I wanted to read you a passage from St. Basil the Great on the question of how to pray without ceasing. That’s certainly something that we do get discussion about and questions about as Orthodox Christians. I remember a dear friend of mine, John Wilson, who is the editor of Books and Culture. Writing somewhere, he says, of course, when St. Paul says to pray without ceasing, of course he didn’t mean that literally; it would be impossible to do that literally. And I think many people feel that way. It’s like: “I’m going to say the Lord’s Prayer, and then I’ll say it a thousand times in a row.” They can’t really envision how you would do it.

But as Orthodox Christians, of course we believe that St. Paul meant it literally and that it is possible to do, and that it is delightful and life-giving and joy-giving to pray without ceasing. It’s not the burden, like you’re wearing a harness and somebody’s cracking a whip over your back. It is life. The presence of our Lord is life, and this is a way that we can stand open to that life all the time.

When I first started to write about unceasing prayer and the Jesus Prayer, I went to the Bible to look it up, because I thought, “I know some place Paul says explicitly: Pray without ceasing,” and I found that in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances.” But as I followed the cross references, he says this four different times, to four different churches. Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Ephesians 6:18: “Pray at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.” Colossians 4:2: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” And so if he said this to four different congregations, he must have thought that this was important, and he must have thought that it was possible. He wouldn’t recommend this to people if it was only something that was going to frustrate them and sadden them. As I said, it’s a source of life and joy; we just have to get an idea of what does he mean by that.

So here’s the passage I recently saw from St. Basil’s Homily on St. Julitta, J-u-l-i-t-t-a. And this is from the 19th century translation by Philip Schaff, which is found in that multi— I think there are 35 volumes in the Ante-Nicene Fathers and Post-Nicene Fathers, and then the second collection of Post-Nicene Fathers—so it has a kind of King James kind of quality to it. We don’t use “thee and thou” language any more, but the people who were doing translations around the turn of the century, the last century, they just felt like that was more respectful and more beautiful. So I have to acknowledge that. It’s not the way I would write, it’s not the way I do write, but I understand what they were endeavoring to do. So this is some Philip Schaff language here. St. Basil says:

Ought we to pray without ceasing? Is it possible to obey such a command? These are questions which I see you are ready to ask, and I will endeavor, to the best of my ability, to defend the charge.

Prayer is a petition for good addressed by the pious to God, but we do not rigidly confine our speech petition to words, nor yet do we imagine that God requires to be reminded by speech. He knows our needs even though we ask him not. What do I say then? I say that we must not think to make our prayer complete by syllables. The strength of prayer lies rather in the purpose of our soul and in deeds of virtue reaching every part and moment of our life. “Whether ye eat,” it is said, “or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians, 10:31).

As thou takest thy seat at table, pray. As thou liftest the loaf, offer thanks to the Giver. When thou sustainest thy bodily weakness with wine, remember him who supplies thee with this gift, to make thy heart glad and to comfort thy infirmity. Has thy need for taking food passed away? Let not the thought of thy Benefactor pass away too. As thou art putting on thy tunic, thank the Giver of it. As thou wrappest thy cloak around thee, feel yet greater love to God, who alike in summer and in winter has given us coverings convenient for us, at once to preserve our life, and to cover what is unseemly. Is the day done? Give thanks to him who has given us the sun for our daily work, and has provided us a fire to light up the night, and to serve the rest of the needs of life. Let night give the other occasions of prayer. When thou lookest up to heaven and gazest at the beauty of the stars, pray to the Lord of the visible world; pray to God the Arch-artificer of the universe, who in wisdom hath made them all.

When thou seest all nature sunk in sleep, then again worship him who gives us, even against our wills, release from the continuous strain of toil, and by a short refreshment restores us once again to the vigor of our strength. Let not night herself be all, as it were, the special and peculiar property of sleep. Let not half thy life be useless through the senselessness of slumber. Divide the time of night between sleep and prayer. Nay, let thy slumbers be themselves experiences in piety; for it is only natural that our sleeping dreams should be for the most part echoes of the anxieties of the day. As have been our conduct and pursuits, so will inevitably be our dreams.

Thus wilt thou pray without ceasing, if thou prayest not only in words, but unitest thyself to God through all the course of life and so thy life be made one ceaseless and uninterrupted prayer.

Well, that’s a beautiful thought and I believe a very natural one that St. Basil the Great is giving us, that you turn everything you do all day long, you turn that to prayer. And that is a way of praying without ceasing. It’s like you train yourself; it’s like you train your mind to recognize that God is always present wherever you are, and he is almost like a companion for you, through your guardian angel who is beside you all the time. God is able to communicate with you all the time, if you pay attention. You will save yourself a lot of frustration if you train yourself to pay attention to the little bit of subtle messaging and direction that is coming from our beloved Lord to us through our guardian angel.

I remember when I was little, there would be cartoons showing a little angel on the right shoulder and a little devil on the left shoulder, both whispering in the ear and giving advice on what to do. I’ve read and heard Orthodox elders, and to some extent have experienced myself, that there really is an angelic presence on the right. And if you pay attention to it, it will guide you, and your life will be much happier. You won’t be frustrated as much. You will know the most efficient way to do things. All of that will be yours if you train yourself to pay attention to that voice.

Of course, the Jesus Prayer is a great help in training you to do this. I wrote a book called The Jesus Prayer. I recommend it; it’s got a lot more in it than I can say right here, but that’s the idea of the Jesus Prayer. It’s not only those 15, 20 half-hour minutes that you sit down and say the Jesus Prayer once a day or twice a day, as much as you can. It’s not only that period of time, because praying the Jesus Prayer gets it rolling inside to where it becomes almost constant. Even if it’s wordless, it is forming an attitude in you that inclines toward the Lord, that inclines toward gratitude toward him and for his great generosity, that inclines toward listening for his direction, because he’ll tell you the right way to do things and he’ll tell you when to not try to do something: it’ll just make you frustrated. It leads you to a happier life in that sense.

So the Jesus Prayer is the classic mode by which Orthodox Christians learn to cultivate prayer without ceasing, by setting aside time every day, to intentionally do nothing but the Jesus Prayer, and that gets the ball rolling in some sense, the Jesus Prayer being: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Or the way I say it is: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” My spiritual father, Fr. George Calciu, who I believe will be a saint one day, or recognized as a saint, he told me to keep that “a sinner” on the end, and since I made my confession to him, I think he had total authority to make that suggestion! [Laughter]

There is another thing I was going to say, though, after talking about the Jesus Prayer. You say it sometime during the day, and it begins to get a habit formed, of listening around the clock. You do not necessarily have the words of the Jesus Prayer going through your mind all the time—I don’t do that—but it forms a listening and grateful attitude, and that’s really the point.

I once saw a quote from St. Paisios that was, like many quotes from St. Paisios, very startling, takes you aback, and it includes his sense of humor. What a smart guy he was! What an intellect he had, for being somebody who was not an intellectual. He just had a very high intelligence as a natural gift from God. Anyway, the quote was, as best as I can remember, it was something like this: “Anybody can pray without ceasing. People think that it’s this impossible achievement, but that’s not the case. Really, anyone can begin right now and keep praying without ceasing, without turning aside from it, and without any preparation or training beforehand. All it takes is catastrophe.” I mean, that’s where I went: Whoa! And he went on to say a few more things about if a catastrophe happens in your life, you will start praying hard, and you will pray without ceasing, and it will come totally natural to you. And the conclusion I draw was: Let’s try to learn to do that without the catastrophe.

I have so often prayed to God: “Show me the right way. Teach me the right thing to do. Teach me this lesson. Give me a chance to learn this lesson—without the suffering.” Because I think if we stubbornly resist a lesson, eventually he has to get our attention with some kind of suffering, and suffering reduces us to prayer. Catastrophe reduces us to prayer. I want to learn how to pray before that happens, in hopes that he won’t have to use catastrophe in my life to get me to pray without ceasing. As I recall, that was a quote from St. Paisios that I read on Facebook. It stuck with me all this time. I’ve been Googling it; I can’t come up with it. So it must be in one of the five volumes of collected sayings; somebody must have posted it, but I can’t give you a citation for that.

Mostly this podcast was about those words from St. Basil the Great about how to pray without ceasing, and it’s something that Christians need to know so they’re not daunted by the command of St. Paul, so they don’t think of it as something that would be this heavy burden they’d have to bear. It means just recognizing the companionship of God as you go through the day. May we all learn to pray without ceasing.