Accompanying Christ during Holy Week

The Lord goes to a voluntary passion. We must accompany Him. This is the duty of anyone who confesses that by the power of Christ’s passion he has become who he is now, and of anyone who hopes to receive something which is so great and glorious, that it could not even enter one’s mind. How must one accompany Him? Through reflection and sympathy. Follow the suffering Lord in thought; and in your reflection extract such impressions as could strike your heart and bring it to feel the sufferings which were borne by the Lord. In order to better accomplish this, you must make yourself suffer through perceptible lessening of food and sleep, and an increase in the labour of standing and kneeling. Fulfil all that the Holy Church does, and you will be a good fellow-traveller of the Lord to His sufferings.

On hard times

People give all sorts of reasons to excuse their lack of charity, their hardheartedness!  Some say, “hard times.”  But if the times are hard for those who have a sufficiency, how much harder are they for the poor?  This pretext alone should lead one to give all the more generously. 

Choose one or the other

 

You must choose one or the other:  either perish eternally, should you remain as you are, or, if you do not want that, then repent and turn to the Lord and His commandments.  And why should you delay?  The further you let it go, the worse it gets.  Be aware that death is at the door. 

 



The practice of prayer

 

Every repetition of prayer…will leave a mark of prayer on the soul.  Uninterrupted practice in the order described will make it take root in your soul, and patience in this practice will establish a prayerful spirit. 

 



The value of patience

 

Without application of strength one cannot make a step; the application of strength requires effort, and effort requires patience.  Be patient in the sure hope that your labors will be rewarded in the end.  Patience crowns everything and gives to everything support and strength. 

St. Theophan on Prayer

Why is it, you ask, that one can pray for so many years with a prayer book, and still not have prayer in his heart? I think the reason is that people only spend a little time lifting themselves up to God when they complete their prayer rule, and in other times, they do not remember God. For example, they finish their morning prayers, and think that their relation to God is fulfilled by them; then the whole day passes in work, and such a person does not attend to God. Then in the evening, the thought returns to him that he must quickly stand at prayer and complete his evening rule. In this case, it happens that even if the Lord grants a person spiritual feelings at the time of the morning prayer, the bustle and business of the day drowns them out. As a result, it happens that one does not often feel like praying, and cannot get control of himself even to soften his heart a little bit. In such an atmosphere, prayer develops and ripens poorly. This problem (is it not ubiquitous?) needs to be corrected, that is, one must ensure that the soul does not only make petition to God when standing in prayer, but during the whole day, as much as possible, one must unceasingly ascend to Him and remain with Him.

In order to begin this task, one must first, during the course of the day, cry out to God more often, even if only with a few words, according to need and the work of the day. Beginning anything, for example, say ‘Bless, O Lord!’ When you finish something, say, ‘Glory to Thee, O Lord’, and not only with your lips, but with feeling in your heart. If passions arise, say, ‘Save me, O Lord, I am perishing.’ If the darkness of disturbing thoughts comes up, cry out: ‘Lead my soul out of prison.’ If dishonest deeds present themselves and sin leads you to them, pray, ‘Set me, O Lord, in the way’, or ‘do not give up my feet to stumbling.’ If sin takes hold of you and leads you to despair, cry out with the voice of the publican, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ Do this in every circumstance, or simply say often, ‘Lord, have mercy’, ‘Most Holy Theotokos save us”, ‘Holy Angel, my guardian, protect me’, or other such words. Say such prayers as often as possible, always making the effort for them come from your heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, we will frequently ascend to God in our hearts, making frequent petitions and prayers. Such increased frequency will bring about the habit of mental conversation with God. 

On offering one's self to God

One must act in such a way that the soul does not turn to God only when one is standing in prayer, but should do so as far as possible throughout the day.  It should be an unceasing offering of one's self to Him. 

A basic principle of the spiritual life

You undertake different tasks, so you tell me, “in most cases unwillingly and without any eagerness--I have to force myself.”  But this, after all, is a basic principle in the spiritual life--to set yourself in opposition to what is bad and to force yourself to do what is good.  This is the meaning of the Lord's words, The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force, (Matt 11:12).  This is why following the Lord is a yoke.  If all were done eagerly, where would be the yoke?  Yet, in the end, it so comes about that everything is done easily and willingly.