UNCEASING PRAYER

The story offers a very concrete answer to the question ‘how can I pray without ceasing while I am busy with many other things?’ The answer involves the neighbor. Through my charity he becomes partner in my prayer and makes it into an unceasing prayer.

 In the 19th century when the problem with the Messalians did not exist a more mystical response is given. We find it in the famous story about the Russian peasant called The Way of the Pilgrim. It starts as follows: “I am by my own deeds a great sinner but by God’s grace a Christian. 

On the 21st Sunday after Pentecost I went to the Church for the liturgy. The reading was from the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians and it contained the command ‘pray without ceasing’. 

The words stuck in my mind and I began to ponder how it was possible to pray without ceasing since a man is obliged to do very many other things.” The peasant went from church to church to listen to sermons but did not find the answer he desired. 

Finally he met a holy staretz who said to him, “Continual interior prayer is the spontaneous leaping forth of man’s spirit towards God. You have to pray God to enlighten you about the means by which the spirit may accomplish this activity. Pray hard and fervently. Prayer itself will reveal to you how it can be prolonged unceasingly. But this will take much time.” 

Then the holy staretz taught the peasant the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ While travelling as a pilgrim through Russia the peasant repeated this prayer endless times with his lips. He even considers the Jesus Prayer his true companion. And then one day he has the feeling that the prayer by its own action passes from his lips to his heart. 

He says: “It seemed as though my heart in its ordinary beating began to say the words of the prayer within at each beat. I gave up saying the prayer with my lips. I simply listened carefully to what my heart was saying.”