Prayerful Life

‘Rejoice in the Lord’, said St Paul (Philippians 3:1). And he was right to say, ‘in the Lord’. For if our joy is not in the Lord, not only do we not rejoice, but in all probability we never shall. Job, as he described the life of men, found it full of every kind of affliction (Job 7:1-21), and so also did St Basil the Great. St Gregory of Nyssa said that birds and other animals rejoice because of their lack of awareness, while man, being endowed with intelligence, is never happy because of his grief….since life is full of pain and effort, like a state of exile dominated by sin.

But if a person is constantly mindful of God, he will rejoice: as the psalmist says, ‘I remembered God, and I rejoiced’ (Psalm 77:3). For when the intellect is gladdened by the remembrance of God, then it forgets the afflictions of this world, places its hope in Him, and is no longer troubled or anxious. Freedom from anxiety makes it rejoice and give thanks; and the grateful offering of thanks augments the gifts of grace it has received. And as the blessings increase, so does the thankfulness, and so does the pure prayer offered with tears of joy.

~St Peter of Damaskos

…each of us faithful is attacked and led astray by the passions; but if he is at peace with God and with his neighbor he overcomes them all. These passions are the ‘world’ which St John the Theologian told us to hate (1 John2:15), meaning that we are to hate, not God’s creatures, but worldly desires. The soul is at peace with God when it is at peace with itself and has become wholly deiform. It is also at peace with God when it is at peace with all men, even if it suffers terrible things at their hands.

Because of its forbearance it is not perturbed, but bears all things (1 Corinthians 13:7), wishes good to all, loves all, both for God’s sake and for the sake of their own nature. It grieves for unbelievers because they are destroying themselves, as our Lord and the apostles grieved for them.

It prays for the faithful and labors on their behalf, and in this way its own thoughts are filled with peace and it lives in a state of noetic contemplation and pure prayer to God. To Him be glory through all the ages. Amen.

~St Peter of Damaskos

How can anything be accomplished without moral judgment? It is born of the intelligence and constitutes the mean between craftiness–that is, excessive astuteness–and thoughtlessness. Craftiness pulls moral judgment towards cunning and guile, and injures the soul of the possessor and as many other people as it can; lack of thought makes one obtuse and trivial, and does not allow the intellect to concentrate on divine matters or on something of profit to one’s soul or to one’s neighbor….

The man of moral judgment…neither climbs arrogantly upward seeking to harm others, nor descends foolishly only to be harmed by someone else. Choosing the middle way, he keeps to this with the help of Christ our Lord; to whom be glory and dominion throughout the ages, Amen.

~St Peter of Damaskos

To speak of love is to dare to speak of God; for, according to St John the Theologian, ‘God is love; and he who dwells in love dwells in God’ (1 John 4:16)….’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5)….’with all your soul’ means with the intelligent, incensive and desiring powers of the soul, because it is of these three powers that the soul is composed. Thus the intellect should think at all times about divine matters, while the desire should long constantly and entirely, as the Law says, for God alone and never for anything else; and the incensive power should actively oppose only what obstructs this longing, and nothing else….

~St Peter of Damaskos

The Lord Himself said that the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of the kingdom of heaven (Luke 16:8). And He was quite right: for the children of this world long to make good and to grow rich, to be clever and to win praise, to gain power and so on; and even though they are likely to fail in their aspirations and their effort will prove vain, they still exert more than human strength to attain these things.

But the children of the kingdom aspire to things that are completely different, and because of this they often receive in this world a foretaste of the blessings held in store. Like the children of this world they exert themselves, but they do this so that by grace their intellect may be liberated and may thereby become unforgettingly mindful of God. In this way it comes to know the divine thoughts to which the Holy Scriptures and those with experience in spiritual knowledge bear witness; or else in its perplexity it realizes that in spite of its great knowledge it is still ignorant of them.

~St Peter of Damaskos

 

St John Chrysostom says that it is a great blessing from God that some parts of the Scriptures are clear while others are not. By means of the first we acquire faith and ardor and do not fall into disbelief and laziness because of our utter inability to grasp what is said. By means of the second we are roused to inquiry and effort, thus both strengthening our understanding and learning humility from the fact that everything is not intelligible to us.

Hence, if we take stock of the gifts conferred on us, we will reap humility and longing for God from both what we understand and what we do not.

~St Peter of Damaskos