"Prayer without Ceasing" Is
Necessary For All Christians
St. Gregory Palamas
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 Let no one think, my brother Christians, that it is the duty only of priests
and monks to pray without ceasing, and not of laymen.
No, no; it is the
duty of all of us Christians to remain always in prayer.
For look what the
most holy Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus, writes in his life
of St. Gregory of Thessalonica. This saint had
a beloved friend
by the name of Job, a very simple but most virtuous man. Once,
while conversing with him, His Eminence said of prayer that every
Christian
in general should
strive to pray always, and to pray without ceasing, as Apostle
Paul commands all Christians, "Pray without ceasing" (I
Thessalonians 5:17), and as the prophet David says of himself,
although he was a king and had
to concern himself with his whole kingdom: "I foresaw the
Lord always before my face" (Psalms 15:8), that is, in my
prayer I always mentally see the Lord before me. Gregory the Theologian
also teaches all Christians
to say God’s name in prayer more often than to breathe.
So, my Christian
brethren, I too implore you, together also with St. Chrysostom, for
the sake of saving your souls, do not neglect
the practice of this
prayer. Imitate those I have mentioned and follow in their footsteps
as far as you can.
It Only Appears to Be Diffficult at First
At first it may appear
very difficult to you, but be assured, as it were from Almighty God,
that this very name of our Lord
Jesus
Christ, constantly
invoked by you, will help you to overcome all difficulties,
and in the course of time you will become used to this practice
and
will
taste how
sweet is the name of the Lord. Then you will learn by experience
that this practice is not impossible and not difficult, but
both possible and easy.
This is why St. Paul, who knew better than we the great good
which such prayer would bring, commanded us to pray without
ceasing. He would not
have imposed this obligation upon us if it were extremely difficult
and impossible, for he knew beforehand that in such case, having
no possibility
of fulfilling it, we would inevitably prove to be disobedient
and
would transgress his commandment, thus incurring blame and
condemnation. The
Apostle could have had no such intention.
Moreover, bear in
mind the method of prayer – how it is possible
to pray without ceasing, namely by praying in the mind. And
this we can always do if we so wish. For when we sit down to work with
our hands, when
we walk, when we eat, when we drink we can always pray mentally
and practice this mental prayer – the true prayer pleasing to
God. Let us work with the body and pray with the soul. Let our outer
man perform his bodily
tasks, and let the inner man be entirely dedicated to the
service of God, never abandoning this spiritual practice of mental
prayer, as Jesus, God
and Man, commanded us, saying: "But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which
is in secret" (Matthew 6:6).
The closet of the
soul is the body; our doors are the five bodily senses. The soul enters
its closet when the mind
does not wander
hither and
thither, roaming among things and affairs of the world,
but stays within, in our
heart. Our senses become closed and remain closed when
we do not let them be attached to external sensory things, and
in
this way
our mind
remains
free from every worldly attachment, and by secret mental
prayer unites with God its Father. "And thy Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly," adds
the Lord. God who knows all secret things sees mental prayer
and rewards it openly with great gifts. For that prayer
is true and perfect which fills the soul with Divine grace
and spiritual
gifts.
As chrism perfumes the jar the more strongly the tighter
it is closed, so prayer, the more fast it is imprisoned
in the heart, abounds the
more in Divine grace.
Blessed are those
who acquire the habit of this heavenly practice, for by it they overcome
every temptation of
the evil demons,
as David overcame
the proud Goliath. It extinguishes the unruly lusts of
the flesh, as the three men extinguished the flames of
the furnace.
This
practice of inner
prayer tames passions as Daniel tamed the wild beasts.
By it the dew
of the Holy Spirit is brought down upon the heart, as
Elijah brought down
rain on Mount Carmel. This mental prayer reaches to the
very throne of God and is preserved in golden vials,
sending forth
their odors
before
the Lord, as John the Divine saw in the Revelation, "Four
and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every
one of them harps, and golden
vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints" (Revelation
5:8).
This mental prayer
is the light which illumines man’s soul and inflames
his heart with the fire of love of God. It is the chain
linking God with man and man with God. Oh the incomparable blessing
of mental prayer! It
allows a man constantly to converse with God. Oh truly
wonderful and more than wonderful – to be with one’s body
among men while in one’s
mind conversing with God. Angels have no physical voice,
but mentally never cease to sing glory to God. This is their sole occupation
and
all their
life is dedicated to this.
So, brother, when
you enter your closet and close your door, that is, when your mind
is not darting hither
and thither
but enters
within your heart,
and your senses are confined and barred against things
of this world, and when you pray thus always, you
too are then
like
the holy angels,
and your
Father, Who sees your prayer in secret, which you
bring Him in the hidden depths of your heart, will reward
you openly
by great
spiritual
gifts.
But what other and
greater rewards can you wish from this when, as I said, you are mentally
always before
the face
of God and
are constantly
conversing
with Him – conversing with God, without Whom
no man can ever be blessed either here or in another
life?
Finally, my brother,
whoever you may be, when you take up this book and, having read it,
wish to
test in practice
the
profit
which mental
prayer
brings to the soul, I beg you, when you begin
to pray thus, pray God with one invocation, "Lord have mercy," for
the soul of him who has worked on compiling this book and of
him who helped to give it to the public.
For they have great need of your prayer to receive
God’s mercy
for their soul, as you for yours. May it be so! May it be so!
St Gregory Palamas, from "Early Fathers From the Philokalia," translated
from the Russian text, "Dobrotolubiye," by
E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer, eighth edition,
(London: Faber and Faber, Ltd.,
1981), pp.
412 - 415
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