ARCHIMANDRITE AIMILIANOS
ABBOT OF THE HOLY MONASTERY OF SIMONOS PETRAS
SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION
AND DISCOURSES
1
THE AUTHENTIC SEAL
ORMYLIA PUBLISHING
PART II
1. Catechism on Prayer Pages 191 – 205
We shall speak today of one of the principal aspects of the spiritual life, to which we are introduced by the gaps Triodion as a whole, but in particular by this initial period of Lent: the subject of prayer.
Do we really know what prayer is and do we know how to pray? From when we are little children we learnt to pray, but has our prayer advanced as it ought to have? Prayer is advancement of the soul words God, the purpose being to reach Him and be united with him. If a car or ship is going the wrong way, it will never reach its destination. If the soul at prayer is not going the right way, you can see that it will never get as far as God. It’s as if we were in a boat, let’s say, with the boatman pulling away at the authors but to no better effect than to go around and around the same point. The same thing can happen to us without our even knowing. What we have to look at is whether our prayer is successful.
You know that people who do not know how to pray, are in reality, good for nothing. There is no charge that they will succeed in life. Even if they’re monastics, they’ll always be people who cleave to the Earth and never attain to the heavens. Even more, they’ll never become angels, because they won’t know how to use this means of locomotion or navigation which is prayer.
As you yourselves feel, the harm that befalls us if we do not know how to pray is incalculable. Incalculable! It is in the only evil from which we suffer. There is no catastrophe to compare with it. Were all the stars and worlds to collide and everything to shatter into smithereens, the damage would be much less than that which befalls us if we don’t know how to pray. It follows that we are in immediate danger, definitely danger, in the event of such spiritual ignorance.
What is prayer? We said: it is the vehicle of the soul. We might also say that it is the atmosphere the soul lives in. You know how our lungs breathe air? Well, in the same way, our souls breathe with prayer. Why, after all, did we come to the monastery? Precisely because, again, the monastery is the atmosphere of prayer. Everything in there is for prayer. So if this prayer does not take place, or does so in the wrong way, how will it then be possible for us to become happy and-more particularly-spiritual people? Yet proper prayer, you feel, sets everything to rights, overcomes every difficulty, our problems, our concerns, our sins, it irons them all out. It can do prodigious things, worked wonders as we advance in our struggle and in our lives.
If we do not have the wealth of the Spirit within us, a wealth of joy, a wealth of peace, if we do not have fruits which are immediately perceptible and obvious and great, this is because we do not desire them, or because we do not know how to pray. And if we desire – “you desire and do not have” as Saint James the Brother of Our Lord so aptly puts it – and you do not have “through you’re not asking”, because we do not ask. And if we do desire, we do so badly, as we said before, because “you ask badly “, as the same Apostle says.
For us monks, the most fitting prayer is prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, the one-word prayer, as we say, with which we shall begin to concern ourselves particularly during this period of Great Lent. Two days instruction will be by way of an introduction. Before we get involved in the details, and examine the fundamentals of prayer of the heart, let us say some things in general about prayer. Because prayer is everything. But if I don’t know this, I am not doing anything. And everything becomes a total catastrophe. Self-destruction.
Now please allow me to say something, before we go any further. It seems to me, my fathers and brothers, that we do not really pray, or if we do, not enough. But even that little we do pray is without art, without strength, without breath; above all, it is without Spirit. Because it is only when the Spirit prays within us that our prayer is able to ascend to heaven. Because prayer is in the Spirit and the Spirit comprehends spirit and is united with that, not with flesh. Our prayer does not have the strength and the presence of the Spirit. Our souls are usually drawn or attracted by other things, which are of more importance to us today, and in the end we forget that the monk is a man at prayer.
So what, then, is this prayer? We have to say what prayer is today, so that we can start the more particular concrete struggle. Especially for us who came from Meteora, this is of great importance; because we left our own place for no other reason than the fact that there we did not have the conditions and opportunities for the spiritual development of our souls, because we were being hindered in prayer. And though we desired it so much, you remember that in the end we stopped talking, because we had too many difficulties to be able to pray.
We have now come, however, to the Holy Mountain and there is no justification for not praying, and indeed, praying strongly. Our flight hence and our entry onto the Holy Mountain have absolutely no meaning unless we really are persons at prayer in the Holy Spirit. Our coming to the Holy Mountain will have been a trick on people, an illusion and deceit before God, unless we become strongly prayerful people. For this reason I would ask that we pay particular attention to the subject which concerns us.
First of all, in speaking of prayer, we have to say that prayer is never independent. I cannot say that I pray, as we have said so many times, I cannot say that I pray if this prayer of mine is not linked to something else. There are some things which always go together. You cannot separate one from the other. When, for example, the Apostle Paul speaks of faith, he talks only of faith and not of works as well. But why? Because when he says faith, he means ‘faith’ space which exists and is apparent through works. When James speaks of works, he says that faith without them is of no importance. He is always talking about works. Why? Because works are the proof of faith. So these two things are utterly interdependent.
There is this same conjunction in many other things, too. In particular, prayer is linked to something else: with our worship, and especially with Holy Communion. If there is no worship and no Holy Communion, it is not possible for there to be prayer, either. Every prayer will befall. If there is worship and there is no strenuous spiritual prayer – internal, strong, crying-aloud prayer – you may be sure that our worship and our Holy Communion are in vain and are no more than throwing mud into the eyes of God, pretending that we love Him, while in practice having nothing to do with Him. And one day He will say to us: “I do not know you”.
These go together. They are the two prongs of the spiritual life. One is the sacramental life, which is a pre-condition of the mystical life, and what we are analysing today is the root, the trunk, the central point of the mystical life, which springs from the sacramental life. Holy Communion, therefore, within worship is the first thing. Why is this a necessary pre-condition? Because when we say ‘I pray’, we mean “I petition someone in prayer”, “I pray to somebody”.
When we talk about internal prayer, of the heart, we do not say petition of the heart, but “prayer”. When we speak of petition, however, we mean that our prayer is directed to words of particular person, its aim being union with that person. While prayer, is static, so to speak, and enjoyment of a place where God also is. There is a distinction, you see.
Petition, then, we say is turning to a person. It follows that, for petition to exist, this person must also exist. And for me to say that I am making a petition, the active presence of this person must exist for me. I have to be able to become familiar with his presence and his existence. Christ, the in-dwelling, who is everywhere present, becomes present for me in my life through my participation in worship, and more particularly, through my participation in Holy Communion.
Through my participation in the liturgical life of our Church, IM joint bid to Christ and I become a member of the body of Christ. And since I am a member, to be a living member of Christ. I shall have to participate in the properties of Christ, so that these might commune, as happened in the two natures of Christ. This is achieved through a Holy Communion, which makes me a sharer in the properties of my Head, with Whom I have been united.
It follows that worship and Holy Communion are indissolubly united. And what do they do? They make God present and alive for me. And what then remains? For me to speak to Him, to address Him who comes to me? And so He, through worship tends towards me and I, through petition tend towards Him, until our total union occurs.
This orientation of mine, as it now is, is accomplished through the mystical path, which is continuous, and is realised in the first place and in essence, as I said before, through prayer. What happens at certain, specific moments in church during Vespers or in the Liturgy with Holy Communion continues with prayer. And I cannot say that I will go to church if I have not been praying. It is superfluous for me to go to church and unnecessary for me to attend the Liturgy and use less for me to take Holy Communion. If I am not continuously at prayer. And it is superfluous for me to pray if I have no part in what we have just been talking about.
But prayer, too, is supposed to have its own, entirely reserved place, the mystical place, in which it is cultivated. You know how, to plant the flower, you dig the Earth. There, your board in many your, whatever else is needed so that the road will take. If you don’t put in that fertiliser, if the soil is not suitable – if it’s too sandy, for example – it’s a waste of time planting the root. Prayer is sterile and does not go higher than our heads – how much less does it reach beyond the clouds and up into the heavens – if it does not have its mystical realm, its mystical fertiliser, which, as we have said, is, in particular, vigil, study and fasting.
It follows that it is a waste of time to pray if I do not keep vigil. Not when our monastery has a vigil -that is something particular and has its own reasons, which are not those we are discussing now. That sort of vigil has to do with worship rather than prayer. If I do not keep vigil, if I do not fast unceasingly and if I do not study–it is this which constitutes the entirely specific realm of prayer–then it is a waste of time for me to pray. So, now that we have cleared that up, we can turn our attention to what prayer is, to that which concerns us here, so that later we can go further.
What is prayer? Having asked. “What is prayer?” I shall not now give you any definition of what it is. If we open St John of the Ladder, if we open St John the Damascan, if we open all the saints, we shall see that each of them has wonderful definitions, which can serve us well. But I shall tell you know what prayer is as we experience it within the struggle of our souls, that is, not what prayer is objectively, but how we live prayer subjectively: how someone feels at prayer and what he feels prayer is.
It follows that we experience prayer initially – when we start to pray – as a wrestling-match, as a struggle. But take note here. The struggle, not in the sense that it is difficult to pray, that I have to struggle to gather my thoughts and overcome my sleepiness or the weariness in my knees or that it occurs to me to scratch myself and I don’t know what to do and I fight against scratching. Not struggle in the sense that I am hungry and I want to go and eat and say: “No, I shall continue to pray”. I do not mean that struggle. That is the ascetic struggle and is something different – another thing altogether. I am speaking of the struggle we have, not with ourselves – what we said just now was with ourselves – but the struggle we have with God. I wrestle with God. It’s quite clear.
I begin a battle which is painful, which is endless -I don’t know whether it will stop in the next life -a battle with God Himself. When Paul said “contend with me in the prayer”, he meant something like that. He felt that he was struggling with God, either for himself, or for the churches in his care and he was saying: “You struggle with God, too, with your prayers, so that our struggles and may be United and in this way, all together, we can wrestle with him and defeated him”. Exactly the same as when, if I cannot beat you, I bring others and call for their assistance so that I can get on.
So the first experience I have, then, is the feeling of an insurmountable obstacle before me, my own smallness and hence of the transcendence of God, and also the entire cognizance of the dramatic struggle I am having with God. Just think a person who strikes the air needs no resistance and easily controls his hands. He spars with the air. Nothing happens to him. He does not feel anything resisting his hands. But when you have an opponent, you tense up immediately. Your punch gets stronger at once. You see your muscles stretching as well. You come up against resistance. You realise you’re hitting and being hit. You can feel at once that you’re hitting and being hit. When I do not have the sense of this struggle with God, as you will realise, I have not even begun to pray.
Let us suppose, though, that we have started to pray, and I feel that I am at the point of engaging in this dreadful struggle with God, that I am ready. I’ve gloved up and I start striking at God. He defends. I do, too, and the question now is whether I’ll be the winner or Him. The only options are that I’ll be knocked down, all bloody, or that I’ll come out on top and He’ll said to me: “Now you’ve won”. In other words, that He´ll give in to me, as He did to all the Saints, who did whatever they wanted with God.
If I stop, I’ll be a broken man, forever a failure. I can’t say that I’m working, living, praying, unless I win this fight. How much more so if I haven’t even begun the fight? So let’s suppose that I have this experience, this sense of struggle. I’ve entered the fray. I start fighting with God. In doing so, I feel that this fight is not with my fists, with my hands, my legs or whatever, but with my mind. It’s taking place with my spirit, with my contemplative faculty.
What can unite to me with God is my spirit. But our spirit – “for their being is flesh” – our spirit is incarnate in our everyday lives. Our spirit, whose feature is to ascend, to mount, to rise and to unite with the Holy Spirit – in which case it’s hypostasis is fulfilled – our spirit learns to live in poverty, in lowness, in earthliness. And what preoccupies it? It is concerned with my will and it is kneaded together
with it. It is concerned with what I’ll eat, what I write in some document or other, how I’m going to get over the problem of people wanting to make roads on the Holy Mountain and so on and so forth. And my spirit becomes a document, a road, my spirit becomes well or anything else you like. It becomes flesh! My physical powers drench it and then I can’t do anything with God! God becomes inaccessible, impalpable for me.
So the spiritual power must be cultivated, the spiritual nature of my being, given to me by God. It is this which must speak, and my spiritual senses must be cultivated, because it is they that can touch God, especially what we call the “contemplative faculty”. This can be drawn towards God and, in a way, can address Him – can speak to Him, as we would say. And so this contemplative faculty must be united entirely with the rational, the Logos, as we say, so that the whole of this spiritual “being” of my experience will be turned towards God, will have records to God, will be directed towards God.
So straight away I have the sense of dialogue, though not yet of a dialogue as such, but rather of a cry, because, as long as I’m still struggling and still haven’t won, God is a long way off. I am down here and God is up in the heavens. I’m corruptible and He is incorruptible. I am Earth and He is the purest air. He is something heavenly. He is something different. How then can I be united to Him, speak to Him? That’s why I shout. When I don’t see somebody, I go out onto the balcony and shout: “Father Theoktistooos!” And if he’s around, he’ll answer. And if, in turn, I hear him, then I’ll start talking to him.
We are still in that state where we don’t see God. We don’t hear God. We don’t understand God. We don’t know God. We live in what is essentially total oblivion. I neither remember God nor know Him. This is why I cry to Him all the time, so that He can feel sorry for me and can answer me. And when God answers me, then I can strike up a conversation. That’s how prayer starts! For the moment, we are undergoing experiences, which, as we said, are a prelude to prayer.
But, as you will understand, we still haven’t started to pray or stop which is why, you see, we experience prayer, in its course, in the beginning, as a cry from the deep – from the depths of our souls. Prayer can be said with the lips. It can be said aloud. It can be said inside here, in the mouth, the pharynx, the throat. And it can also be said from the heart. Instead of the vocal cords, the cords of the heart can be sounded, and then the cry of the spirit can issue forth. That doesn’t matter. What is important is that we are expressing a prayer from our depths. People, who are striving to words this will understand, will be able to distinguish when the mouth is speaking, or the heart, or the spirit, because, in the end, it’s not the heart which should speak: it’s the spirit which should speak in the heart. Gradually, they’ll become aware of this, discern it and learn it. Just as I recognise you, when I’ve seen you lots of times, the same thing happens here. So the lips might be moving, or they might not; what matters is that there should issue forth the cry from the depths, which, like a powerful bomb, like an earthquake, should shake the heavens and make God answer, in the end, and say to us: “are you shouting to me? Why?”
I may be standing, so as to show my intent, my warmth, my concern, my readiness. I may be kneeling, to express my humility and my unworthiness. I may be stretched out, face down, to show the many teeny and the failure of my life so far, so that God will have much more pity on me – and much more quickly at that. I may walk up and down, komboskini in hand, crying aloud or not, in order to overcome my weakness, to overcome my sleepiness. I may work, in order to dispel my lethargy. I may go up and down a Mountain, or carry stones about in order to defeat the weakness of my flesh, so that my spirit may become willing, even though the flesh continues to be weak. I can assume any attitude and use any means, but what I have to feel is that this cry from the depths is coming out of me, so that, at some time, God will hear. I often cry “‘Father Theoktistooos! That father Theoktistooos!”, But it still may be five, 10 or 20 times before he hears my voice if he’s behind a rock, or praying at that time, or singing or chanting.
I have to wake him up, as the Apostle did, who went to the Lord. “Lord, are you sleeping?” he said to Him. “Can’t you see the storm here?” And the Lord – Who wasn’t asleep anyway – got up and said to him “Don’t worry”. And no sooner had he said: “peace, be still”, than the whole turmoil of the sea ceased. And so – you know how often you seem to be racing the rules with your shouting or that your breast is being rent by the fierce cry coming out from inside you – something like that has to happen with our prayer, if God is to hear us. He wants that.
But won’t God here as otherwise? Doesn’t God know what we need is? Of course, He does. He does this, though, on the one hand so that we should express our desire to Him ourselves and that it should become our own and on the other so that we would become aware of our need and of our nakedness. And thirdly so that we should learn to seek Him.
Because if God were to surrender to us immediately, before we did any of the things we were talking about and before we had any of these experiences, we’d cast Him off as easily as we’d won Him, because we wouldn’t know His true value. If your father gives you millions, you´ll fritter it away. But if you have to sweat to make 50 drachmas per day from all your hard work, you just see how you’ll save and get to know the value of money. You’ll be careful how you handle it. In exactly the same way, so as not to scatter Him to the winds, that’s why God wants us to sense Him first, with the powerful distress of the cry from the depths of our being which we race to Him.
(To be continued…)
First Published 1999
ISBN 960-85603-3-0
ISBN 960-85603-2-2
© Holy Cenobium of the Annunciation of the Mother of God
Ormylia (Halkidiki) Greece
