Vigils Reading

UNCEASING PRAYER AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE

By Elder Paisios of Mount Athos5

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In regards to unceasing prayer, if you want, use a simple method if you

are a simple person… Unfortunately, some people don’t have as their aim the

putting off of their old man, repentance, humility and the placing of asceticism

as a supporting means for the sanctification of their soul in order to sense deeply

their sinfulness and feel profoundly the need for God’s mercy, and say with

sweet pain, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me”. Instead, they begin with arid

ascesis and pursue divine pleasures and divine lights… When they believe that

they have become holy, immediately the enemy approaches…

Therefore, my brother, ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing

else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts –

– nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will

bring the Grace of God, and God will have in His Grace everything you need for

your salvation, or anything you might need to help another soul.

Things are very simple and there is no reason why we should complicate

them. If we regard matters in this way, we will feel…prayer as a necessity and

will not grow weary. We will…feel a sweet pain and then Christ Himself will

shed His sweet consolation inside our heart.

Thus prayer does not tire but invigorates. It is tiresome only when we do

not enter into its meaning and do not understand the sense given it by our Holy

Fathers. Once we comprehend the need of God’s mercy, the desire of this

hunger will compel us, without pressuring ourselves in prayer, to open our

mouth like a nursing infant, and we will feel, simultaneously, all the security

and joy of a baby in its mother’s embrace…

We should be in frequent contact with God and, if possible, in “constant

vigilance” for more safety in order to continuously have an abundance of divine

strength. Of course, the enemy does not rest and is constantly attacking us in a

variety of ways. However, we can turn it to our advantage, and render him into

an unpaid worker, who assists us in our unceasing prayer. For example, when

he brings us evil or blasphemous thoughts, we should start the Jesus Prayer and

say to the devil: “It’s good that you pricked at me, for I had forgotten my Christ”.

When we do this, even if we were to keep the devil near, he won’t remain, since

he is not so dumb as to work for free and to bring benefit to our soul.

If we want to engage in fine and painstaking work, let us take, in order,

the most difficult passions we have, and whatever fault we detect during the

day, and humbly ask for God’s mercy so that we can be redeemed… In this way,

the passions are uprooted…

When someone first gets to know himself and becomes conscious of his

great sinfulness and the great benevolence of God, his heart breaks even if it is

as hard as granite. Then, real tears flow naturally and man does not pressure

himself neither in prayer nor in order to shed tears. Humility and <gratitude>

continually work to “drill” on his heart, and the wellsprings increase, and God’s

hand constantly caresses His hardworking grateful child.

5 Elder Paisios of Mount Athos. Epistles. Souroti, Thessaloniki, Greece: Holy Monastery “Evangelist John the

Theologian, 2002. 71-73.11