Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
We are all beginners, and I do not intend to give a course of lectures; I simply want to share with you something partly from my own, but more from other people's experience.
Prayer in its essence is a meeting, a meeting of the soul and God; but for this meeting to be real, both persons taking part in it must truly be themselves. And yet for the most part we are unreal, and God too is unreal for us: we think we are addressing the Lord, but in fact we are addressing an image of God created by our imagination; it seems to us that we stand before the Lord in all our truth, when instead of ourselves we present before Him someone who is not our true “I” — an actor, a put-on face, a stage character. Each of us is several different persons at once; this may be a rich and very harmonious blend, or it may be a most unfortunate combination of persons contradicting one another. We are different depending on circumstances and surroundings: the different people we meet know different people in us. It often happens like this: each of us can remember among our acquaintances a lady who is the very picture of courtesy with strangers and a real harridan at home; or a fearsome boss who is very meek in the family circle.
Our first difficulty in prayer is to find which of our persons is fit to stand before God. This is not at all easy, because we are so unused to being what we are that in fact we do not even know which of all our persons is our real “I.” Nor do we know how to find it. But if we devoted a few minutes a day to observing our own behaviour and our attitude to people, we might come closer to making this out. We would notice what kind of person we are when meeting this or that individual. Then we could ask ourselves: when have I actually been truly myself? Perhaps never; perhaps just for a minute or two, in a certain situation, with certain people. And in these five or ten minutes that you can set aside (I am sure this can be done in the course of the day), you will discover that nothing is more boring for you than being left alone with yourself. It is not only that, depending on circumstances, we are a whole series of different people; our very life is often not ours at all — it is other people's life. If you look into yourself and ask how often you act from the depth of your own soul, how often you express your true “I,” you will see that this happens very rarely. Very often we are taken up with all sorts of insignificant trifles around us; and so, in this time, in these short minutes of recollection, we must leave aside everything that is not vitally important.
In that case, of course, you face the danger of being bored with yourself; so be it; this does not at all mean that nothing is left in us, because in the depth of our being we are created in the image of God, and removing everything useless is very like cleaning an old wall painting, or a picture by a great artist, which over the centuries tasteless people have painted over on top of the true beauty the artist created. At first, the more we clean, the more emptiness shows, and it seems to us that we have only spoiled something in which at least a little beauty still remained; little, but still something was there. Then we begin to recognise the real beauty that the greatest Artist put into His creation; we see wretchedness, then, in between, complete chaos, but at the same time we can make out the true beauty too. And then we discover what we are: a wretched being who needs God, not in order to fill an emptiness, but in order to meet God.
So let us set about this and, besides, every evening for a week let us pray in very simple words: “Lord, help me to be freed from all falseness and to find my real ‘I.’”
Sorrow and joy are the greatest mercy of God. It is often at such times that we meet ourselves, when we drop all our unworthy tricks and become invulnerable, out of reach of all the lies of life.
One more thing should be noted: when a young man loves a girl, in his imagination he adorns her with every kind of perfection, perhaps none of which she has. Very often this girl is a nobody; she is really just credited with virtues that do not exist. In such a case no contact is made, because the young man addresses her as someone who does not exist. The same happens with God. We have certain mental and visual ideas about God, gathered from books, from what we have heard in church, from what we heard about Him from adults in childhood; and very often these images do not let us meet the real God. They are not entirely false, because there is a part of truth in them, but at the same time they do not correspond to the real God. If we want to meet God, on the one hand we must make use of the knowledge we have acquired personally, through reading or listening, but at the same time we must keep going forward.
Our knowledge of God today is the fruit of yesterday's experience, and if we address God as we know Him, we shall be looking only at our own past and shall always find ourselves with our backs to the present and the future. Acting like this, we are trying to meet not God, but what we already know about God. This illustrates the function of theology, for theology is the whole of human knowledge about God, and not the little we have managed to learn about Him so far. If you want to meet God as He really is, you must come to Him with the experience you already know, so that it may bring you close to God; but then you must leave that experience behind and stand not before the God you know, but before the God Who is at once already known and still unknown.
What will happen then? Perhaps God will come to you, respond to you, answer your prayers; He may come and let you feel His presence; but instead of doing this He may let you feel His absence, and this experience is just as important as the first, because in both cases you touch upon the divine right to respond to you or not.
So try to find your own real “I” and to place it before God as it really is, without any false images or idols. To help you in this, to give you a support, I suggest that for a week you pray with these words: “Lord, help me to be freed from every false image of Thee, whatever it may cost me.”
In searching for our real “I,” we may not only be bored (of which I have spoken to you), but may be seized by a feeling of horror, even of despair. Such nakedness of soul sobers us; then we can begin to pray. The first thing we must avoid is lying before God; we think this is perfectly clear, and yet we by no means always act accordingly. Let us speak to the Lord frankly, tell Him who we are; not because He does not know it; but it is one thing to accept the fact that someone who loves us knows about us, and quite another to show courage and true love towards that person, so as to tell him the truth and tell him everything about oneself. Let us frankly admit to the Lord that we feel awkward standing before Him like this, that we have no true desire to meet Him, that we are tired and would rather sleep. But at the same time let us beware of wilfulness or simple insolence before Him — He is our God. After all this, it would be good to remain joyfully in His presence, as with deeply loving people to whom we are bound by heartfelt closeness. We do not have such joy and closeness with God that we can simply sit and look at the Lord and be happy with that. And if we have to speak, let it be sincere. Let us entrust all our cares to God, tell Him everything so that He learns about us from ourselves, and entrust to Him the care of our cares. Now that He is caring for us, we have nothing left to worry about: we are free to think about Him.
It is clear that this week's exercise consists in joining it to next week's exercise; that is, in placing oneself before God and learning to entrust all one's cares to God; to receive help in this, one should repeat every day a simple and concrete prayer: “Help me, O God, to forget all my cares and to turn all my thoughts to Thee alone.”
Before we begin to speak about prayers that remain unanswered, I want to ask God to enlighten both me and you, for this is a difficult and at the same time vitally important subject. It is one of the greatest trials that can befall any person, and because of it both beginners and even people who have experience of prayer find it very hard to pray. So often people pray and feel that they are addressing an empty sky.
Often this happens because their prayer is senseless childishness. I remember an elderly man telling me that as a child he had asked God for many months to grant him a special ability his grandfather had — to take his teeth out of his mouth every evening and keep them in a glass of water — and how happy he was afterwards that God had not granted his wish. Our prayers are often just as childish as this one, and of course they remain unanswered. Very often we are sure that we are praying rightly, but we are praying about something that also concerns other people, without even thinking about them. When we ask for a following wind for ourselves, we do not stop to think that for others this may turn out to be a storm at sea; then God does not grant our request, which would harm others.
Besides these two obvious points, there is another side to the question, more essential and deeper: it happens that we pray before God with all our heart about something that from every point of view seems worthy of being heard, but we get only silence in reply, and this is much harder to bear than a refusal. If God says “no” to us, that is still a positive reaction on His part, while silence is like the absence of God, and it leads us to two temptations: when our prayer remains unanswered, we are seized by doubt either about God or about ourselves. With regard to God, we doubt not His omnipotence, not His power to do what you want, but His love, His concern. We ask for something very important, and the Lord seems to pay no attention to us; where is His love, His compassion? This is the first temptation.
There is a second temptation too. We know that if we had faith even as a grain of mustard seed, we would move mountains from their place; and when we see that nothing moves from its place, we think: “Perhaps this means that my faith is somehow corrupt and untrue?” This again is wrong, and there is another answer to it: if you read the Gospel attentively, you will see that there is only one unanswered prayer in it. It is Christ's prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. Yet at the same time we know that if ever in all history God took part in anyone's prayer, it was surely in the prayer of His Son before the Crucifixion; and we know too that if ever there was an example of perfect prayer, it was that very occasion. But God judged that the faith of the divine Sufferer was strong enough to bear silence.
God does not answer our prayers not only when they are unworthy, but also when He sees in us such depth — such depth and strength of faith — that He can trust us to remain faithful even in the face of His silence.
I remember a woman suffering from an incurable illness; for many years she lived with a sense of God's presence, and then suddenly she felt His absence — a truly real absence. Then she wrote to me: “Please pray to God: it is better that I should never create for myself an illusion of His presence, but should accept His absence.” Her faith was great. She could endure this trial, and the Lord let her go through His silence and absence.
Remember these examples, think about them, because some day you too may find yourselves in the same situation.
I cannot give you any exercise; only remember that we must have unshakable faith and love for God, and when such a trial comes to us, let us repeat the prayer made up of two phrases spoken by Jesus Christ Himself: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
I have tried to give you an idea of the main ways by which we should come to prayer; but does this mean that by carrying out everything I have suggested to you, you will learn to pray? Of course not, because prayer is not only an effort we are capable of when we set out to pray; prayer must take root in our life, and if our life contradicts our prayers, or our prayers have nothing in common with our life, then they will never be either living or real. Of course, we can avoid this difficulty by excluding from our prayers everything in our life that does not match prayer — everything we are ashamed of or that makes us feel awkward before ourselves — but this changes nothing.
The second difficulty we constantly meet is daydreaming: when our prayer expresses sentimental feelings and not what our life really is.
For these two difficulties there is one common way out, namely: to join life to prayer in such a way that it is one whole, to carry out our prayer with our life. Here the ready-made prayers I have already spoken to you about will help us very greatly, for they are an objective, strict example of how we should pray. You may say that they are unnatural for us; this is true in the sense that they express the life of people immeasurably greater than we are, the life of true Christians; but it is precisely for this reason that you can use them — to try to become the kind of people for whom this prayer is natural.
Remember Christ's words: “Into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” They, of course, go beyond the limits of our own experience; but if every day we learn to become the kind of people who can say these words sincerely, in all their truth, not only will our prayer become real, but we ourselves will become real — in a new, true reality we shall become sons of God.
If, for example, you take the five prayers I have suggested to you, if you take each of these petitions one after another, if you try to make them your motto for the whole day, you will see that prayer becomes the measure of your life; it will give you a foundation for life, but your life will become your own judge, will convict you of lying when you say these words, or, on the contrary, will confirm that you are faithful to them. Take each phrase of each prayer and apply it as a rule, daily, from week to week, until you become the kind of people for whom these words are life itself.
Now we must part. I am very glad to have talked with you in thought; we are united by prayer and a shared interest in the spiritual life; and may the Lord our God be with each one of you and among us unto the ages of ages.
Before we part, I invite the reader to say together with me one short prayer that will unite us before the throne of God:
O Lord, I do not know what to ask of Thee. Thou alone knowest what I need. Thou lovest me more than I am able to love myself.
O Father! Give unto Thy servant what I myself do not know how to ask. I dare not ask either for a cross or for consolation; I only stand before Thee. My heart is open to Thee. Thou seest my needs, which I do not see!
Behold, and deal with me according to Thy mercy! Smite me and heal me, cast me down and raise me up. I tremble and am silent before Thy holy will and Thine unsearchable ways.
I offer myself as a sacrifice to Thee. I give myself up to Thee. I have no desire but the desire to fulfil Thy will.
Teach me to pray — pray Thou Thyself in me. Amen.
(Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow)
Translated (into Georgian) by Khatuna Rakviashvili
