Theophan the Recluse: Stages of Prayer

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

I hope to provide some "lenten meditations" with some consistency as we pass through the forty days of the Fast. As I am now re-reading The Art of Prayer compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, I will begin by drawing on that excellent source. This book is an anthology of texts on the meaning and practice of prayer as developed within our spiritual tradition. Most of the book is comprised of the writings of St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894) a nineteenth c. Russian bishop. With his profound grasp of the Holy Fathers from the earlier centuries, he was able to summarize and synthesize their teaching in a very accessible manner. He writes with clarity and depth about prayer, having been a man immersed in inner prayer for many years, and having corresponded with pious laymen and laywomen from all walks of life about the spiritual life. As a footnote, I would encourage every serious Orthodox Christian struggling to develop a mature prayer life to purchase a copy of this book, since you will be able to turn to it endlessly for guidance.

This first excerpt is rather longer than usual, but it is an excellent outline to the whole issue of how we must strive to deepen our prayer from its initial beginnings:

DEGREES OF PRAYER

There are various degrees of prayer. The first degree is bodily prayer, consisting for the most part in reading, in standing, and in making prostrations. In all this there must needs be patience, labour, and sweat; for the attention runs away, the heart feels nothing and has no desire to pray. Yet in spite of this, give yourself a moderate rule and keep to it. Such is active prayer.

The second degree is prayer with attention: the mind becomes accustomed to collecting itself in the hour of prayer, and prays consciously throughout, without distraction. The mind is focused upon the written words to the point of speaking them as if they were its own.

The third degree is prayer of feeling: the heart is warmed by concentration so that what hitherto has only been thought now becomes feeling. Where first it was a contrite phrase now it is contrition itself; and what was once a petition in words is transformed into a sensation of entire necessity. Whoever has passed through action and thought to true feeling, will pray without words, for God is God of the heart. So that the end of apprenticeship in prayer can be said to come when in our prayer we move only from feeling to feeling. In this state reading may cease, as well as deliberate thought; let there be only a dwelling in feeling with specific marks of prayer.

When the feeling of prayer reaches the point where it becomes continuous, then spiritual prayer may be said to begin. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit praying for us, the last degree of prayer which our minds can grasp.

But there is, they say, yet another kind of prayer which cannot be comprehended by our mind, and which goes beyond the limits of consciousness: on this read St. Isaac the Syrian.

~ St. Theophan the Recluse - The Art of Prayer p. 52

Unless We Fast

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Great Lent: The first day

"But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face." (MATT. 6:17)

"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (ROM. 13:14)

A bit cold today to begin "the springtime of the fast." Yet, perhaps as something of a blessed coincidence, it will begin to warm up outside once we begin to "warm up" inside and our cold hearts begin to "thaw out" by the fire of divine grace. The process of warming up to the presence of this "holy fire" is called repentance. And Great Lent is the School of Repentance. Not only our "attendance" in this school, but our attentiveness to Christ the Teacher is essential. As members of a consumer society, we can bring a mentality of "picking and choosing" to the words of Christ according to our desires and "tastes." That may mean that we are interested in some of the teachings of Jesus, but it would hardly be indicative of believing in Him as the "Lord and Master of our lives" (Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim).

We heard both of the recorded texts above at the Divine Liturgy yesterday as parts of the Epistle and Gospel readings. On the eve of Great Lent these words are well-timed as scriptural reminders of the meaning and purpose of Great Lent. How can we "make no provision for the flesh" unless we fast? How can we resist the impulses to "gratify its desires" without the practice of abstinence? The "flesh" in this context is not limited to food, drink, sex, and acquisitiveness, powerful as these impulses are in preoccuping our minds and hearts at the expense of our focus on God. For the Apostle Paul, "flesh" has the broader meaning of our alienation from God, be it through conscious disobedience or sheer indifference. The "works of the flesh" imply the misuse of our intellectual and imaginative capabilities:

Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party strife, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. (GAL. 5:19-21)

If we indeed "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," then clearly the "works of the flesh" just enumerated hardly conform to such a claim. We return again to the practice of fasting as the means to liberate us from these temptations that not only surround us, but which may have ensnared us in moments of weakness and lack of vigilance. That may be a slow and even painful process, but one worth struggling through. All of our passions and desires are like addictions that hold us in their grip, and breaking through any addiction is hard work demanding first and foremost that the addictive behavior itself be stopped. Gluttony is much more concrete than envy or party strife; but both are "passions" that work through the "flesh." The goal is to be a vessel of the Spirit of God, united to the Body of Christ through both our faith and works. Then the Resurrection of Christ becomes actualized in our own personal lives. That is true freedom.

In a fascinating article in which he explains the Apostle Paul's use of such terms as "flesh," "body," "soul," heart," "intellect," etc., Fr. John Romanides summarized the contrast/conflict between a fleshly existence and a spiritual existence in this manner:

Unity with God in the Spirit, through the body of Christ in the life of love, is life and brings salvation and perfection. Separation of man's spirit from the divine life in the body of Christ is slavery to the powers of death and corruption used by the devil to destroy the works of God. The life of the Spirit is unity and love. The life according to the flesh is disunity and disolution in death and corruption.

The choice is simple: life or death. It is the required effort that leads to life that is daunting. That is why even Christians make excuses as to why such effort is not necessary: "God/Jesus loves me just as I am." "As long as I accept Jesus into my heart as my personal Savior, I will be saved." "Human works are of no real importance." This is the religious version of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" with a happy ending: for we will all be saved, anyway! Somehow there is an empty ring to all of this. Having succumbed to the flesh, we need to struggle in order to save our "soma/body" (a term that biblically means the human person restored to God). Again, from Fr. Romanides:

Before sharing in the life of Christ, one must first become an actual soma/body by being liberated from the devil in passing through a death to the ways of this world and living according to the "spirit."

Our ascetical "efforts" are sustained and completed by the grace of God. We are saved by God alone, not by our efforts. But we have been admonished to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (PHIL. 2:12-13) As we move toward the paschal mystery of our Lord's Death and Resurrection, the period of Great Lent is a gift that allows us that blessed opportunity.


Fr. Steven

Fasting contined: On Gluttony

Dear Parish Faithful,

Here is a worthwhile addendum to the Outline on Fasting sent earlier in the day. It is an insightful look at the passion of gluttony, sent to me by Stephen Wendland:

Dear Fr. Steven,

Further thoughts on fasting as related to the converstion:

From Fr. John Behr's "The Mystery of Christ- Life in Death":

Eating itself is natural to a human being, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying the food one eats; it is gluttony, rather, which is a passion and a vice. As St. John Climacus describes it, gluttony is a false opinion about the way things are:

Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed and crammed, it wails about its hunger. Gluttony thinks up seasoning, creates sweet recipes…. Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time.

Glottony has its own cognitive element, and one which is based in deception. Through the practice of fasting, controlling the stomach, one does not simply reduce one’s dietary intake to the minimum possible, but instead learns to break through the hypocrisy of the stomach, to know that one will not die if one does not eat as one has become accustomed to do. The “hypocrisy” of the stomach is not located in the bodily organ itself, but in the mind’s relation to the stomach.


Stephen Wendland

Preparing for Great Lent Pt 3: Fasting

Dear Parish Faithful,

Yesterday evening we held the third and final talk in our "Preparing for Great Lent" series. As I did for our two previous sessions, I am sharing, in outline form, some of the main points discussed concerning the practice of fasting. Our discussion was for the most part based upon a reading of Archbishop Kallistos Ware's excellent article, printed in booklet form, "When You Fast."

FASTING - An Outline

• Fasting completes the "sacred trilogy" of essential Christian practices: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting as taught to us directly by the Lord in MATT. 6:1-18. Christ fasted for forty days in the wilderness (MT. 4:1-11).

• Thus, fasting is a practice that goes back to the very origins of the Church. Practice of all major religions, actually. In both the Old and New Testaments, fasting is related to theophanies or visions:
- Moses on Mt. Sinai (EX. 34:28)
- Elijah on Mt. Horeb (I KINGS 19:8-12)
- St. Peter (ACTS 10:9-17)

• To fast is to be ascetical - spiritual vigilance based upon discipline and restraint. Ultimately liberating. Freedom from binding attachments of a "worldly nature," beginning with the most basic: food and drink.

• At the same time, we do not want to reduce Great Lent to the prescribed food restrictions. Fasting without prayer and almsgiving can be empty - even demonic. Fasting is one tool in the over-all lenten effort of "fasting from sin." (St. John Chrysostom)

"The fast should be kept not only by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands, and all the members of the body." (St. John Chrysostom)

"You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother." (St. Basil the Great)

• Understood within the wider context of Orthodox Christian anthropology: human persons are a psychosomatic unity of soul and body (or spirit, soul and body - see this file for Glossary of Terms). We are our bodies. The body is integral to our personhood and participates in the process of theosis. Reject all forms of dualism.

• In a fallen world, the demands and appetites of the body can easily dominate: passion of gluttony.

• Fasting restores the proper hierarchy between the spiritual and the material: "Man does not live by bread alone."

• According to Arch. Kallistos Ware: "The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God." What are we really hungry for? Hunger and tiredness strip away "sinful complacency."

• According to The Shepherd of Hermas (2nd c.), money saved from fasting (not just food but entertainment, excessive shopping, etc.) can be given to the widow, orphan and the poor.

In his booklet "When You Fast," Archbishop Kallistos Ware points out "five misconceptions" about fasting:

1) "In the first place, the Lenten fast is not intended only for monks and nuns, but is enjoined on the whole Christian people."

2) "In the second place, the Lenten fast should not be misconstrued in a Pelagian sense." Meaning any "achievements" are not simply a matter of our will, but a gift of the grace of God.

3) "In the third place, our fasting should not be self-willed but obedient." We follow the pattern of fasting prescribed by the Church. Do not make up our own rules. Speak with spiritual father about intensification or relaxation of the fast.

4) "In the fourth place, paradoxical though it may seem, the period of Lent is a time not of gloom but of joyfulness."

With joy let us enter upon the beginning of
the Fast.
Let us not be of sad countenance ...

Let us joyfully begin the all-hallowed season
of abstinence;
And let us shine with the bright radiance of
the holy commandments ...

"Lent" is derived from the English word "springtime."

5) "Fifthly and finally, our Lenten abstinence does not imply a rejection of God's creation." All foods are good. None are impure. Excessive bodily impulses lead to misusing the gift of food. Fasting restores that awareness of food as gift.

"When we fast, this is not because we regard the act of eating as shameful, but in order to make all eating spiritual, sacramental, and eucharistic - no longer a concession to greed but a means of communion with God the giver.... Only those who have learnt to control their appetites through abstinence can appreciate the full glory and beauty of what God has given to us." (Arch. Kallistos)

• What is the ascetical fast? To abstain from meat, fish and dairy products for Great Lent and Holy Week. Also alcoholic beverages.

• What can we do? Set some realizable - yet challenging - goals based on the above. A need to "feel" the fast. Again, Arch. Kallistos:

The tendency to overemphasize external rules about food in a legalistic way, and the opposite tendency to scorn these rules as outdated and unnecessary, are both alike to be deplored as a betrayal of true Orthodoxy.

• Create a lenten atmosphere in the home. Regular in prayer and spiritual reading. Less stimulation through television, radio, CD players, etc. Avoidance of "worldly entertainment." Seeking stillness: urban hesychasm.

• Make time to participate in lenten liturgical services.

• Prepare well for the Mystery of Repentance (Confession).

• Great Lent teaches discipline, obedience, restraint. Essential virtues within a culture that scorns such virtues.

• Ultimately, a blessed season of the year that leads us to the Death and Resurrection of Christ.



Fr. Steven

A Unique Life with an Eternal Resonance

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

In preparing for our discussion this coming Wednesday evening on fasting, I came across this passage from Archbishop Kallistos Ware as to how fasting can never be seen and practiced in isolation. In fact, he makes a direct connection between fasting and the Sunday of the Last Judgment and the parable that should still be deeply implanted in our minds and hearts from yesterday's Liturgy:

Prayer and fasting should in their turn be accompanied by almsgiving - by love for others expressed in practical form, by works of compassion and forgiveness. Eight days before the opening of the Lenten fast, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the appointed Gospel is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (MATT. 25:31-46), reminding us that the criterion in the coming judgment will not be the strictness of our fasting but the amount of help that we have given to those in need. In the words of the Triodion:

Knowing the commandments of the Lord,
let this be our way of life:
Let us feed the hungry,
let us give the thirsty drink,
Let us clothe the naked,
let us welcome strangers,
Let us visit those in prison and the sick.
Then the Judge of all the earth will say
even to us:
"Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom
prepared for you."
(Vespers for the Sunday of the Last Judgment)

Every believing Orthodox Christian knows "deep down" that he/she will come before the "dread judgment seat of Christ our God." And we pray for a "good defense" before that judgment seat. The works of love enumerated by Christ in the parable are just such a good defense (apologia in the Gk.) that express our human response to the received love of God that prompts such a response toward others. The Lord is not a celestial terrorist. We may and should experience the "fear of God," but not because God is vindictive and prepared to punish. The Lord who judges, is the God who first and foremost forgives us of our sins with a love that we cannot fully grasp. Judgment is not a rigorous assessment before a suspicious and implacable diety, but the revelation of our inner being and the depths of our hearts. The jugdment simply reveals with total clarity our "true selves." Judgment as condemnation is thus self-imposed. In the judgment we will "answer" such probing questions as: Just what did God mean in our lives? What was the effect on our lives of saying "I believe in God?" Did we serve the "other" or just the "self?" The charitable heart expands with acts of love. The non-charitable heart shrinks with acts of selfishness. As Fr. Sergius Bulgakov wrote:

A merciful and charitable heart - that is what God wants from us: Be merciful like your Father in heaven. If in a human being's heart there is no love, then all that he has is dead and of no value.

The judgment of the Lord is the light of God searching for love in the depths of our heart. Our glorified Lord will discover it in the enlarged heart, but not in the shriveled one. The presence of such love - for both God and neighbor - means that we spent our lives in actual-service, and not lip-service, to God and neighbor. Applying this specifically to our faith in Christ, Fr. Bulgakov added this:

Love for one's neighbor is also love for Christ and contains the latter in itself. The sole Neighbor to whom all our works of love and all our love refer and can refer is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
... In the Divine Incarnation, the Lord became the new Adam, true Man, living in the human race like a vine in its vineyard, and thus establishing true humanity in every man. Christ lives in every man; to the eyes of love, every man is the image of God, the image of Christ. To the eyes of love, every man is Christ Himself living in him.

The point is not to reduce the Christian life to charitable deeds alone. The "social Gospel" is not the full Gospel. Our almsgiving is placed within the over-all context of the multi-layered dimensions of our one Christian life. Once again, we can turn to Fr. Bulgakov for a balanced response to this theme:

Is Christian life reducible to charity alone? Does this mean that right faith, Christian hope, the fulfillment of Church decrees, adherence to doctrine, and prayer have no significance for salvation? Does this mean that heresies, schisms, and absence of faith do not matter if one's works are good? No, all these things are required of the Christian and will be taken into account by the Just Judge: but separated from love, these things are the empty virtue of the arrogant Pharisee or of the older son in the parable of the prodigal son.

The reality of judgment should not be conceived in negative terms. That is the caricature of misplaced faith or lack of faith. The prospect of judgment need not cast a frightening shadow or stir up a sense of anxiety over our every deed, word or thought. No one is keeping score. Actually, judgment before the Lord means that our lives have significance. That our deeds, words and thoughts are not empty gestures and meaningless sounds that are destined for oblivion; but rather the accumulated "spiritual data" of a unique life that was brought into existence and lived according to the will of our Creator. A "cup of cold water" given "to one of these little ones" will have an eternal resonance! The Fathers tell us that we have the gift of "self-determination" (autexousia), which means that we are forming the being that we will be for all of eternity in the sight of God - a sheep "at his right hand" or a goat "at the left."


Fr. Steven