WARMING UP FOR FIERY FOCUS

Isaac said: “The ultimate goal of every monk, and the process of honing the heart, point us in the direction of nonstop and uninterrupted perseverance in prayer, toward unshakeable mental calm and continuous clarity (human frailty permitting). Our inexhaustible pursuit of physical exertion and spiritual anguish, our nonstop training: we do it all for this. There’s a certain mutual and unbreakable bond between the two. The structure of all our capabilities is engineered for praying perfectly, and at the same time, there’s no way that these components can hold fast and steady unless they’re framed and fastened to this king post of prayer.³⁰

“The continuous and nonstop calm of prayer that we’re talking about can’t be obtained or accomplished without those capabilities, and likewise, those capabilities that lay its foundation can’t actually reach their full potential without persisting in prayer. So we can’t accurately deal with the effects of prayer, or jump into an argument about its primary purpose (which is accomplished by activating all our capabilities), without first systematically enumerating and dissecting everything that we should acquire or throw out for prayer to prevail. Then we should calculate and sort the supplies that, according to the instructions in the Gospel parable, are necessary for the construction of that sky-high spiritual tower.

“However: once all those materials are prepped, they won’t really be at our disposal for constructing and completing any soaring rooftops unless we first demolish our weaknesses. But once we’ve dug up the dead and sunken debris of the impulses that unsettle us, we can lay an unshakeable foundation that is basic and grounded,³¹ on the living, solid earth (as they say) of our breast—that rock in the Gospel. After the demolitions are done, that’s the kind of foundation on which to build our tower of spiritual capacities. It will enable the tower to be completely stabilized and to be vaulted up to the summits of the heavens because its strength is so secure.

“Supported by a foundation like that, the tower won’t collapse. It won’t even be remotely rattled by external forces in the first place—no matter how much the torrential downpours of intrusive impulses rain down on it, no matter how much the violent bombardments of persecution hammer it like a battering ram, no matter how much the fierce storm of enemy spirits blows in and builds pressure.

“So in order to be able to utter a prayer with the intense heat and clarity that you should, here are the tasks you need to take care of. First of all, you need to mow down all your concerns for physical matters. Then you need to prune away your preoccupations about business matters and odd jobs, as well as gabbing, chitchatting, telling dirty jokes, and other similar things that shouldn’t get lodged in your memory. Above all, you need to dig deep to excavate the destabilizing forces of anger and sadness, and root out the toxic fire starter of impulsivity and greed.

“Once these and other weaknesses that people are prone to exhibit are cleared out and cut down—as I said, that’s the preliminary work of clearing the construction site, which is accomplished through the clarifying effects of honesty and integrity—then it’s time to lay the firm foundations of deep self-debasement. This is what can support a tower that makes its way to the heavens. Then on top of that you need to build a spiritual structure made of your moral strengths, and to keep your mind there, kept away from detours and slippery distractions, so that little by little it begins to be elevated to spiritual vistas and to the contemplation of God.

“Whatever our soul was thinking about before the hour of prayer, we’ll inevitably run into an intrusive memory of it as we’re praying. Consequently, we have to prepare ourselves in advance to end up praying the way we want to. The mind is shaped by the state it was in before it turned to prayer. And when we prostrate ourselves to pray, a visage appears before our eyes to reenact things we’ve already done or said or felt. Depending on what the prior experience was, it makes us mad or sad, or we rehash old tendencies and issues, or—I’m ashamed to say this—we burst out laughing at some dirty joke or gag, or we flit to our former distractions.

“For that reason, before we pray, we need to act fast to drive out from deep within ourselves whatever we don’t want to sneak in while we’re praying, so we might fulfill the apostolic command to pray without ceasing and pray everywhere, lifting up clean hands,³² without wrath and doubting. We won’t be able to carry it out otherwise, unless our mind is completely cleansed of contamination by its weaknesses and commits to its strengths as the only good things about it—so that it can feed on nonstop contemplation of the Almighty God.

“It’s not a stretch to compare the state of the soul to the most delicate down or lightweight feather. If it isn’t spoiled or saturated by some contaminating fluid coming into contact with it, the slightest breath sends its dynamic nature floating up to the highest heavens, like it’s nothing. But if it’s weighed down by some liquid that was sprinkled or poured on it, its inherent kinetic properties won’t launch it into aerial flights in the same way. Instead the weight of the fluid it has absorbed will press it down to the depths of the earth.

“Our mind is like that, too. If it’s not weighed down by flaws or by worldly concerns coming into contact with it, nor contaminated by the toxic fluid of desire, it will be lofted up to the heights by the lightest breeze of spiritual meditation, as if the natural boost of its tranquility were lifting it up; and as it leaves behind the lowly and earthly terrain, it is transported to the reaches of the celestial and invisible. We’ve been sufficiently warned about this very matter by the lordly injunctions: ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life.’

“So if we want our prayers to reach not only the heavens but also what lies above the heavens, we should ensure that the mind is cleansed of every earthly flaw and dredged of all emotionally fraught sediment, to restore it to its natural lightness so that its prayer ascends to God without being weighed down by any weaknesses.

“We should take note of what the Lord identified as factors that weigh the mind down. He did not single out adultery, or other forms of extramarital sex, or murder, or contempt for the sacred, or robbery—which everyone knows are reprehensible, deathly serious offenses—but rather intoxication, overeating, and nonreligious concerns and preoccupations. No human being on the planet is adequately wary or judgmental of these behaviors, to the point (I’m ashamed to say) that some people who call themselves monks are caught up in them as if they were harmless and even beneficial!

“Understood literally, these three acts weigh down the soul, separate it from God, and pin it to the earth. But it’s easy to avoid them—especially for us monks, since we’re so far removed that we’re completely detached from all the world’s dealings, and there’s not really any opportunity to get mixed up with concerns about superficial things or intoxication or overeating. But there is another sort of excess that’s no less toxic but harder to avoid. And that’s spiritual drunkenness, a kind of ‘nonreligious concern and preoccupation’ that envelops us even after we’ve completely renounced all our property, and abstained from wine and feasts altogether, and spent a lot of time in isolation. The prophet spoke of this: ‘Sober up, drunkards, and not from wine.’³³

“Likewise another prophet said: ‘Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine; stagger, and not with drunkenness.’ Consequently, according to the prophet, the wine of this kind of drunkenness is none other than the wrath of the dragons. And notice the root from which this wine derives: ‘their vine,’ says the prophet, ‘is from the vine of Sodoma, and their branch from Gomorra.’

“And do you want to know what the fruit of this vine and the bud of this branch are? Their cluster is a cluster of bile; it is a bunch of bitterness to them, because unless we’re completely purged of all weaknesses and we’ve sobered up from our overindulgence in every pathology, our heart—despite foregoing extravagant banquets and intoxication from wine—will be weighed down by a much more toxic form of overeating and drunkenness. Nonreligious concerns can even paralyze those of us who don’t get involved in the world’s affairs. That clearly stands to reason, as the elders indicate through their way of life. They counted anything that exceeds the daily intake of food that one actually needs and what the body can’t do without as a nonreligious concern and preoccupation.

“Here are some hypothetical examples. Say that a gold coin’s worth of work is enough to meet our body’s needs, but we’d rather prolong the time we spend on the job to earn two or three gold coins. Say that although two shirts are enough to clothe us—one for night and one for day—we buy three or four of them. And say that although a dwelling of one or two rooms is enough, our affinity for worldly striving and grandiosity leads us to build out four or five rooms that are beautifully decorated and much roomier than they need to be. In these scenarios, we are prioritizing the pathology of earthly desire whenever we can.

“Our experiences have taught us unambiguously that this only ever happens at the demons’ instigation. For example: when one of the most battle-tested of the elders went to visit the dwelling of a certain brother, he saw that he was sick with the kind of overworked mind that we’ve been talking about: he was restlessly wearing himself out in the daily distractions of unnecessary busywork that he kept piling up for himself.

“From a distance the elder spotted this monk pounding on a really hard boulder with a big mallet. He also saw an Ethiopian figure standing right next to him. They were hacking away together as their hands interlocked on the mallet with each blow, and the figure was goading the brother with lit torches to keep up the work.³⁴

“The elder stood there for a long time, riveted by the horrible demon’s assault and by the sheer magnitude of the deception. When the brother was worn out in utter exhaustion and wanted to stop working and rest, he was reinvigorated by the spirit’s goading to pick up the mallet again. And he was compelled to keep his attention on the work he’d started, so that his energy was sustained by the demon’s directives, and he didn’t notice how harsh the labor really was.

“Eventually the old man was so shaken by the demon’s awful game that he made his way to the brother’s dwelling, greeted him, and said: ‘Brother! What’s this work you’re doing?’

“The brother said, ‘We’re toiling against this really hard boulder, and after all this time we’ve barely been able to chip anything off.’

“The old man replied, ‘You’re right to say we, because you weren’t alone when you were hacking away. There was someone else with you whom you didn’t see, someone who was standing right by you as you worked—not as a helper but as an oppressive taskmaster.’ ”

Isaac continued: “All of this is to say that ‘giving up’ dealings that we couldn’t get involved with or carry out even if we wanted to, or ‘rejecting’ things that, if we actually got involved with them, would shame us in the eyes of spiritual men and eminent laypersons alike, doesn’t prove at all that the disease of worldly ambition isn’t present in our minds! Instead we prove it by using stiff mental resistance to refuse to do things that do fall within our power and which pass as respectable.

“The fact is that things that seem minor and insignificant, things that monks like us let slide, don’t inherently weigh down the mind any less than the major matters that tend to intoxicate the judgment of laypersons because they’re so significant. As those earthly sediments build up, they make it hard for us to breathe easy as we turn to God, where a monk’s attention should always be fastened. We should think of even the slightest separation from that greatest good as a sudden death and total annihilation.

“And when the mind is flooded with great calm and loosed from the shackles of all its pathologies, and when the heart’s attentiveness clings tenaciously to that one and greatest good, it will fulfill that apostolic command to pray without ceasing and pray everywhere, lifting up clean hands, without wrath and doubting. How can I put this? The mind becomes absorbed by this state of tranquility, and it morphs into a spiritual and angelic guise after having been stuck on the ground. No matter what it takes in or thinks about or does, its praying will be totally undistracted and undivided.”

Germanus said: “If only we could retain the seeds of spiritual thoughts as easily as we first think of them—and to hold onto them forever! Instead, whether they enter our heart through a memory of the scriptures, a recollection of some spiritual accomplishment, or a glimpse of heavenly mysteries, it’s only a matter of time before they make a run for it without us noticing, then disappear.

“Whenever our mind happens to have some encounter with spiritual perceptions, other thoughts sneak in, causing the very things that the mind had seized on to make a slippery getaway, and scatter. The result is that the mind has no steadiness, no ability to keep its grip on spiritual thoughts. So even when it seems to be maintaining its hold on them, those moments of comprehension must be accidental rather than purposeful. How can the origin of these thoughts even be chalked up to our own decision making, given that their persistence has nothing to do with us?

“But we shouldn’t wander way off the course of the subject we started by pursuing this line of questioning and further delay the discussion we’d intended to have about the logistics of prayer. Let’s save that investigation for another time. We beg to be instructed this minute about what prayer involves, especially because the blessed apostle warned us never to take a break from it. As he said, ‘Pray without ceasing.’

“First, we want to be educated about its basic features. Or in other words: what sort of prayer should we always be sending out? Next: how can we possess and practice this prayer, whatever it is, without ceasing? Being able to achieve it requires more than a little attentiveness of the heart! We’ve learned as much from everyday experience and from your own holy affirmation. You’ve explained that the ultimate goal of the monk, and the summit of total perfection, depends on successful prayer.”

Isaac said: “I think it’s impossible to comprehend all the kinds of prayer there are without capaciousness of heart, stability of soul, and enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. There are as many kinds as there are circumstances and dispositions in a single soul—or really, in all souls.

“But even though we know that we can’t ascertain all the types of prayer there are, because our heart isn’t sharp enough, we will try to classify them somehow, as much as our limited experience allows. Even those types change from moment to moment, depending on the degree of clarity that a mind attains, and on its current state (whether it’s going downhill because of some incident, or whether it’s making the effort to reenergize itself). This is why nobody can be absolutely sure that the prayers they’re uttering are always the same.

“So people pray in one way when they’re in a good mood, and in another way when they’re weighed down with sadness or hopelessness, or thriving in their spiritual accomplishments, or pinned down under a pile of setbacks. They pray in one way when they’re begging for their sins to be pardoned, and in another way when they want to obtain a favor or some other advantage, or when they’re pleading to have a certain weakness eradicated for good. They pray in one way when they’re stung by fear as they contemplate hell and future judgment, and in another way when they blaze with hope and longing for good things to come. They pray in one way when they’re moved by need and danger, and in another way when conversely they feel a sense of security and calm. They pray in one way when they’re enlightened by visions of heavenly mysteries, and another way when they’re short on strength and out of ideas.

“Okay, so we’ve noted some differences between prayers, but not as much as the sheer bulk of the subject matter demands. It’s only as much as our short time allows and what our dull smarts and heart can really understand.

“Now it’s time to deal with an even greater challenge: we need to lay out, one by one, the types of prayer that the apostle Paul divided into a four-part schema. As he put it, ‘I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made.’ Without a doubt, the apostle made these distinctions for a good reason.

“The first thing to investigate is what ‘supplication,’ ‘prayer,’ ‘intercession,’ and ‘thanksgiving’ mean. Then we should pursue the question of whether the praying person should take on these four types at the same time. In other words, should all of them be yoked together in one single and simultaneous plea? Or should each one be offered up individually and consecutively (which would mean having to start with supplications and moving on to prayers, then intercessions, then giving thanks)? Or should one person actually give God supplications, another person prayers, another intercessions, and another thanksgivings—depending on what stage a mind is in, when it’s trying to pay attention?

“So the first thing to tackle are the particularities of those nouns and verbs. We need to tease apart the differences between prayer and supplication and intercession. Then, continuing in this vein, we have to examine whether they should be practiced serially or simultaneously. Third, we have to investigate whether the exact order that the apostle authoritatively put them in has something more to teach the audience, or whether we should take that list at face value and not think too much about whether he made those distinctions for some additional reason. I think this latter move is pretty clueless. We shouldn’t buy into the idea that the Holy Spirit revealed something through the apostle so casually or uncalculatedly. Anyway, we’ll go over each type one by one, in the order we started with, just as the Lord presented them.

“The apostle began: ‘I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications be made.’ A supplication is a call for help, or an appeal about sins. A person pleads for pardon with a supplication when they are stung with remorse about their past or present deeds.

“Prayers are what we present or vow to God. In Greek it’s called euchē, or ‘vow.’ The Greek tas euchas mou tō kyriō apodōsō is read in Latin as ‘I will pay my vows to the Lord,’ which given the specific meaning of the word here could be expressed as ‘I will pay my prayers to the Lord.’ And the Latin verse we read in Ecclesiastes—‘ Whenever you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it’—is written in Greek in a similar way: ean euxē euchēn tō kyriō, or ‘Whenever you pray a prayer to God, do not delay to fulfill it.’

“A monk would fulfill this command like so. We pray when, in renouncing this world, we pledge that we are dead to any engagement with it and to everything that happens in it, and that we will serve the Lord with the full attention of our heart. We pray when, after having rejected worldly prestige and spurned earthly wealth in a state of complete anguish of heart and poverty of spirit, we promise that we will be closely connected to the Lord. We pray when we make assurances that we will practice absolute bodily chastity and steadfast endurance forever, and when we vow to dig out the roots of anger and deadly sadness from the bottom of our heart. And when we barely do any of these things because we’ve gotten lazy and reverted to our old weaknesses, we will be held to account for our prayers and vows, and it will said about us: ‘It is better that you do not vow than that you vow and do not pay up.’ Or following the Greek, it could be put this way: ‘It is better that you do not pray than that you pray and do not pay up.’

“Intercessions come third. We tend to utter these on behalf of other people, when our spirit is in a state of intense heat. We intercede in making requests for our loved ones or for peace across the entire world, and when we are making entreaties (and I will quote the apostle’s own words here) ‘for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority.’

“Then, in fourth place, are thanksgivings. The mind gives thanks to the Lord out of a sense of indescribable ecstasy³⁵—when it recalls God’s previous acts of support, or contemplates present ones, or looks forward to the many things that God will provide in the future for those who love him. And sometimes in this form of attentiveness even richer prayers are uttered. In the act of gazing, clear-eyed, on the rewards that are in store for the holy, our spirit is stirred with boundless joy to pour out its indescribable thanks to God.

“These four types of prayer can sometimes produce juicy³⁶ moments of solemnity. The type of supplication born from sinners’ stinging sense of remorse, and the kind of prayer that flows from a place of trust in what’s being offered up and from vows performed with clear self-awareness, and the intercession that comes from the heat of love, and the thanks that are produced by reflecting on God’s acts of support and on his greatness and devotion: we know that they generate white-hot, fiery prayers all the time. So we can obviously conclude that all the types of prayers we talked about earlier are useful and essential to everybody. One and the same man, depending on his mood, may make clear and white-hot entreaties that sometimes take the form of supplications, sometimes prayers, sometimes intercessions.

“That said, the first type of prayer seems especially well suited to beginners who are still tormented by their memory and by the stings of their weaknesses. The second type suits people whose minds are somewhat elevated because they’ve already started a spiritual undertaking and want to get stronger. The third is for people who have done the work and made good on their vows, whose sense of love and consideration for the vulnerability of other people rouse them to intercede for others, too. And the fourth is for people who are untroubled by the punishing thorn of self-consciousness: it has been pulled out of their hearts. They keep thinking, in their perfectly clear mind, about the Lord’s acts of generosity and compassion that he granted in the past, bestows in the present, and plans for the future. And their white-hot heart carries them off to that state of fiery prayer that no human mouth can encapsulate or describe.

“However: sometimes a mind, a mind that’s making progress in that genuine state of clarity and has already begun to take root there, starts thinking about all these things all at once, and it flits around all over the place like some elusive, furious flame. It will pour out wordless prayers of sheer energy to God, prayers that the Spirit itself intercepts and sends straight to God with groanings that we cannot perceive or utter. In that moment, the mind is thinking about so many things and pouring them out in the act of prayer that, I think, the mouth couldn’t express all of it. Not even the mind itself could remember it all after the fact.

“That’s why someone can end up uttering prayers that are clear and attentive regardless of what stage they’re in. Because even at that first and most amateur level, which involves dwelling on future judgment, a person who lives under the torment of dread is so struck with the fear of that final audit that they’re filled with remorse on the spot. As a result they’re filled with the juiciness of a supplication—no less alert in spirit than a person who surveys and reviews all of God’s acts of generosity with a clear heart then melts into indescribable happiness and celebration. They begin to love much, as the Lord put it, because they recognize that they have been forgiven for many things.

“Even so, as we advance in life and become more proficient we should prefer to strive for the types of prayers that are poured out from contemplating good things to come, or from the heat of love, or in any case—if I’m speaking in less vaunted terms, out of consideration for beginners’ limitations—prayers that are born of the effort to attain some particular ability or eradicate some deficiency. Otherwise there’s no way we’d be able to reach those exalted kinds of prayer that we mentioned earlier. It will happen only if our mind progresses through those prayers in order, little by little and step by step.”