A look at Orthodox prayer

“The brothers asked Father Agathon: “amongst all our different activities, father, which is the virtue that requires the greatest effort?” he answered: “Forgive me, but I think there is no labour greater than praying to God. For every time a man wants to pray, his enemies the demons try to prevent him; for they know that nothing obstructs them so much as prayer to God. In everything else that a man undertakes, if he perseveres, he will attain rest. But in order to pray a man must struggle to his last breath.”

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

What better way to spend your Friday evening than reading up on some Orthodox theology of prayer? Well, there are many better ways to spend it to be sure, but I’m working early on Saturday morning so dancing the night away with wild abandon (as if) will have to be put on hold for now. Instead, here are some thoughts on prayer.

I haven’t read much in the way of Orthodox theology, though I have to say I find it fascinating, though a little mysterious too. I’m slowly reading my way through The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Orthodoxy or seeking to broaden out and think through their spirituality and discipleship in some different ways.

The Orthodox divide the growing life of prayer into three different stages, purification, illumination and union, or to put it another way: first comes the practice of the virtues, second is the contemplation of nature, and third and last of all comes the pure theology – contemplation of God himself.

The three stages of the life of prayer

1.      The practice of the virtues

The life of prayer begins with repentance and with God’s faithful help, the believer puts to death his impure and passionate impulses to sin and so grows in Christlikeness and purity of heart, for without a pure heart, no one can truly see God.

2.      The contemplation of nature

Bishop Ware writes here: “in the contemplation of nature, the Christian sharpens his perception of the “isness” of things, and so discovers the Creator present in everything.” To an urbanite raised in the western tradition, this sounded at first like New Age mumbo jumbo, but on reflection I think it’s a superb point to make. In beholding nature in all its created glory we can come to say with the Psalmist:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1)

3.      The contemplation of God

Having begun our spiritual life with repentance and acknowledging God through the beauty of his created order, we come directly to God himself. We meet the creator “face to face in an unmediated union of love.” Of course even in the closest and brightest moments of prayer, we still see but through a glass darkly, but in the age to come we will finally see God face to face. In the union of prayer and beholding God we taste the first fruits of what God has promised is to come.

Ware is quick to point out though, that the spiritual walk with God cannot be neatly classified into these three neat segments. In reality, says Ware, we are always at stage one with God, because there is always more to repent of, but God in his rich mercy still grants us a taste of his glorious presence. The three parts of prayer are not sequential, but constantly overlap.

Next in this mini-series I will look at the three presuppositions of prayer. In contrast to much modern piety, the Orthodox stress that prayer is never just a private inward practice between an individual and God, but that it must always involve the wider church, the sacraments, and the Bible, but more on that later on.