Проповедь о молитве и сердечной чистоте

The Divine is above everything that man is capable of naming and defining, above everything that he is capable of thinking about. However, through prayer to God, a person connects with the divine, communicating with God through prayer and praise. The power of prayer acts sacredly and leads a person’s aspiration to God, unites him with Him. That is, prayer acts here as a connecting node between intelligent creatures and their Creator. Of course, the prerequisite for this connection must be the believer’s overcoming his passions and thoughts, accomplished through ardent emotion and intense prayer. It is impossible for a passionate mind to unite with God. While clinging to the passions, the mind can pray, but it will not be able to accept God’s mercy. However, the more a person strives to get rid of passions, the more he manages to overcome his thoughts, the more he becomes enlightened and acquires sorrow for sin, with this sorrow believing the safe protection of the mercy that he received through invoking the name of God. And when the soul is established in this activity with humility, the internal state of the believer begins to become different. Performing such spiritual work, a person remains in himself and in God, he enjoys the source of spiritual joy that wells up from within. If a person continues this work and, trying with all his might, tries to crush passionate thoughts, speculatively approaches God, then he achieves what cannot be described in words, tastes eternal life and acquires a spiritual feeling. Then he experiences the goodness of the Lord in himself, as it is written in the psalm: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 33:9). But staying in this state all the time is very, very difficult. The labor of preserving any virtue is small compared to the labor of preserving grace. That is why many despair, seeing how difficult it is to acquire the virtue that comes through prayer. But those who endure receive great help and assistance from God, which strengthens them and draws them forward. And the spiritual pleasure they experience gives them the ability to consider this work unusually easy. The struggle for prayer cultivates angelic properties in these people, which give superhuman powers to human nature, so that a person becomes capable of conversation with the One who is above nature. People who devote themselves to prayer, and especially to the unceasing monosyllabic prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” are granted the deepest inner peace and purification. The soul has not one, but many powers. If some kind of fall happens to her, then she becomes entirely dirty from evil. However, if you try, the soul can be cleansed. Intense prayer is what again enlightens a person and gives him the light of knowledge. A necessary prerequisite for this work will be this: a person must, not in words, but in deeds, consider himself sinful and unclean. If this condition is not met, then the one who cultivates prayer falls into delusion and, becoming arrogant, opens the door to the one who always wants to deceive us. If a believer is aware of his own impurity of heart, then exaltation will never prevail over him. The opposite will happen: his uncleanness will help him succeed in humility, and it is with humility that our spiritual healing begins. By waging such a struggle, a person gradually achieves the indispensable purity of heart and mind. This purity would remain unattainable for a person if it were not for persistent exercise in prayer.