The Spirit of a Beginner's Prayer

The Spirit of a Beginner’s Prayer

The following are selections  from 40 short teachings regarding prayer in“The Spirit of a Beginner’s Prayer” by Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov.

4. These are the preparatory steps to prayer: a stomach that is not full, the cutting off of earthly cares with the sword of faith, forgiving all offenses with sincerity of heart, gratitude to God for all the sorrowful events in life, abandonment of reverie and absentmindedness, reverent fear, which is so appropriate for the creation when it is allowed to speak with the Creator, according to the unutterable goodness of the Creator toward His creation.

6. True prayer is the voice of true repentance. When prayer is not inspired by repentance, then it does not fulfill its calling, and then God will not favor it. However, he will not disdain a “contrite and humble heart”(Ps.50:19).

11. Even if someone stands on the very pinnacle of virtues, but prays as though he is not a sinner, his prayer will be rejected by God.

12. “In that day, when I do not sorrow for myself,” said a certain blessed practitioner of true prayer, “I consider myself to be in self-delusion.”

13. “Even if we undergo many exalted ascetic labors,” said St.John of the Ladder,”they are not true or fruitful if, at the same time, we do not have pain in the heart accompanying repentance.”

15. The sense of repentance preserves a praying person from all snares of the devil. The devil flees ascetics who give off the sweet fragrance of humility, which is born in the heart of the repentant.

16. Let your prayers to the Lord be like a child’s speech or a simple child’s thought. Do not bring Him your erudition, your wisdom. 

17. A child expresses all his desires with crying, and let your prayer also always be accompanied by tears. Not only when speaking the words of prayer, but even during prayerful silence, let your desire for repentance and reconciliation with God, your extreme need for God’s mercy, be expressed with tears.

18. The worthiness of a prayer is found only in its quality, not in quantity…Quality always leads to quantity; quantity only leads to quality when the praying person prays diligently.

20. Enclose your mind in the words of prayer that you utter and contain it in attention. Have your eyes closed during prayer. If you do this, you will help the union of the mind with the heart. Utter the words with diligent slowness and then you will more easily enclose the mind in the words of the prayer. Not a single word of your prayer will then be uttered without being inspired by attentiveness.

22. A necessary aspect of prayer is patient waiting. When you feel dryness or insensibility, do not abandon your prayer. For your patient waiting and laboring against the insensibility of the heart, the mercy of God will descend on you in the form of compunction. Compunction is a gift of God that is sent to those who continue steadfastly in prayer (Rom.12:12), who constantly advance in prayer and are led by it to spiritual perfection.

24. During prayer, do not seek ecstatic emotions and do not incite your nerves. Do not inflame your blood. On the contrary, you must preserve your heart in profound calm, in which it can be led to a sense of repentance. The warmth of sensuality, the fire of our fallen nature, is rejected by God. Your heart requires purification by tears of repentance and prayer of repentance. When it becomes pure, then God Himself will send down on it His all-holy spiritual fire.

25. Attention during prayer brings the nerves and the blood to a calm state and helps the heart to plunge deeply into repentance and remain in it. The divine fire does not destroy this calm of the heart if it descends to the upper room of the heart, when the disciples of Christ will be gathered there - that is, thoughts and emotions taken from the Gospels. This fire does not burn, does not inflame the heart. On the contrary, it bedews it, cools it and reconciles the person with all other people and with all circumstances of life. It leads the heart to the unutterable love for God and fellow man. 

26. Absentmindedness is a thief of prayer. Whoever prays in a distracted manner feels complete emptiness and dryness within him. Whoever prays distractedly is deprived of all spiritual fruits that usually come from attentive prayer. …such a prayer is not acceptable to God.

27. Fantasy during prayer is even more dangerous than absentmindedness. Distraction makes prayer fruitless, but fantasy gives rise to false fruits: self-delusion or demonic delusion, according to the Holy Fathers.

30. The fruits of true prayer are the following: holy peace in the soul, united with quiet, silent joy, devoid of images, self-conceit, and inflamed gushes of emotion; love for others that does not distinguish between good and evil people or worthy and unworthy people, but that mediates for all before God as for himself, as for his own body. From such a love for others, the purest love of God will shine forth.

34. For the beginning, short and frequent prayers are better than long prayers that occur only infrequently, separated by long stretches of time.

36. Prayer is the head, the source, the mother of all virtues.

37. Be wise in your prayer. Do not ask for anything perishable or vain in your prayer, remembering the command of the Saviour: “seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things,” that is, all the necessities of daily life, “shall be added to you” (Mt 6:33).

38. Whatever you intend to do, whatever you desire, even in the most difficult circumstances of your life, plunge your thoughts down into prayer before God. Ask for whatever you consider necessary and beneficial; however, leave the fulfillment of your petition (or lack thereof) to the will of God in faith and trust in His omnipotence, wisdom and goodness. He Who prayed in the garden of Gethsemane gave us the best example of such prayer: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done”(Luke22:42).

From The Refuge: Anchoring the Soul in God by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

Collected Works, Vol.2   Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY  2019

Trans. by Nicholas Kotar