vMakrina Tkaczevski: July 19/August 1 (St. Makrina, sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa)
vMary (Diana) Hadzi-Antich: July 22/August 4 (Holy Myrrh-Bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles, Mary Magdalene)
vPhocas Damiano: July 22/August 4 (Hieromartyr Phocas of Sinope)
vAnna Zolin and Anna Wheeler: July 25/August 7 (Dormition of the Righteous Anna, mother of the Most-Holy Theotokos)
vBenjamin Jackson: July 31/August 13 (New Hieromartyr Benjamin of Petrograd)
vChristopher Clader: August 18/31: (St. Christopher, abbot of Mt. Mela Monastery)
МногаяЛета! Many Years!
Father Paisios the Athonite: Guidance about the Jesus Prayer
An Excerpt from With Elder Porphyrios: A Spiritual Child Remembers
We also think that it would be good to add a relevant text by the blessed and very well-known monk Paisios, the Athonite, who recently slept in the Lord (12/7/1994). He wrote this text c. 1975, as a letter to someone, who had asked him about it. He gave it to a visitor to post in an open envelope and gave him permission to read it and to keep a copy. This visitor gave it to us and we hope that Elder Paisios will no longer have an objection to us publishing it for the spiritual benefit of many and as proof that experienced Elders agree that the prayer of the heart is not subject to measurement and subjugation.
We present the text as given:
"Guidance about the Jesus Prayer,
A simple way for ceaseless prayer, if you want to you can use it too, which probably helps simple people who cannot get the true meaning of the neptic Holy Fathers, and run the risk of delusion.
Some (unfortunately) do not set the goal of putting off the old man (repentance, humility, and asceticism as a way of helping the sanctification of the soul) with a deep sense of their sinfulness. Then, they would naturally feel the need for God’s mercy, saying "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," often. This with pain in their heart and then the feeling of the sweetness of divine comfort of the most Sweet Christ within their heart.
But unfortunately some people (as I mentioned) start off with a dry ascetic practice and seek after divine pleasure and lights and continually multiply their prayer-ropes and are sanctified by their calculation, reaching that conclusion (about their sanctity) from the mathematical reckoning of the greater amount of prayer-ropes they say.
They also (naturally) make footstools to the exact inch and all the other things, the bending of the head towards the heart. They regulate their breath and whatever else the watchful Saint Kallistuses and Gregorys of the Philokalia say. Then they create the false sensation that they are somewhere near the measure of those Saints.
From the moment they believe that thought, the tangalaki [1] (the demon) immediately appears and sets up a television for them (with their fantasies) and devilish prophecies etc. of delusion follow.
For this reason, only certainty is repentance and let every spiritual edifice be built upon it and let us continually seek repentance from God and nothing else except that.
We should not ask for lights or miracles, or prophecies, or gifts of the Spirit, only for repentance. Repentance brings humility; humility will bring grace from God, because grace always goes to the humble, of necessity. Therefore, repentance is necessary for our salvation and when we have it, the grace of God will come and it will teach us what we need to do for salvation even of our fellows too, if it is necessary.
In this way, which I mentioned (feeling the great need for God’s mercy), we will say the Jesus Prayer many times with our whole heart and we will feel, as I mentioned, the sweetness of divine comfort of the most sweet Jesus within our heart. The heart will (then) have our nous in tight embrace, as well as our whole being.
Then, and only then, will prayer not be tiring, but rather it will give rest, because we have grasped the true meaning of it. Only then do we pray without putting pressure on ourselves, but we are pressurised by our sense of honour and dignity (philotimo) [2], which gives rise to all our spiritual upstanding generosity (leventia) [3]. This produces the fluttering of the heart. Then the heart (however stony it may be) breaks and tears burst forth from their ducts (without an effort being made to weep during the time of prayer).
You feel the need for this prayer like a hungry baby who opens its little mouth and runs into the arms of its mother to be suckled and at the same time feels very secure in its mother’s loving care.
Nobody doubts that the enemy will try to war against us and to disperse our thoughts. However, when preceded by a little bit of Patristic study (e.g. The Sayings of the Fathers) a lid is put on all our cares, great and small, and on the day’s temptations. So, it is transformed into another atmosphere, a spiritual one and you pray with concentration.
If the enemy wages war with blasphemous thoughts (from his usual wickedness and envy) do not get upset. Instead, use the demon as your worker in the following way, by not getting upset, but by saying to the enemy: "It’s a good thing that you brought me those thoughts so that I can say the Jesus Prayer, because otherwise I forget to pray without ceasing." The enemy will then depart immediately, because he is only used to doing evil. I mentioned that because the enemy brings blasphemous thoughts to sensitive people (usually) to make them even more sensitive, to upset them and to cut them down.
The same applies to some that struggle in vigil over and above their strength, and with pride. When they slacken, and they do not have the strength to banish the thoughts of the enemy. They think that those blasphemous thoughts are their own, and so they suffer without reason, while the thoughts are not their own, but those of the enemy.
That is why young people should struggle in the matter of prayer with humility and discernment. They should prepare for the night. This, by not being distracted, by study and through moderate and simple food, which helps. As far as possible it should not be savoury, to avoid drinking plenty of water, because that, too, is an obstacle, with the bloating that it causes. In this way, the person is helped with prayer.
It helps a great deal if the light evening meal, however light it may be, takes place at around 4 o’clock (European time), after study, fathers and so on, or else 3 hours after the main meal. Small and great prostrations beforehand, and in between each prayer-rope, help a great deal, unfreezing the machine’s oil. Later, after getting quite tired, he should sit down and say the Jesus Prayer, since he brings to mind his wretchedness and the great favours of God that our good God has done for him.
Then the nous is collected (as I mentioned, in the heart, on its own) and seeks God’s mercy with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his mind, without making a great effort.
The three hours after sunset help a lot (having read patristic books before sunset), as well as after until sunrise. For young people it is good for them to sleep one hour after sunset, with less prayer, and to get up after , in order to avoid scandalous sleep of the morning.
Naturally, discernment is required and guidance from their spiritual father, who is a requirement."
End of supplement.
Endnotes
This was the Elder Paisios’s own peculiar expression. It is perhaps Turkish in origin (the Elder came from Asia Minor) from a word meaning a trickster, con-artist or equivocator. Another interpretation is that it is from the Greek word for a rancid stink. Translator.
Elder Paisios was absolutely correct when he once said that "Greeks may have a pile of faults, but they also have a gift from God, philotimo and leventia; they celebrate everything. Other peoples do not even have these words in their dictionaries." These two expressions are almost untranslatable in English. Philotimo, according to Elder Paisios, means "the reverent distillation of goodness; the radiant love of the humble man bereft of himself, but with a heart full of gratitude to God and his fellow man; because of his spiritual sensitivity he tries to repay even the slightest good that others do to him." Leventia means courage, honesty, generosity of heart, directness, manliness and in general the willingness to lay down one’s life for others. Translator.
See above. Translator.
A Spiritual Treasure - St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (August 13/26)
As a merchant from various lands gathers various goods, and brings them into his house and treasures them there, likewise a Christian can collect from the world soul-saving thoughts, and . by collecting them in the treasury of his heart can form his soul.
Such is the opening motto of St. Tikhon Zadonsky's book, A Spiritual Treasure Gathered from the World.
St. Tikhon was born of an extremely poor family in 1724 in the turbulent wake of Church reforms largely instigated by Tsar Peter in an effort to "subdue the old Russia for the benefit of the new Russia to come." With the increasing infiltration of Western liberalism, criticism fell upon clergy and particularly monastics as being "ignorant" and "backward". Hierarchs bold enough to raise their voices against state interference in Church affairs were banished or otherwise silenced. Tikhon himself was forced to be present at the unjust defrocking of Metropolitan Arseny, a leading figure among those who opposed Catherine II's secularization of Church property, which was a blow directed against monasticism and its influence. The criticism of "ignorant" clergy was not altogether unjustified: there were few good seminaries and many of the poorer clergy were uneducated and merely fulfilled certain outward duties in order to make a living. Such were the conditions of the ecclesiastical world into which St. Tikhon was born and in which he struggled to preserve and spread the fire of true Christianity to the end of his days.
The son of a village reader, Tikhon was fortunate in being able to receive a good theological education although he constantly suffered from poverty. His soul was drawn to the secluded life, but by God's will he soon found himself rising rapidly in the Church hierarchy and in 1763 he was appointed bishop of Voronezh. His sensitive soul was burdened by all the difficulties of his position combined with the disorganization and low level of Church life. But he resolved to follow his God-given obedience and crucify himself for his flock. His task was not easy. Soon after his arrival to his new diocese he wrote:
"Some deacons and priests seem to be unable to read the Scripture properly. It is evident that they either do not possess Bibles, or are unfamiliar with them and do not read them, neglecting thus their own salvation and that of the people entrusted to them. The will of the Heavenly Father is revealed to us in the New Testament through His beloved Son ... without knowing it one cannot fulfill it."
He applied himself energetically to his pastoral duties: he opened a seminary, instituted special sermons, cared for the poor and the sick. His primary concern was in educating the people in basic, practical Christianity. One of his first booklets was on The Duty of Christian Parents to their children and of children to their parents. He addressed the upper classes sternly:
"God will not ask you whether you taught your children French, German or Italian or the politics of society life – but you will not escape divine reprobation for not having instilled goodness into them. I speak plainly but I tell the truth: if your children are bad, your grandchildren will be worse...and the evil will thus increase...and the root of all this is our thoroughly bad education.''
After seven years of intense labors in the Lord's harvest, his health was undermined and his spiritual strength exhausted. He begged to be relieved of his episcopal robe which he said was "too heavy for him" and in 1768 he retired to Zadonsk Monastery where he lived until his death in 1783. Literally thousands of people, both lay and monastic, began to come to him for counsel. Here also he continued his literary career which he had begun in answer to the crying need of his flock.
It is both from the life of this extraordinary man of God and from his writings, that we can gather spiritual pearls to enrich our our impoverished spiritual lives as we struggle against the same evil tide of worldliness which was threatening to engulf St. Tikhon's flock in 18th-century Russia. "Tikhon's teaching on true Christianity in each walk of life opened new vistas before every struggling soul. He left no precise spiritual method, but he was the first Russian writer to deal with the obstacles and progress of the Christian soul in its bearing on everyday life ... He sought sa1vation not in dogmatical speculation or through certain techniques of contemplation, through ritualism or unusual deeds of asceticism, but through meditation, prayer, love and the practice of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
One of his best-known literary legacies is his book A Spiritual Treasure Gathered from the World, a collection of short essays or sermons on various aspects of spiritual life. Simple images from the world are used as metaphors and expounded upon to produce clear and vivid illustrations of basic Christian principles which are more accessible and more easily remembered than mere abstract dogmatic or moral teachings, and may be compared to the New Testament parables. For example, one of his teachings on humility is entitled, "Water Flows from High Mountains onto Low Places": "We see that water gravitates from the mountains to low-lying areas; so too, the grace of God is poured out from the Heavenly Father upon humble hearts." He goes on to explain what is needed to acquire such humility.
"Try to know yourself, your own wickedness. Think on the greatness of God and your wretchedness. Meditate on the suffering of Christ, the magnitude of Whose love and suffering surpass our understanding. Ascribe the good that you do to God alone. Do not think about the sin of a brother but about what in him is better than in yourself ... Flee from glory, honors and praise, but if this is impossible, be sorry that such is your lot. Be benevolent to people of low origin. Be freely and willingly obedient not only to those above you but to those below ... The lowlier we are in spirit, the better we know ourselves, and without humility we cannot see God."
St. Tikhon knew both the New Testament and Psalter by heart and this is evident in his frequent references to them in all his works. Typical of his teachings is one entitled "The Deaf Man":
"Just as the body has an ear, so also does the soul. Not everybody has an ear that is open, nor does every soul. God commands the soul: do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, turn away from evil and do good, etc. The soul whose ears are open, hears and listens to God speaking and does what God commands. Truly, such a soul cannot but hear God and obey His commandments if it has its ears open. Men listen and carry out the commands of earthly kings and lesser authorities, and will not a soul listen to God speaking if it has its ears open? Of course! And with what fervor and delight will it not listen and say to Him: Ready is my heart, O God, ready is my heart (Ps.107:2)
Throughout all of his writings he stresses the need to actively love one's neighbor, for herein is shown the love of God:
"For love does not seek its own, it labors, sweats, watches to build up the brother: nothing is inconvenient to love, and by the help of God it turns the impossible into the possible ... Love believes and hopes ... It is ashamed of nothing. Without it, what is the use of prayer? What use are hymns and singing? What is the use of building and adorning churches? What is mortification of the flesh if the neighbor is not loved? Indeed, all are of no consequence ... As an animal cannot exist without bodily warmth, So no good deed can be alive without true love; it is only the pretence of a good deed."
At the end of his earthly life, he would restlessly spend nights on end walking in desolate places begging God to let him know what awaits those who are seriously concerned with their spiritual life. One night suddenly the whole sky was opened and the monastery was bathed in heavenly light and there was a voice saying, See what is prepared for those who love God--and he beheld the unutterable blessings of that other world for which the Christian lives."
The above quotations are taken from the following sources:
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, by Nadejda Gorodetsky; "St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and His Spiritual Legacy" in Orthodox Word, July-Aug. 1966 A Spiritual Treasure (in Russian) reprinted from the 1901 edition by St. Tikhon Church in San Francisco, 1979.
