Pseudo-Chrysostom, On Prayer, Homily 2

HOMILY VI.

On Prayer.

Having earlier gone through [the subject of] fasting with you, and having recounted its advantages as far as we were able, and again, on the former [day], having gone through [the subject of] baptism for your love of hearing, we wish today to recount to you [the subject of] prayer as well: what indeed its power is, and what benefit accrues from it to those who persevere in it. I exhort you, then: listen with good will and with reverence, setting your hearing straight towards what is said. Being truly the greatest and the eldest, this has come to be also the mother of all the commandments, begetting all the ordinances of the Lord.

For who, while praying, is able to overlook his neighbour in want, so as to have the labour spent upon it [prayer] unprofitable? And who is able to reach out after such wealth and abundance, so as to take upon the body alone a vain toil, while the heart wanders somewhere else? For the disease of the love of money is like some malady hard to cure and lingering, neither bringing on death more quickly nor affording complete health, but little by little loosening the body from its own sinews, until, having ebbed away through the drainings that arise within it, after countless toils it dispatches it to the common fall of death. And who that is a lover of prayer will be able to neglect fasting, being taught by Scripture itself that Fasting and supplication deliver from death? Otherwise it is not possible to call upon the Lord from the heart while living with gluttony and surfeiting; as the Lord also in the Gospel charged His own disciples: Take heed, He says, lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness. For the exhalation of the mass of foods that go in, [rising] about the hollow parts of the brain, muddies what is serviceable in the reasoning itself, throwing the very heart into confusion. So prayer that is according to truth is a kind of starting-post of all the commandments, compelling them all to run along with their own proper order. The most supreme good is prayer and converse with God; for it is communion and union with God; and just as the eyes of the body are illuminated in beholding light, so also the soul, stretched out towards God, is illuminated, being lit up by His unutterable light. Prayer, then, is not that which is done in outward form, but that which is accomplished from the heart; not that which is enclosed by set times and intervals of hours, but that which has its working unceasing by night and by day. For one must not only, when going away to prayer, draw one's reasoning sharply towards God; but one must also, when occupied with certain necessities, whether about the care of the poor, or about other concerns, or about beneficial

— works of kindness, to mingle in the longing for God and the remembrance of Him, so that, seasoned as with salt by the love of God, they may become a most sweet food for the Master of all. And we are able to acquire the profit that comes from it, not to be taken away, throughout the whole of life, if we assign to it the greatest part of our time.

Prayer is the illumination of the soul, true knowledge of God, mediator of God and men, physician of the passions, antidote of diseases, calm of the soul, a heavenly guide, not turning about the earth but journeying to the very vault of the heavens. It leaps over created things, it cleaves the air in the manner of the mind, it travels above the air, it passes through the choirs of the stars, it opens the gates of the heavens, it comes to be above the angels, it goes past Thrones and Dominions, it passes through the Cherubim, and, having come to be above all generated nature, it arrives at the unapproachable Trinity itself. There it worships the Godhead; there it is deemed worthy to become a companion in converse with the heavenly King. Through it the soul, lifted aloft into the heavens, is entwined with the Lord in unspeakable embraces; like an infant to its own mother, with tears it cries out, longing for the divine milk; and it asks for the things it wills, and receives gifts better than all visible nature.

For prayer is a revered ambassador: it gladdens the heart, it gives rest to the soul, it engenders fear of punishment [and] desire of the kingdom of the heavens, it teaches humility, it furnishes knowledge of sin; in a word, it adorns the man with all good things, putting about the soul, like some many-coloured robe, the whole nature of virtue. It was this that bestowed Samuel on Anna, and showed him forth a prophet of the Lord; it was this that made Elias a zealot of the Lord, and became the guide of the descent of the heavenly fire upon the sacrifice. For while the priests of Baal were calling upon the idol all the day long, he, lifting up his voice from a pure heart, and crying out with heart and mouth, brought down the fire out of the heavens: a testimony to the righteous prayer. For like some eagle swooping down upon the altar, by the fierceness of its nature it consumed all things as a whole burnt-offering. And this the great servant of God, Elias the zealot, did, [leading] us towards spiritual things through the tutors of that time, so that we too, crying to God from the heart, may urge the unutterable fire of the Spirit to come down upon the altar of our heart, becoming thereby a perfect whole burnt-offering to the Lord. Prayer also made Moses the lawgiver a propitiation of God [for] Israel, and set up trophies against the enemies of the Israelites. Through prayer also Jesus the son of Naue made the great and most conspicuous star in the heavens, the sun, which was already cutting through the aether at the middle of the pole, stay in that same place for the space of a day. So, then, the Lord gave it precedence among the commandments, so as Himself, fleeing cities

and villages and His own disciples, to withdraw into the deserts for the sake of prayer, so that, outside the tumults and circumstances of men, He might converse in this stillness with great longing; teaching us at the same time that he who professes such a way of life must take to desert places, doing such a thing without distraction. Through prayer also the great company of the apostles was deemed worthy to receive the Paraclete today; for it is on this account that I have been constrained to go through [the subject of] it with you today. Prayer, while the body lies upon the earth, carries the soul away to that heavenly spring, and, having filled it with that drink, makes it within itself a spring of water leaping up unto life eternal. It gives true full assurance of the things to come, furnishing thereafter a knowledge of the good things yonder stronger than faith; it opens treasures hidden, unseen, dark; it shows you the adversary; it cuts through the battle-lines of the foreigners, it makes the opposing powers vanish, and it leads you to the King Himself. When I say prayer, do not suppose it to be words. It is a longing towards God, a love unutterable, not accomplished by men but wrought by divine grace, of which the Apostle also says: For what we should pray for as we ought, we know not; but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

If the Lord grants such prayer to anyone, it is wealth that cannot be taken away, and heavenly nourishment that satisfies the soul; and he who has tasted it has acquired an everlasting longing towards the Lord, like some fierce fire burning up his heart. And carrying this out as the first pattern, with gentleness and a lowly heart, paint your house, make it bright with the light of righteousness; with good works, as with some tested slab, adorn your own house, and instead of walls and mosaic, beautify it with faith and long-suffering; setting prayer upon all, like a roof, for the completion of the house, so that you may prepare your own house perfect for the Master, and may receive the Lord as in a royal and splendid house, having Him thereafter established like a statue in the temple of the soul, through His grace; for to Him is the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages. Amen.