How to Read Spiritually and Pray according to Saint Symeon the New Theologian
- The Orthodox Ethos Team
- 13 hours ago
- 9 min read
1) To Retain in the Mind What is Read in Divine Scripture is the Action of the Power of God.
Unless a learner retains in his mind and remembers what he is taught, he gets no benefit whatever from his learning. A literate person who reads, but who does not understand what he reads, is the same as one who is illiterate. A person who reads and understands, if he cannot retain in his mind what he has read and understood, gets no benefit whatever from reading.
With regard to Divine Scripture, to read it is within our power; but to understand what we read depends on us and does not depend on us. The effort and attention that reading demands depends on us; to understand what we read is the work of the grace of God. But to retain in the mind and remember what has been understood is entirely the work of the grace of God. That is why few retain it in their mind, just as in general few of those who are chosen are being saved.
Reading teaches a man what leads him to God and makes him God’s, while prayer causes God to have mercy on the man and to enlighten his mind so that he can understand and remember what he reads. Writings on worldly matters, readers can even understand themselves; but no one can understand or remember saving and divine things without illumination by the Holy Spirit.
2) Concerning Prayer and Reading.
For one who has learned to pray as he should reading is not so necessary, because the grace of the Holy Spirit fills his soul with divine light and transforms it to the divine likeness. But he who prefers to sit and read rather than learn how to pray as he should is in delusion and alienates himself from salvation; in fact, such a person is insensible, even though he says that he has read the whole of Scripture and always has it on his tongue.
It is impossible for fruit of the earth to ripen without the sun’s warmth. Let the seed germinate during the winter, and in the spring it will shoot up and produce stem and stalk; but if all the time it is dark and cold, its fruit will never ripen. It will be a plant that is good for nothing and useless; it would have been better not to have sprouted at all. In the same way, he who is not warmed with the glow of the spiritual sun, Christ the Lord, by means of prayer performed in the proper manner, cannot obtain ripe spiritual fruit, i.e. devotion and profit from his reading.
Much time and labour, more mental than physical, is needed first of all to learn to pray as one ought, and then, having learned, to continue to pray. That is why the Apostle commands us always to sing and praise God with all our heart, and not just with our lips (Ephes. 5: 19). Since it is from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, we should see to it that even our vocal prayer is the overflow of our heart. And this happens when a clean heart is created in us, a divine and right spirit is renewed within us, and the joy of God’s salvation is restored to us, such joy as is born of fellowship and communion with Christ, and is then confirmed by the grace of the Spirit of God, according to the word of the Prophet who first said: Create In me a clean heart, O Lord and renew a right spirit within me, and then: Restore to me the Joy of Thy salvation and confirm me with a princely spirit, so that the evil spirits may find no quarter from which to shake the thoughts and movements of our souls with their temptations and suggestions.
When the soul is in a position to pray in the manner indicated, then it is possible for it to be ripened and matured by the mystic rays of divine illumination which descend upon the person praying during prayer and as a result of prayer; that is to say, he obtains delight and profit from what he reads and understands. He who does not act in this way understands nothing of what he reads as he ought, does not feel the sweetness of it, and gets no benefit from it whatever.
3) How Should a Christian Pray?
To pray to God is an extremely good work and brings great profit to the one who prays. If great benefit comes from conversation with an earthly king, how much greater benefit must we derive from conversation with the Heavenly King by means of prayer? Just as no one will dare to approach a person talking to an earthly king and interrupt the conversation, so the demons will not dare to approach a person talking to God.
On the other hand, great harm comes from not praying to God. For then the soul is deprived of divine illumination and divine power, and diabolic temptations give him no rest. Then the demons constantly arouse indecent movements, impure desire, sensual lust, falsehood, vainglory, pride and presumption. As air is essential for the body in order to breathe, so the unceasing remembrance of God—that is, prayer—is essential for the soul.
But again, if one prays to God merely in a haphazard way, anyhow, as it were in passing, without that fear or reverence proper to one who is standing in the presence of God before whom the Cherubim tremble, not only does one derive no profit from it, not only does one cause the loss we mentioned above but such a person suffers beyond all comparison the most pernicious harm, the wrath of God, alienation from God, banishment from God. For just as royal bodyguards at once remove from a king’s presence and drive out a man who stands before the king carelessly, without respect and propriety, and the king does not stop them, so God’s Angels wrest from the presence of God and from His gaze and drive out the mind of him who stands before God and prays to Him carelessly, as it were with contempt, without reverence and the right spirit. Then demons immediately seize him with insolence and violence and twirl him where they please in obscene and unclean places, or to evil deeds, or vain and unprofitable things. And neither does he himself who is suffering this from the demons feel it, not does God pity him or free him from it, for the simple reason that he disregarded Him and broke His commandment which says: Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling (Ps. 2: 11).
Therefore it would have been far better for such a man if he had never prayed at all, because the demons do not take possession of a soul with such tyranny for other sins as for contempt of God. Even an earthly king tolerates his debtors and those who break his laws in some way, but those who despise him are subjected to severe and terrible punishments. So there is no greater sin than to pray to God with contemptuous negligence.
God is bodiless and invisible. Therefore we must serve Him not only bodily, and not only visibly. To serve God merely physically and visibly is inconsistent with the divine nature, as also the Prophet David says: If Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would have given it: but burnt offerings do not please Thee. The sacrifice for God is a contrite spirit: a contrite and humble heart God will not despise (Ps. 50: 16). Now contrition of heart occurs in the mind and thoughts, and our mind and thoughts are invisible. So as we are obliged to render to the invisible God invisible service, we must serve Him with our mind and thoughts. And this is proper and compatible service: to offer to the Invisible what is invisible, and to the Spiritual what is spiritual. But afterwards and along with this, we must also offer what is visible; together with our soul we must offer our bodily life, that we may serve God with our whole being. God is not served by human hands (Acts 17: 25). If He accepts bodily and sensory offerings, we must know when and how He accepts them, namely when they are offered from a pure heart.
Prayer and the singing of the divine psalms is no other than conversation with God in which we either ask Him to grant us what God can consistently grant to man, or we glorify Him for all the works created by Him, or we praise His wonders which from the beginning of time throughout all ages He has done for His glory, for the salvation of people and for the requital and punishment of the unjust and evil. Or we make known and proclaim His providential actions which He performs mystically and secretly according to His wise economy. Or we magnify the great mystery of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God; namely, how the Son of God without withdrawing from all the rest of creation, withdrew in the immaculate womb of the Ever-Virgin Mary and became man, was born, was brought up, and showed us the divine life and way of life, was crucified, died, and rose from dead, thereby giving also to the human race the hope of resurrection and eternal life, and ascended as man to heaven, in order to send down to those who believe in Him the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the one God, the Father, Whom the first man had at first but lost through his unbelief, when he did not trust God’s words. For this was the final aim of the incarnation. That is to say the Son of God, God the Word, took flesh and became man that the souls of those who believe in Him as God and man (i.e. in the one Christ in two natures, inseparable and unconfused, the Divinity and humanity), might receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and in this way might be1 reborn, recreated and renewed through holy baptism and become as the first man was before the transgression, sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit in his mind, conscience, and in all his senses, so as to be entirely free after this of the life corrupted by the fall which can draw the desire of the soul to carnal and worldly pleasures.
If now a person who should talk to God in his prayer about all that we have just mentioned, turning it over in his mind day and night—if, let us suppose, for a long time he only repeats all this with his tongue, while with his mind he does not know what he is saying, will he not seem to have lost his wits? But in any case it is quite clear that he has not yet become a believer and has not yet entered into friendship with God. For one is and is called a believer to whom is entrusted and who possesses the grace of the Holy Spirit. And this grace enlightens the mind, gathers and concentrates it, that it may understand to Whom it is talking and what it is talking about. Consequently, whoever does not act in this way in prayer is without the grace of the Holy Spirit, remains an unbeliever and is far from God.
And so first of all it is necessary to become a believer and reconciled to God and on terms of friendship with Him, asking His forgiveness for all your past sins committed in thought, word and deed. Once the soul is reconciled to God and restored to friendship with Him it becomes meek, humble and contrite. And in fact this is a sign of reconciliation and friendship with God. For God usually gives believers these gifts first, that is to say meekness and humility. And the demons no longer struggle with a meek and humble soul as before, neither in· the matter of sensuality (love of pleasure), nor avarice (love of money), nor ambition (love of glory). And thus through these two gifts of Christ the soul finds rest and is not troubled by any irrelevant or indecent thoughts. Such a soul prays in the proper manner, that is to say with fear, reverence, and attention, and not merely with the lips. And this is not possible for anyone, either for a layman, or a monk, or a solitary, or a cleric, or a deacon, or a bishop, unless the soul of each of them has become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, according to the measure of their faith in Christ. for no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12: 3).
Those who truly worship God, worship by the Spirit and pray by the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3: 17), freedom from demons and from all the passions sown by them in the soul, from hatred, sadness, confusion and agitation, cowardice and faint-heartedness, ill-temper and irritability, malice and unbelief, anger and eagerness for every kind of self-pleasing. But those who are slaves of the passions, even if they are fasters, hermits, constant singers of the psalms, expounders of the divine scriptures, framers of right dogmas, teachers and preachers of the Church, even if they are called right reverend, most learned and all-powerful, have no part with Christ, the true light that enlightens from his evil self-will everyone who comes into the true world of the virtues. For darkness has no fellowship with light.
May we also be granted to receive that light in Christ Jesus, to Whom belongs glory, honour and adoration, with His eternal Father and His lifegiving Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages. Amen.