Слово о келейном молитвенном правиле

“Go into your closet, and when you have shut your doors, pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you in reality” (Matthew 6:6). This is the Lord Himself’s establishment of solitary cell prayer. The Lord, who commanded solitary prayer, very often Himself, during His earthly wanderings, as the Gospel narrates, remained in it. He had no place to lay His head, and therefore the silent mountain peaks and shady hillsides often replaced His silent, calm cell. Before His descent into suffering, which was to purchase the salvation of the human race, the Lord prayed in the secluded garden of Gethsemane. During prayer, the God-man knelt, and from the intense feat of prayer, profuse sweat rolled from His face in bloody drops to the ground. The Garden of Gethsemane consisted of centuries-old olive trees. And during the day, in the light of the sun's rays, a thick shadow lay in it, and then the dark night of Palestine lay on it. No one shared His prayers with the Lord: His disciples were sleeping in the distance, and sleeping nature was all around. A traitor came here with torches and an armed crowd: the traitor knew the favorite place and time of Jesus’ prayers. The darkness of the night covers objects from prying eyes, the silence of silence does not entertain the ear. In silence and at night you can pray more attentively. The Lord chose primarily solitude and the night for His prayer; He chose them so that we would not only obey His commandment about prayer, but also follow His example. Did the Lord, for Himself, need prayer? While He was with us on earth as a man, He, together as God, was inseparable from the Father and the Spirit, and had with Them one divine will and divine power. “Go into your closet and, having shut your doors, pray to your Father who is in secret.” Let no fool of yours know about your prayer! Neither your friend, nor your relative, nor the vanity itself that cohabits your heart and incites you to tell someone about your feat of prayer, to hint about it. Shut the doors of your cell from people who come to talk idle talk and steal your prayers; close the doors of your mind from extraneous thoughts that appear to distract you from prayer; close the doors of your heart from sinful sensations that try to confuse and defile you, and pray. Do not dare to bring to God multi-verbal and eloquent prayers composed by you, no matter how strong and touching they may seem to you: they are the product of a fallen mind and, being a desecrated victim, cannot be accepted on the spiritual altar of God. And you, admiring the elegant expressions of the prayers you have composed and recognizing the refined effect of vanity and voluptuousness as a consolation of conscience and even grace, will be carried away far from prayer. You will be carried away far from prayer at the very time when it seems to you that you are praying abundantly and have already achieved a certain degree of pleasing God. The soul that begins the path of God is immersed in deep ignorance of everything divine and spiritual, even if it is rich in the wisdom of this world. Because of this ignorance, she does not know how and how much she should pray. To help the infant soul, the Holy Church established prayer rules. A prayer rule is a collection of several prayers composed by the Divinely inspired Holy Fathers, adapted to a certain circumstance and time. The purpose of the rule is to provide the soul with the amount of prayerful thoughts and feelings it lacks, moreover, thoughts and feelings that are correct, holy, and truly pleasing to God. The grace-filled prayers of the Holy Fathers are filled with such thoughts and feelings. For the prayer exercise in the morning there is a special collection of prayers called morning prayers, or morning rule; for night prayer before going to bed - another collection of prayers, called prayers for bedtime, or evening rule. A special collection of prayers is read by those preparing to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and is called the rule for Holy Communion. Those who devote a large part of their time to pious exercises read at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon a special collection of prayers, called the daily or monastic rule. Others read several kathismas every day, several chapters from the New Testament, make several bows: all this is called the rule. Rule! What a precise name, borrowed from the very effect produced on a person by prayers called the rule! The prayer rule guides the soul correctly and holy, teaches it to worship God in Spirit and Truth (John 4:23), while the soul, left to itself, could not follow the correct path of prayer. Due to her damage and darkening by sin, she would constantly turn to the sides, often into the abyss, now into absent-mindedness, now into daydreaming, now into various empty and deceptive ghosts of high prayerful states, created by her vanity and self-love. Prayer rules keep the person praying in a saving disposition of humility and repentance, teaching him constant self-condemnation, feeding him with tenderness, strengthening him with hope in the all-good and all-merciful God, delighting him with the peace of Christ, love for God and his neighbors. How sublime and deep are the prayers for Holy Communion! What excellent preparation they provide to those approaching the holy Mysteries of Christ! They clean and decorate the house of the soul with wonderful thoughts and sensations that are so pleasing to the Lord. The greatest of the Christian sacraments is majestically depicted and explained in these prayers; In contrast to this height, man’s shortcomings are vividly and accurately calculated, his weakness and unworthiness are shown. From these prayers the incomprehensible goodness of God shines like the sun from the sky, because of which He deigns to unite closely with man, despite the insignificance of man. Morning prayers breathe vigor and freshness of the morning: he who has seen the light of the sensual sun and the light of the earthly day learns to desire the vision of the highest, spiritual Light and the endless day produced by the Sun of Truth - Christ. The brief calm of sleep during the night is an image of a long sleep in the darkness of the grave. And they remind us of prayers for sleep for those who are to come, our migration into eternity, they review all our activities during the day, they teach us to bring to God confession of our sins and repentance for them. The prayerful reading of the Akathist to the sweetest Jesus, in addition to its own dignity, serves as an excellent preparation for the exercise of the Jesus Prayer, which reads like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” This prayer is almost the only exercise of successful ascetics who have achieved simplicity and purity, for whom all much thinking and verbosity serves as a burdensome entertainment. The Akathist shows what thoughts can accompany the Jesus Prayer, which seems extremely dry for beginners. Throughout its entire space, it depicts one sinner’s request for mercy by the Lord Jesus Christ; but this petition is given various forms, in accordance with the infancy of the minds of the beginners. This is how babies are given food that has been previously softened. In the Akathist to the Mother of God, the incarnation of God the Word and the greatness of the Mother of God are glorified, who, for her birth of the incarnate God, is blessed by “all the kin” (Luke 1:48). As if in a vast picture, the great Mystery of the incarnation of God the Word is depicted in the Akathist with countless wondrous features, colors, and shades. Successful lighting enlivens every picture, and the Akathist to the Mother of God is illuminated with the extraordinary light of grace. This light acts purely: it enlightens the mind, from it the heart is filled with joy and information. The incomprehensible is accepted, as if completely comprehended, by the wonderful effect it has on the mind and heart. Many reverent Christians, especially monks, perform the evening rule for a very long time, taking advantage of the silence and darkness of the night. To their bedtime prayers they add reading kathismas, reading the Gospel, the Apostle, reading akathists and bowing with the Jesus Prayer. In those hours in which the blind world indulges in riotous and noisy amusements, the servants of Christ weep in the silence of their cells, pouring out fervent prayers before the Lord. Having spent the night in a mad vigil, the sons of the world meet the coming day in gloom and despondency of spirit; in joy and good spirits, in the consciousness and feeling of an extraordinary ability for the thought of God and for all good deeds, the servants of God greet the day for which they spent the previous night in a feat of prayer. The Lord knelt down during his prayer: and you should not neglect kneeling if you have enough strength to perform it. By worshiping to the face of the earth, according to the explanation of the Fathers, our fall is depicted, and by rising from the earth our redemption 112. Before starting the evening rule, it is especially useful to make a feasible number of bows: from them the body will become somewhat tired and warm, and the heart will impart a feeling of pious sadness; Both will be prepared to read the rule diligently and attentively. When performing the rules and bows, there should be no rush; must perform both the rules and bows with as much leisure and attention as possible. It is better to read fewer prayers and bow less, but with attention, than a lot without attention. Choose for yourself a rule that corresponds to your strengths. What the Lord said about the Sabbath, that it is for man, and not man for it (Mark 2:27), can and should be applied to all pious deeds, and between them to the prayer rule. A prayer rule is for a person, and not a person for the rule: it should help a person achieve spiritual success, and not serve as an unbearable burden, crushing bodily strength and confusing the soul. Moreover, it should not serve as a reason for proud and harmful conceit, for harmful condemnation and humiliation of others. A prudently chosen prayer rule, according to one’s strengths and type of life, serves as a great aid for one who strives for his salvation. Performing it at the prescribed hours turns into a skill, a necessary natural need. He who has acquired this blessed skill, barely approaches the usual place of performing the rules, when his soul is already filled with a prayerful mood: he has not yet had time to utter a single word of the prayers he reads, and already tenderness is pouring out of his heart, and his mind has gone completely deep into the inner cage. “I prefer,” said some great Father 113, “not a long-lasting rule, but one that is constantly fulfilled, to one that is long-lasting, but is quickly abandoned.” And this is always the fate of prayer rules that are disproportionate to strength: at the first impulse of ardor, the ascetic performs them for some time, of course, paying more attention to quantity than to quality; then the exhaustion produced by a feat that surpasses his strength gradually forces him to reduce and reduce the rules. And often ascetics, who have foolishly set a burdensome rule for themselves, move from the difficult rule straight to abandoning all rules. After leaving the rule, and even with one shortening of it, confusion will certainly attack the ascetic. From embarrassment, he begins to feel mental distress. From frustration comes despondency. Having intensified, it produces relaxation and frenzy, and from their action the reckless ascetic indulges in an idle, absent-minded life, and with indifference falls into the grossest sins. Having chosen for yourself a prayer rule commensurate with your strengths and spiritual needs, try to fulfill it carefully and unfailingly: this is necessary to maintain the moral strength of your soul, just as sufficient consumption of healthy food at certain times of the day is necessary to maintain bodily strength. “God will not condemn us on the day of His judgment for abandoning the psalms,” says Saint Isaac the Syrian, “not for abandoning prayer, but for the subsequent abandonment of them, the entry of demons into us. Demons, when they find a place, will enter and close the doors of our eyes: then they will fulfill with us, their tools, violently and uncleanly, with the cruelest vengeance, everything forbidden by God. And because of the abandonment of small (rules), for which the intercession of Christ is honored, we become subject (to demons), as it is written by some wise men: “He who does not submit his will to God will submit to his opponent.” These (rules), which seem small to you, will become walls for you against those who try to captivate us. The implementation of these (rules) inside the cell was wisely established by the founders of the church charter, according to revelation from Above, for the preservation of our belly” 114. The Great Fathers, who remained in unceasing prayer from the abundant action of God's grace, did not abandon their rules, which they were accustomed to perform at certain hours of the night. We see many proofs of this in their lives: Anthony the Great, following the rules of the ninth hour - the church ninth hour corresponds to the third hour in the afternoon - was honored with Divine revelation; when the Monk Sergius of Radonezh was engaged in prayerful reading of the Akathist to the Mother of God, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to him, accompanied by the Apostles Peter and John. Dearest brother! Submit your freedom to the rule: it, having deprived you of your destructive freedom, will bind you only in order to give you spiritual freedom, freedom in Christ. The chains will seem burdensome at first; then they will become precious to those bound by them. All the saints of God took upon themselves and bore the good yoke of the prayer rule: by imitation of them, you too should follow in this case our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, having become man and showing us His way of behavior, acted as His Father acted (John 5:19), said what the Father commanded Him (John 12:49), had the goal of fulfilling the will of the Father in everything (John 5:30). The will of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one. In relation to people, it consists in saving people. All-Holy Trinity, our God! Glory to You. Amen. Word of St. Theoliptus. Kindness. Part 2. St. Matoi. Alphabetical Patericon of Skitsky, letter M. St. Isaac the Syrian. Word 17. You might be interested in: