Слово 52. О нощном бдении и о различных способах его делания

When you wish to attend the service of vigil, then, with the assistance of God, do as I tell you. Bow your knees according to custom and rise up; and do not immediately begin your service, but when you have prayed first, and have completed the prayer 331, and have marked your heart and members with the life-giving sign of the cross, stand silently for a while until your feelings calm down and your thoughts are calmed. After this, lift your inner gaze to the Lord and with sadness beg Him to strengthen your weakness, so that your poetry and the thoughts of your heart may become pleasing to His holy will. And say silently in the prayer of your heart thus: “Lord Jesus, my God, who looks upon His creation, You, to Whom my passions are clear, and the weakness of our nature, and the strength of our adversary, You Yourself protect me from his malice, because his power is powerful, but our nature is poor, and our strength is weak. Therefore, You, Good One, Who know our weakness and have borne the difficulties of our powerlessness, save me from the rebellion of thoughts and from the flood of passions and make me worthy of this holy service, so that I do not corrupt its sweetness with my passions and do not appear shameless and impudent before You.” We must behave with all freedom during our service, without any childish or embarrassed thoughts. And if we see that there is little time and morning will overtake us before the end of the service, then, of our own free will and with knowledge, we will leave one or two glory from the usual rule, so that there is no room for confusion, so as not to lose the taste for our service and not to read the psalms of the first hour out of order. If, when you are performing a service, a thought speaks in you and begins to whisper: “Hurry a little, for you have a lot to do; You’ll be free sooner,” don’t join in with this thought. And if this bothers you more, then immediately go back one glory, or as much as you want, and repeat each verse containing a type of prayer 332 with meditation many times. And if your thoughts again confuse and oppress you, leave the poetry, kneel in prayer and say: “I do not want to calculate words, but to reach abodes; For whatever path you lead me, I will quickly go.” This people, who cast a calf in the desert, walked through it for forty years, crossing mountains and hills, ascending them and descending from them, but did not see the land of promise even from afar. If, when you are in vigil, prolonged standing overcomes you with its long duration, and you become exhausted from powerlessness, and a thought tells you, or rather, a malicious one says in your thought, as in a serpent: “Finish, because you cannot stand,” then answer it: “No; but I’ll sit through one kathisma 333, and it’s better than sleep. And if my tongue is silent and does not pronounce a psalm, but my mind learns with God in prayer and in conversation with Him, then wakefulness is more useful than any sleep.” The vigil is not entirely either standing or the poetry of psalms alone. On the contrary, some spend the whole night in psalms, others - in repentance, prayers of the touched and prostrations to the ground, and others - in tears and sobs about their sins. They say about one of our fathers that for forty years his prayer consisted of one speech: “I sinned like a man, but you forgive like God.” And the fathers heard him repeat this verse with sadness, and yet he cried and did not stop; and this one prayer was with him instead of service day and night. And yet, some people verse a little in the evening, but spend the rest of the night in singing troparions, and others in doxology and reading. Another makes it a rule not to bend the knee, like the one who was attacked by a lustful thought 334. To our God be glory and power forever and ever! Amen. In the Syriac text: "the whole verse, containing the full meaning." Reverend Moses Murin. You might be interested in: