.

But take care not to bar the front entrance to evil and at the same time leave a back door ajar, through which it can cleverly slip in, in another form.
How do you benefit if, for example, you begin to sleep on a hard mattress but instead indulge in warm baths? Or if you try to give up smoking but give free rein to your urge to prattle? Or if you deny your urge to prattle, but read exciting novels? Or if you stop reading novels but let loose your imagination and quiver in sweet melancholy?

All these are only different forms of the same thing: your insatiable craving to satisfy your own need for enjoyment.

You must set about rooting out the very desire to have things pleasant, to get on well, to be contented. You must learn to like sadness, poverty, pain, hardship. You must learn to follow privately the Lord's bidding: not to speak empty words, not to adorn yourself, always to obey authority, not to look at a woman with desire, not to be angry and much else. For all these biddings are given us not in order for us to act as if they did not exist, but for us to follow: otherwise the Lord of mercy would not have burdened us with them. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, He said (Matthew 16:24), thereby leaving it to each person's own will-if any man will-and to each person's endeavor: let him deny himself.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Five (Part Two): ON THE DENIAL OF SELF AND THE CLEANSING OF THE HEART

Thus let us purify our heart! Let us throw out all the dusty trash that is stored there; let us scrub the dirty floor, wash the windows and open them, in order that light and air may come into the room we are preparing as a sanctuary for the Lord. Then let us put on clean garments, so that the old musty smell may not cling to us and we find ourselves thrust out (Luke 13:28).

May all this be our daily and hourly travail. In this way we are only doing what the Lord Himself commanded us through His holy apostle James, who says: Purify your hearts (4:8). And the apostle Paul instructs us to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (II Corinthians Ti). For from within, says Christ, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mark 7:21-3). Therefore He also exhorts the Pharisees: Cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also (Matthew 23:26).

As we now follow instructions to begin with the inside, we must keep in mind that we are not in the least cleansing our heart for our own sake. It is not for our own enjoyment that we furbish and tidy the guest chamber, but in order that the guest may enjoy it. Will he find it pleasant? we ask ourselves. Will he stay? Our every thought is for him.

Then we withdraw and keep in the background and expect no recompense.

There are three kinds of nature in man, as Nicetas Stethatos further explains: the carnal man, who wants to live for his own pleasure, even if it harms others; the natural man, who wants to please both himself and others; and the spiritual man, who wants to please only God, even if it harms himself.

The first is lower than human nature, the second is normal, the third is above nature; it is life in Christ.

Spiritual man thinks spiritually; his hope is sometime to hear the angels' joy over one sinner that repenteth (Luke 15:10), and that sinner is himself. Such should be your feeling, and in this hope you should labor, for the Lord has bidden us be perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48), and to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (6:33).

Therefore give yourself no rest, allow yourself no peace until you have slain that part within you that belongs to your carnal nature. Make it your purpose to track down every sign of the bestial within you and persecute it relentlessly. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh (Galatians 5:I7).
But if you are fearful of becoming self-righteous from working for your own salvation, or afraid of being overcome by spiritual pride, examine yourself and observe that the person who is afraid of becoming self-righteous suffers from blindness. For he does not see how self-righteous he is.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Five (Part One): ON THE DENIAL OF SELF AND THE CLEANSING OF THE HEART

NAKED, small and helpless, you now pass on to the most difficult of all human tasks: to conquer your own selfish desires. Ultimately it is just this "self-persecution" on which your warfare depends, for as long as your selfish will rules, you cannot pray to the Lord with a pure heart: Thy will be done. If you cannot get rid of your own greatness, neither can you lay yourself open for real greatness. If you cling to your own freedom, you cannot share in true freedom, where only one will reigns.

The saints' deep secret is this: do not seek freedom, and freedom will be given you.

The earth brings forth thorns and thistles, it is said. By the sweat of his brow, with anguish shall man till it; it is he himself, his own substance. The holy Fathers' counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraim the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, say the holy Fathers. Do not suppose that the one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.

Thus it does not pay to come to grips with the hard-to-master great vices and bad habits you have acquired without at the same time overcoming your small "innocent" weaknesses: your taste for sweets, your urge to talk, your curiosity, your meddling. For, finally, all our desires, great and small, are built on the same foundation, our unchecked habit of satisfying only our own will.

It is the life of our will that is destroyed. Since the Fall the will has been running errands exclusively for its own ego. For this reason our warfare is directed against the life of self-will as such. And it should be undertaken without delay or wearying. If you have the urge to ask something, don't ask! If you have the urge to drink two cups of coffee, drink only one! If you have the urge to look at the clock, don't look! If you wish to smoke a cigarette, refrain! If you want to go visiting, stay at home!

This is self-persecution; in this way does one silence one's loud-voiced will, with God's help.

You are perhaps wondering, is this really necessary? The holy Fathers reply with another question: Do you really think that you can fill a jar with clean water before the old, dirty water has been emptied out? Or do you wish to receive a beloved guest in a room crammed with old trash and junk? No; he who hopes to see the Lord as he is, purifies himself, says the apostle John (I John 3:3).


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Four: ON THE SILENT AND INVISIBLE WARFARE

NOW that we know where the battle we have just begun is to be fought, and what and where our goal is, we also understand why our warfare ought to be called the invisible warfare. It all takes place in the heart, and in silence, deep within us; and this is another serious matter, on which the holy Fathers lay much stress: keep your lips tight shut on your secret! If one opens the door of the steam bath the heat escapes, and the treatment loses its benefit.

Thus say nothing to anyone of your newly conceived purpose. Say nothing of the new life you have begun or of the experiment you are making and experiences you expect to have. All this is a matter between God and you, and only between you two. The only exception might be your confessor.

This silence is necessary because all chatter about one's own concerns nourishes self-preoccupation and self-trust. And these must be stifled first of all! Through stillness one's trust grows in Him who sees what is hidden; through silence one talks with Him who hears without words. To come to Him is your endeavor, and in Him shall be all your confidence: you are anchored in eternity, and in eternity there are no words.

Hereafter you will consider that everything that happens to you, both great and small, is sent by God to help you in your warfare. He alone knows what is necessary for you and what you need at the moment: adversity and prosperity, temptation and fall. Nothing happens accidentally or in such a way that you cannot learn from it; you must understand this at once, for this is how your trust grows in the Lord whom you have chosen to follow.

Still another piece of information the saints offer on the way: you should see yourself as a child who is setting out to learn the first sounds of letters and who is taking his first tottering steps. All worldly wisdom and all the skills you may have are totally worthless in the warfare that awaits you, and equally without value are your social standing and your possessions. Property that is not used in the Lord's service is a burden, and knowledge that does not engage the heart is barren and therefore harmful, because it is presumptuous. It is called naked, for it is without warmth and fosters no love. You must thus abandon all your knowledge and become a dunce in order to be wise; you must become a pauper in order to be rich, and a weakling if you wish to be strong.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Three: ON THE GARDEN OF THE HEART

THE new life you have just entered has often been likened to that of a gardener. The soil he tills he has received from God, as well as the seed and the sun's warmth and the rain and the power to grow. But the work is entrusted to him.

If the husbandman wishes to have a rich harvest, he must work early and late, weed and aerate, water and spray, for cultivation is beset by many dangers that threaten the harvest. He must work without ceasing, be constantly on watch, constantly alert, constantly prepared; but even so, the harvest ultimately depends wholly on the elements, that is, on God.

The garden that we have undertaken to tend watch over is the field of our own heart; the harvest is eternal life.

Eternal, because it is independent of time and space and other external circumstances: it is the true life of freedom, the life of love and mercy and light, that has no bounds whatever, and for just that reason is eternal. It is a spiritual life in a spiritual dominion: a state of being. It begins here, and has no end, and no earthly power can coerce it; and it is to be found in the human heart.

Persecute yourself, says St. Isaac of Syria, and your enemy is routed as fast as you approach. Make peace with yourself, and heaven and earth make peace with you. Take pains to enter your own innermost chamber and you will see the chamber of heaven, for they are one and the same, and in entering one you behold them both. The stairway to the kingdom is within you, secret in your soul. Cast off the burden of sin and you will find within you the upward path that will make your ascent possible.

The heavenly chamber of which the saint speaks here is another name for eternal life. It is also called the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, or quite simply, Christ. To live in Christ is to live in eternal life.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter Two: ON THE INSUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN STRENGTH

THE holy Fathers say with one voice: The first thing to keep in mind is never in any respect to rely on yourself. The warfare that now lies before you is extraordinarily hard, and your own human powers are altogether insufficient to carry it on. If you rely on them you will immediately be felled to the ground and have no desire to continue the battle. Only God can give you the victory you wish.
This decision not to rely on self is for most people a severe obstacle at the very outset. It must be overcome, otherwise we have no prospect of going further. For how can a human being receive advice, instruction and help if he believes that he knows and can do everything and needs no directions? Through such a wall of self-satisfaction no gleam of light can penetrate. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, cries the prophet Isaiah (5:21), and the apostle St. Paul utters the warning: Be not wise in your own conceits (Romans 12:16). The kingdom of heaven has been revealed unto babes, but remains hidden from the wise and prudent (Matthew 11:25).

We must empty ourselves, therefore, of the immoderately high faith we have in ourselves. Often it is so deeply rooted in us that we do not see how it rules over our heart. It is precisely our egoism, our self-centeredness and self-love that cause all our difficulties, our lack of freedom in suffering, our disappointments and our anguish of soul and body.

Take a look at yourself, therefore, and see how bound you are by your desire to humor yourself and only yourself. Your freedom is curbed by the restraining bonds of self-love, and thus you wander, a captive corpse, from morning till eve. "Now I will drink," "now I will get up," “now I will read the paper." Thus you are led from moment to moment in your halter of preoccupation with self, and kindled instantly to displeasure, impatience or anger if an obstacle intervenes.
If you look into the depths of your consciousness you meet the same sight. You recognize it readily by the unpleasant feeling you have when someone contradicts you. Thus we live in thralldom. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (11 Corinthians 3:17).

How can any good come out of such an orbiting around the ego? Has not our Lord bidden us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love God above all? But do we? Are not our thoughts instead always occupied with our own welfare?

No, be convinced that nothing good can come from yourself. And should, by chance, an unselfish thought arise in you, you may be sure that it does not come from you, but is scooped up from the wellspring of goodness and bestowed upon you: it is a gift from the Giver o life. Similarly the power to put the good thought into practice is not your own, but is given you by the Holy Trinity.


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The Way of Christians
by Tito Colliander

Chapter One: ON A RESOLUTE AND SUSTAINED PURPOSE

IF you wish to save your soul, if you desire eternal life, rise up from your spiritual laziness, make the sign of the Cross and say:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Faith comes not through pondering but through action. Not words and speculation but experience teaches us what God is. To let in fresh air we have to open a window; to get tanned we must go out into the sunshine. Achieving faith is no different; we never reach a goal by just sitting in comfort and waiting, say the holy Fathers. Let the Prodigal Son be our example. He arose and came (Luke 15:20).

However weighed down and entangled in earthly fetters you may be, it can never be too late. Not without reason is it written that Abraham was seventy-five when he set forth, and the laborer who comes in the eleventh hour gets the same wages as the one who comes in the first.

Nor can it be too early. A forest fire cannot be put out too soon; would you see your soul ravaged and charred?

In baptism you received the command to wage the invisible warfare against the enemies of your soul; take it up now. You’ve dallied long enough; sunk in indifference and laziness you have let much of the time God has given you go to waste. Therefore you must begin again from the beginning: for you have sullied the purity you received in baptism.

Arise, then; but do so at once, without delay. Do not defer your purpose till "tonight" or “tomorrow" or “later, when I have finished what I have to do just now." The interval may be fatal.

No, this moment, the instant you make your resolution, you will show by your action that you have taken leave of your old self and have now begun a new life, with a new destination and a new way of living. Arise, therefore, without fear and say: Lord, let me begin now. Help me! For what you need above all is God's help. . Hold fast to your purpose and do not look back. We have been given a warning example in Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back (Genesis 19:26). You have cast off your old humanity; let the rags lie. Like Abraham, you have heard the voice of the Lord: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee (Genesis 12:1). Towards that land hereafter you must direct all your attention.