Where your eyes are focused, your mind is trained to see; and surely your heart is fixed to follow. What do you look at every day? Your desk at work? The work boots you wear? Is it an empty wallet? A full one? Do you stare at people passing by? How about the Internet? Or, television? Our Father in Heaven lit a lamp by giving us commandments. Christ shined His light on life's path by giving us sacraments. The Spirit stokes the fires of our hearts by wounding us with an eternal love. Be watchful... "From the early morning, the eagle sits on the tip of a high crag. Its sparking eyes hungrily seek out prey. It rises into the blue sky, swims in the wide expanse on extended wings, and seeks its prey. And when it finds its prey, it becomes an arrow, a lightning bolt as it attacks; then it rises like an arrow again with its prey and disappears. Once the chicks are fed, the eagle again is on watch, either on the cliff or in the sky. Similar to this is the heart that is infected with the wound of incurable love of the commandments of God! In this love is blessedness. The commandments are not merely found in the doing. Within them is hidden, and through them is revealed, spiritual wisdom." - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. "Blessed is the Man." The Refuge: Anchoring the Soul in God, Nicholas Kotar, trans., Volume 2 of The Collected Works of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Holy Trinity Publications, 2019, p. 5. #StIgnatyBrianchaninov #Watching #Commandments #Father #Son #HolySpirit #HolyTrinity #JesusChrist #Wisdom #Spirituality

We all know that sickness, confusion, and difficulty are a part of life. These are just a few of the reasons why we pray. But don't forget that thanking God is as important as asking God for help. Since He willingly and abundantly loves us, shows mercy toward us, and invites us ever closer to Him in the luminous darkness; let us take time to offer our deep and abiding gratitude. - The following is a vocal prayer that you can use after a time of trouble: "Almighty and merciful God, I most humbly and heartily thank Thy divine majesty for they loving kindness and tender mercies, that thou hast heard my humble prayer, and graciously vouchsafed to deliver me from my trouble and misery. Grant me, I beseech Thee, thy helping grace, that I may obediently walk in Thy Holy Commandments, and lead a sober, righteous and Godly life, ever remembering Thy mercies, and the blessings thou hast undeservedly bestowed upon me, that I may continually offer to Thee the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen." #PrayerofThanks #Sickness #Confusion #prayer #God #Love #Mercy #luminousdarkness #Divinity #humility #Commandments #Father #Son #HolySpirit #HolyTrinity

We must work to pray and to remember Christ so deeply in our hearts and minds that we experience Him dwelling in us, literally. This takes great effort, of course, but it is a necessary facet of the journey toward spending eternity with God. The beautiful part of this work is that the Holy Spirit will give us signs along the way that will lift us up and keep us going. "Once remembrance of God has been established in the inner man, then Christ the Lord will dwell within you. The two things go together. "A certain warm feeling toward the Lord will serve as a sign to convince you that this most wonderful thing has begun to operate inside of you. If you carry out everything that has been prescribed, this feeling will soon begin to appear more and more often, until finally it is there continually. Beginning from its first appearance, this feeling sweetly and blissfully arouses the desire to seek after it, so that it will never leave the heart, for in it is Paradise." - St. Theophan the Recluse. "Letter 52." The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, translated from the Russian by Alexandra Dockham, (Arizona: The Holy Monastery of St. Paisius, 2017), pp. 210-211. #StTheophantheRecluse #Remember #God #JesusChrist #Heart #luminousdarkness #DivineCloud #Theoria #theosis #Lord #HolyTrinity #HolySpirit

Corruption, vanity, idleness, amusement, and worry tear us away from God. They make us slaves to our earthly life. "Night comes with its shadows, the pallid sheen of the night lights of the sky. It collects people from the surface of the earth into their tents, their refuges. In theses refuges is found only boredom and emptiness of soul. And so they try to drown out their torture with mindless diversions; idleness and perversion of temperament give way to loud amusements, and the vessels of the temple of God - the mind, heart, the body - are used by Belshazzar* for vile ends. The slave of the earth, the slave of temporal earthly cares has barely managed to tear himself away from the worries that inundated him during the course of the day, but in the silence of night he prepares for himself new worries for the coming day. His days and nights - his entire life are a sacrifice to vanity and corruption." - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. "Blessed is the Man." The Refuge: Anchoring the Soul in God, Nicholas Kotar, trans., Volume 2 of The Collected Works of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Holy Trinity Publications, 2019, p. 6. * Belshazzar is the King of Babylon featured in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. He represents someone who focuses on earthly things, forgets to honor God, and refuses to repent. #StIgnatyBrianchaninov #Corruption #Vanity #Idleness #Pleasure #Anxiety

Hesychasm encourages the use of the Jesus Prayer in combination with a series of physical and mental techniques to silence the mind and make still the body, while aiming at union with God. A hesychast is one who strives to enshrine what is bodiless within the temple of the body, paradoxical though this may sound. A hesychast is one who says, 'I sleep but my heart is watchful' (Song of Songs 5:2). Close the door of your cell to the body, the door to your tongue to speech, and your inner gate to evil spirits. (St. John Klimakos, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Steps 27 and 26 as found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, p. 200.) Hesychasm as a way of life involves the manifestation of silence not only in terms of the mouth, but in terms of the mind and the entire body. As the last sentence above indicates, closing the door to the body means mastering the physical self (i.e., controlling the need to eat, sleep, and more) and the emotions (i.e., controlling the temper, seeking humility, learning patience, and more). Closing the door to the tongue means silencing our voices and mastering our words when speaking. Closing the door to the inner gate of evil spirits means working to control what we allow inside of ourselves. This is about making our lives simpler, more focused on God, and seeking prayer more intently and intensely. Put differently, hesychasm is about living, working, and praying in an environment of peace within and without, by controlling the intellect ("For if the hesychast does not enclose his intellect within his body, how can he possess within himself the One who is invested with the body and who as its natural form penetrates all structurally organized matter?" [St. Gregory Palamas found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, ed. and trans. (Faber & Faber, London, 1979), p. 336.]), and controlling the body ("Stillness, in accordance with its name, is maintained by means of peace and serenity; for God is peace [cf. Eph. 2:14] beyond all unrest and clamour" [St. John Klimakos, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Steps 27 and 26 as found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, p. 278.]). Bodily control during prayer has enormous implications to our faith life more broadly speaking. "This control of the breathing may, indeed, be regarded as a spontaneous consequence of paying attention to the intellect; for the breath is always quietly inhaled and exhaled at moments of intense concentration, especially in the case of those who practice stillness both bodily and mentally. Such people keep the Sabbath in a spiritual fashion and, so far as possible, they rest from all personal activities; they strip their soul's powers free from every transient, fleeting and compound form of knowledge, from every type of sense-perception and, in general, from every bodily act that is under our sway, and, so far as they can, even from those not entirely under our sway, such as breathing" (St. Gregory Palamas found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, p. 337). The second half of this quote is particularly important to our study here. In it, St. Gregory is explaining that those who can achieve some level of silence and stillness in their lives tend to be able to keep the Sabbath properly. Here he does not only mean the actual outer observance of the Sunday Liturgy, but also the inner observance of the Sabbath (i.e., interior prayer stills the soul, mind, and body, helping the person to enter into spiritual rest). The good news is that if we can get a hold of our lives in this way, we will find ourselves growing closer to God. In those who have made progress in stillness all these things come to pass without toil and anxious care, for of necessity they spontaneously follow upon the soul's perfect entry unto itself. But where beginners are concerned none of them can be achieved without effort (St. Gregory Palamas found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, p. 337). And while we cannot achieve this state of mind and body very quickly, if we show ourselves to patient, the fruits of our efforts will be known. Patient endurance is the fruit of love, for 'love patiently accepts all things' (1 Cor. 13:7), and teaches us to achieve such endurance by forcing ourselves so that through patience we may attain love and this is a case in point (St. Gregory Palamas found in The Philokalia, vol. 4, p. 338). Thus, the explicit decision to seek silence and practice stillness -- and if we do so with patience, endurance, and the help of the Jesus Prayer -- we will find in ourselves a new sense of what love really means. And if we ground all things in life in that love -- this hesychastic love -- we will be lead to a truer, more loving, and deeper union with God in this life and in the next. #hesychasm #silence #gregorypalamas #prayer

You are not forever broken. You are not permanently stuck. If you simply look up, you will see that Christ is near. If you simply open your ears, you will hear His voice. Let Him penetrate your mind and heart. Believe in where He is leading you. Get up. Go with Him. That's what the Holy Apostle Matthew did. When He saw and heard Jesus, he got up from the chair where he collected taxes and went. He became someone new. You have the choice to be someone new. Ask for Holy Apostle Matthew to show you the way. Pray with these two small hymns that are sung on the feast day of the Holy Apostle: - Troparion of St. Matthew: "With zeal, you followed Christ the Master, who in His goodness, appeared on earth to mankind. Summoning you from the custom house, He revealed you as a chosen apostle: the proclaimer of the Gospel to the whole world! Therefore, divinely eloquent Matthew, we honor your precious memory! Entreat merciful God that He may grant our souls remission of transgressions. - Kontakion of St. Matthew: "Casting aside the bonds of the custom house for the yoke of justice, you were revealed as an excellent merchant, rich in wisdom from on high. You proclaimed the word of truth and roused the souls of the slothful by writing of the hour of Judgment." #Apostles #StMatthew #JesusChrist #Discernment #Goodness #Gospel #God #IntercessoryPrayer #Wisdom #Judgment #Troparion #Kontakion #Christ #VocalPrayer

Sacred Scripture is imbued with examples of how and why silence and stillness are important. Of the many that can be found in the Old Testament, here we will feature one from Psalms and the other from Job: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 45 [46]:11). "Teach me, and I will keep quiet. Tell me wherein I have erred" (Job 6:24). It doesn't take much to explain these particular passages, especially because they are so familiar to us. But they are worth noting here because they not only persuade us to stop our noisy and busy activity, but also encourage us to admit our errors and re-learn the ways of the Lord. When it comes to the New Testament, the first example I would like to note here comes from the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke wherein Zecharias is visited by Gabriel in the Temple. "And the angel answered and said to him, 'I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time'" (Luke 1:19-20). The instruction here is that we are to listen to the Lord our God in everything that He and His angels and saints tell us. Zecharias doesn't do this and he is made mute (another way to say this is that he is forced to be quiet). At one level, Zecharias is being punished for his lack of faith. At another level, we are being shown how the high priests of the Temple are being silenced in order to make way for the announcement of the coming of the eternal high priest Jesus Christ. The second example also comes from the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke. "And having come in, the angel said to her, 'Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!' But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was" (Luke 1:28-29). In this verse, Mary takes the time to consider what is being told to her. In modern language we might say that she is "discerning." In fact, other translations of this verse use the word "pondered" instead of "considered," which illustrates the point even better. In order to consider, discern, or ponder something, we naturally become silent. Another example of the call to be silent comes during the Transfiguration passages, again in the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke. "Then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen" (Luke 9:35-36). In this passage we see God Himself commanding us to be silent so that we may learn to listen to Jesus. And if God is telling Peter, James, and John -- three of Jesus' greatest apostles -- to be silent, then it should make us ponder how desperately we need to learn to be silent and still before the Lord. The final example from the New Testament teaches us how important silence and stillness are to prayer. "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly" (Mt 6:6). So if we connect these passages from Sacred Scripture -- especially this idea of going into quiet and "secret" places to ponder and to pray to God -- we will start to form the basis of a new understanding for how to communicate with God (and love Him). This is what became known as hesychasm (a Greek word meaning stillness, rest, quiet, silence), which reached its mature expression in the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas (they appear in many other places, but those will be covered in a different article). #scripture #silence #hesychasm

In this time of great upheaval, confusion, doubt, and fear, ask Archangel Michael not only to protect you and your family, but also the Church, bishops, priests, all laity, and the nations in which we live. While this is a clear example of a vocal prayer, the highlighted portions can become for you a reflection that acts as an entry point for more serious and ongoing silent meditative prayer. "O great and holy Michael, Archangel of God, standing at the head of the angels before the everlasting + Trinity, O advocate and preserver of mankind, who - with your hosts - has broken in heaven the head of the daystar, Satan, the exceedingly proud one, and who always puts to shame his evil and cunning servants on earth, we run to you with faith and pray to you with love: be an unbreakable shield and firm bastion for the Holy Church and for our nation, protecting them with your lightning sword. "Be for us a guardian angel, a wise counselor and helper of our land bringing to it from the throne of the Eternal Ruling King and Lord our God enlightenment and strength, joy, peace and comfort. Be for us the chief captain and fellow-fighter of our honorable country, crowning it with glory and victory over unjust adversaries, that all who oppose us may know that God and His holy angels stand ready to defend us. Be the physician and healer of those wounded. Be the pillar and defender of those children of the Church of God that are in captivity. And forsake not, O Archangel of God, with your help and protection, those of us who today glorify your holy name. "For, behold, though we are great sinners, yet we desire not to perish in our iniquities but to turn to the Lord and be made by Him to live for good works. Illuminate our minds with the light of the Countenance of God that shines without ceasing on the lightning-like forehead, that we may understand that the will of God concerning us is good and perfect and knows all that is right for us to do, and even that which is right to omit and overlook. Strengthen by the grace of the Lord, our weak and feeble purpose, that made firm in the commandments of the Lord we may cease to wallow in earthly thoughts drawn by the lusts of the flesh as senseless children through the perishable beauties of the world. "Above all these things, ask from on high for us the true spirit of repentance, true sorrow and contrition for our sins before God, that we may spend the remaining number of our days in this temporal life, not in the satisfying of our feelings and in the bondage to our passions, but in the blotting out of the evil we have done by tears of faith and heartfelt compunction, by works of charity, chastity, and holy acts of loving mercy. When the hour of our end and of our liberation from the earthly bonds of our own bodies draws near, O Archangel of God, leave us not without defense against the earthly spirits of evil who try to hinder the entry of man into the heavenly places. Preserved by you, may we, without hindrance, reach those all-glorious dwelling-places of Paradise where there is neither sorrow nor sighing but only life without end. May we be made worthy to behold the Face of our all-gracious Lord and Master, and falling at His feet with tears may we cry out in joy and tender feeling: Glory to You, our most tender, dear Redeemer, who, because of Your great love for us, your unworthy servants and handmaidens, have been pleased to send Your angels in the service of our salvation! "For all the powers of heaven praise You, and we give glory, honor and thanksgiving to You, Father +, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen. O chosen captain of the heavenly hosts and defender of mankind, we, delivered by you from all afflictions, offer this hymn of thanksgiving, and do you, standing before the throne of the King of Glory, set us free from all distress that we may cry to you with faith and love: "Hail, Michael, great captain, with all the hosts of heaven! (3 times) "Commanders of the heavenly hosts, we who are unworthy beseech you, by your prayers encompass us beneath the wings of your immaterial glory, and faithfully preserve us who fall down and cry to you: 'Deliver us from all harm, for you are the commanders of the powers on high'!" - This prayer comes from the Akathist to the Archangel Michael, Chief Commander of the Heavenly Hosts. The word Akathist is derived from the Greek for "not seated," meaning that this is a hymn or prayer during which you remain standing. #ArchangelMichael #prayer #VocalPrayer #God #HolyTrinity #Faith #Love #Satan #Evil #Church #GuardianAngel #Angels #Eternity #Lord #Pride #Healing #Peace #Son #Father #HolySpirit

Are you trying to listen to God? Are you sad or angry that it seems like He doesn't respond to you? Maybe you're not able to hear Him because the noise in and around you is so deafening. Turn off your devices. Stop listening to all those other voices. Synchronize your life with the one who created you, redeems you, and tries very, very, very hard to sanctify you. Learn: "When the noise of the world deafened me, I could not listen to him. Now, in the silence of solitude, I begin to hear the mystical singer. Both his music and his song become clearer to me. It is as if a new sense opens up inside of me, an ability to listen and understand him. I sense in his music a fresh feeling, in his words a new meaning - as wondrous as God's wisdom." - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. "Blessed is the Man." The Refuge: Anchoring the Soul in God, Nicholas Kotar, trans., Volume 2 of The Collected Works of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Holy Trinity Publications, 2019, p. 3. #God #sadness #anger #Hearing #Creator #Redeemer #Sanctifier #silence #Solitude #StIgnatyBrianchaninov #Wisdom

Between God, in His Divine Essence, and humankind, in all of its sinful banality, there lies an incomprehensible infinitude. Yet, through God's creatively-redeeming and lovingly-sanctifying Divine Energies, humankind also discovers an equally incomprehensible intimacy. In other words, we are not God and never will be. But God loves us and He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. That is why we should lovingly seek that love with every breath, every thought, every beat of our heart. Can you imagine what would happen if we sat still for a minute to listen, to see, to know God in His ever-flowing effusiveness? What if we tried for an hour? Can you imagine what would be possible if our entire search for truth, goodness, and beauty was derived from, and remained in, an attitude of faith-and-love-filled hope? Intimacy with God is real. He's already come to you. Just lean in. #God #DivineEssence #Humanity #Sin #Sinner #Infinitude #DivineEnergies #Intimacy #Love #Spiration #Truth #Goodness #Beauty #Faith #Hope

Life is hard work. But ask yourself, "What kind of work am I doing? What am I working toward? Am I working at God's will or mine? Will my work bring me closer to Him and the Heavenly Kingdom?" The great saint tells us: "Labor, for nothing will come from you otherwise. If you are not successful in prayer, do not expect success in anything else. It is the root of everything." - St. Theophan the Recluse. "Letter 71." The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, translated from the Russian by Alexandra Dockham, (Arizona: The Holy Monastery of St. Paisius, 2017), p. 279. #StTheophantheRecluse #Work #prayer #VocalPrayer #MeditativePrayer #ContemplativePrayer #God #Life #InteriorLife

How can you complain about life if you don't pray? How can you be angry with God when you don't speak to Him, or, more importantly, listen to Him? The time has come to elevate your life. The only way to do this is by communicating with God, which is prayer. The great saint tells us: "Prayer is the exaltation of the nous* and the heart to God, so they can give glory and thanks to Him." - St. Theophan the Recluse * For the Orthodox Christian, the nous is often called the eye of the soul. It is the internal faculty of the human, which validates true spiritual knowledge. #StTheophantheRecluse #VocalPrayer #MeditativePrayer #ContemplativePrayer #God #Heart #Nous #luminousdarkness #Renewal #Forgiveness #prayer #continualprayer