Unceasing prayer is prayer that does not leave the soul day or night. It consists not in what is outwardly perceived–outstretched hands, bodily stance, or verbal utterances–but in our inner concentration on the intellect’s activity and on mindfulness of God born of unwavering compunction; and it can be perceived noetically by those capable of such perception.
~Nikitas Stithatos
Nothing so inspires the soul with longing for God and love for one’s fellow beings as humility, compunction and pure prayer. Humility shatters the spirit and engenders tears, while by making us aware of the shortness of human life it teaches us to know the frailty of our limitations. Compunction purifies the intellect of materiality, illumines the eye of the heart, and makes the soul completely radiant. Pure prayer binds the whole person to God, making us share the life of the angels, allowing us to taste the sweetness of the immortal blessings of God, and bestowing on us the treasures of the great mysteries. Enkindling us with love, it gives us the courage to lay down our life for our friends (cf. John 15:13), for we have transcended the body’s low estate.
~Nikitas Stithatos
If the soul, its powers disordered, is still at war with itself and has not yet become receptive to the divine rays; if it is still enslaved to the will of the flesh and without peace; and if its battle with the rebellious passions has but recently come to an end, it needs to preserve strict silence, so that with David it too can say: ‘But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man who does not open his mouth’ (Psalm 38:13). It should always be full of grief and should walk sorrowfully along the road of Christ’s commandments; for it is still afflicted by the enemy and awaits the coming of the Paraclete, through whom it will receive the prize of true freedom for its compunction and cleansing tears.
~Nikitas Stithatos
Stillness is an undisturbed state of the intellect, the calm of a free and joyful soul, the tranquil unwavering stability of the heart in God, the contemplation of light, the knowledge of the mysteries of God, consciousness of wisdom by virtue of a pure mind, the abyss of divine intellections, the rapture of the intellect, intercourse with God, an unsleeping watchfulness, spiritual prayer, untroubled repose in the midst of great hardship and, finally, solidarity and union with God.
~Nikitas Stithatos
Humility is the greatest of the virtues. If as a result of sincere repentance it is implanted in you, you will also be given the gift of prayer and self-control, and will be freed from servitude to the passions. Peace will suffuse your powers, tears will cleanse your heart, and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit you will be filled with tranquility. When you have attained this state, your consciousness of the knowledge of God will grow lucid and you will begin to contemplate the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and the inner essences of created things. The more you descend into the depths of the Spirit, the more you plumb the abyss of humility. Correspondingly you gain greater knowledge of your own limitations and recognize the weakness of human nature; at the same time your love for God and your fellow beings waxes until you think that sanctification flows simply from a greeting or from the proximity of those with whom you live.
~Nikitas Stithatos
Prayerful Life 