Слово 8

(1) To hold in mind what is read in Divine Scripture is an action of the power of God. – (2) About prayer and reading. – (3) How should a Christian pray? 1. A student, if he does not retain in his mind and does not remember what is taught to him, does not receive any benefit from the teaching. A person who is literate and reads, if he does not understand what he reads, is the same as an illiterate person. A person who reads and understands, if he cannot retain in his mind what he has read and understood, receives no benefit from reading. In relation to the Divine Scripture, it is in our power to read it, but to understand what we read depends on ourselves, and not on us. The diligence and attention we should have when reading depends on us; the same, in order to understand what is read, is a matter of God’s grace. But to hold in mind and remember what is understood is a matter of the sole grace of God. Why are there not many who keep this in mind, just as there are few chosen ones in general who are saved. – Reading teaches a person what leads him to God and makes him God’s, and prayer does what God has mercy on a person and enlightens his mind so that he understands and remembers what he reads. Readers can understand what is written about other worldly matters themselves, but divine and saving things cannot be understood or remembered by anyone without enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. 2. Someone who has learned to pray as he should does not need reading so much, because his soul is filled with divine light and divinely changed by the grace of the Holy Spirit. But the one who prefers to sit reading rather than learn to pray as he should is in delusion and distances himself from salvation; It’s better to say that he is insensitive, although he says that he has read all Scripture and always has it on his tongue. It is impossible for the fruit of the earth to ripen without the warmth of the sun. Let the seed languish during the winter and germinate in the spring and produce a trunk, but if it is cloudy and cold all the time, then its fruit will not ripen. This growth will be worthless and useless; it would be better for it not to sprout at all. In the same way, one who is not warmed by the warmth of the intelligent Sun - Christ the Lord, through prayer, as it should be done, cannot receive mature spiritual fruit, that is, the sweetness and benefit of his reading. It takes a lot of time and labor, more mental than physical, to first learn to pray as one should, and then, having learned, to continue praying. This is why the Apostle commands us to sing and sing to God always with our hearts, and not with our lips alone (Eph. 5:19). Since the mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart, it is necessary to arrange it in such a way that the prayer pronounced with the lips is pronounced from the abundance of the heart. And this happens when a pure heart is created in us, the right divine spirit is renewed, and the joy of God’s salvation is received, which joy is born from communion and communion with Christ, and is then confirmed by the grace of the Master Spirit, according to the word of the prophet, who first said: create a pure heart in me, God, and renew a right spirit in my womb, and then: reward me with the joy of Thy salvation and the Spirit Establish me as a ruler, so that evil spirits from any side cannot, with their temptations and excuses, shake the movements and thoughts of the soul. When the soul is able to pray in the manner shown, then it is possible that from the mysterious rays of divine enlightenment descending into the person praying during prayer and for the sake of prayer, what he reads and understands will ripen, that is, be sweetly acceptable and beneficial. Whoever does not do this does not understand anything from what he reads as he should, does not feel the sweetness of it and does not receive any benefit. 3. Praying to God is a very good thing and brings great benefit to the one praying. If there is great benefit from an interview with an earthly king, then how great should there be from an interview with the Heavenly King through prayer? Just as no one dares to approach someone who is conversing with the king of the earth and stop the conversation he is having, so demons do not dare to approach someone who is conversing with God. On the contrary, great harm comes from someone who does not pray to God, for such a soul is left deprived of God’s enlightenment, divine power and peace from demonic temptations, and demons constantly arouse in it indecent movements, unclean lust, urges for fornication, untruth, vanity, pride, and conceit. Just as the body needs air to breathe, so the soul needs constant remembrance of God, that is, prayer. But again, if someone prays to God simply, haphazardly, as if in passing, without the fear that one should have who stands before God, before Whom the cherubim tremble, not only does this not bring any benefit, he not only suffers the damage mentioned above, but suffers incomparably more destructive harm, the wrath of God, the disgust of God, the expulsion of God. For just as the royal bodyguards immediately take away from the face of the king and drive out the one who stands before the king carelessly, without fear and decency, and the king does not forbid them to do this, so the Angels of God tear away from the face of God and from His gaze and drive out the mind of the one who stands before God and prays to Him carelessly, as if with contempt, without reverence and good humor, and then they immediately seize him demons with insolence and violence and circle him wherever they want, in shameful and unclean places, or in evil deeds, or in vain and useless things. And neither the one who suffers this from demons feels it, nor God takes pity on him and does not free him from this because he despised Him and transgressed His commandment, which commands: work for the Lord with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling (Ps. 2:11). Therefore, it would be much better for such a person if he did not pray at all, because demons do not take possession of the soul for any sins with such tyranny as for contempt of God. And the earthly king endures his debtors and those who sin before him in some way, and for those who despise him, he is a grave and terrible avenger. Why is there no greater sin than praying to God with contemptible negligence? God is incorporeal and invisible, which is why one must serve Him not only physically, but not only invisibly. To serve God only physically and apparently is an incongruous thing, as the Prophet David says: even if you wanted sacrifices, you would have given them, but you would not be pleased with burnt offerings. The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a contrite and humble heart, God will not despise. Contrition of the heart occurs in the mind and thoughts, but our mind and thoughts are invisible. So, being obligated to render invisible service to God who is invisible, we must serve Him with our minds and thoughts. This is proper and fitting service—to bring to the invisible what is invisible, and to what is thought to be thought. But then, and together with this, we must offer the visible, with the soul and the physical, so that pleasing God from us will be with our entire being. God does not accept pleasure from the hands of men (Acts 17:25). Even if He accepts physical and sensory offerings, then one must know when and how He accepts them, namely, when they are offered from a pure heart. Prayer and the singing of divine psalms is nothing more than a conversation with God, in which we either beg Him to grant us what is appropriate for God to grant to men, or we glorify Him for all the creations He has created, or we glorify His miracles, which from time to time He has performed for His glory, for the salvation of people and for the reward and punishment of the unrighteous and evil, or we proclaim providential His actions, which according to His economy He performs mysteriously and secretly, or we magnify the great mystery of the incarnation of the Son and the Word of God, namely, how the Son of God, without being separated from all other creation, departed into the immaculate womb of the Ever-Virgin Mary and became a man, was born, raised and showed us the life and life of the divine, was crucified, died and rose from the dead, giving thereby to His generation to man the hope of resurrection and eternal life, and ascended like a man into heaven in order to send down on those who believe in Him from the one God the Father the emanating Holy Spirit, Whom the first man had from the beginning and lost for his unbelief, when he did not believe the words of God. For this was the last goal of the incarnate economy, that is, for this purpose the Son of God, God the Word, became incarnate and became man, so that the souls of those who believe in Him as God and man, that is, in one Christ from two natures, inseparable and unfused, Divinity and humanity, may receive as a soul, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and may thus be reborn, recreated and renewed through holy Baptism and become what the first man was before the crime, being sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the mind, conscience and in all feelings, so that after this there is no longer a life corrupted by the fall, which could carry away the lust of the soul to carnal and worldly lusts. If now the one who should talk to God in his prayer about all of the above, rotating day and night in his mind, if he, let’s say, speaks all this for a long time only with his tongue, but with his mind does not know what he is saying, then is he not one who has lost his sense? But it is clear in every possible way that he has not yet become faithful, has not yet entered into fellowship with God. For he is called and is faithful to whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is entrusted and who has it; This grace enlightens the mind, gathers it into itself and concentrates it, so that it understands Who it is talking to and what it is talking about. Consequently, whoever does not act in prayer in this way does not have the grace of the Holy Spirit, remains unfaithful and is far from God. So, first of all, you must become faithful and be reconciled and become friends with God, asking Him for remission of all previous sins committed in word, deed and thought. A soul that has been reconciled and made friends with God becomes meek, humble and contrite. This serves as a sign of reconciliation and fellowship with God. For God usually gives these first gifts to believers, that is, meekness and humility. The meek and humble soul is no longer fought by demons, as before, neither by voluptuousness, nor by the love of money, nor by the love of glory, and thus, through these two gifts of Christ, the soul finds peace and is not troubled by any alien and inappropriate thoughts. Such a soul prays as it should, that is, with fear, reverence and attention, and not with just the lips. And this is impossible for any person, neither for a layman, nor for a monk, nor for a hermit, nor for a clergyman, nor for a deacon, nor for a priest, nor for a bishop, unless the soul of each of them becomes a partaker of the Holy Spirit, according to the measure of their faith in Christ: for no one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Those who truly worship God bow in the Spirit and pray in the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), freedom from demons and from all the passions they plant in the soul, from hatred, sadness, embarrassment, cowardice, ill-will, malice, unbelief, anger and greed for any self-indulgence; and those who possess them, let them be fasters, silent ones, long-singers of psalms, interpreters of the Divine Scriptures, exponents of right dogmas, teachers and preachers of the church, let them be called highly reverend, learned and omnipotent, have no part with Christ, the true light that enlightens every person, from his evil will coming into the true world of virtues, for darkness has no communication with light. What light may we also be worthy to receive in Christ Jesus, to Whom belongs glory, honor and worship, with His beginningless Father and His Life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: