Therefore, if we believe in God, we must cultivate the fear of God in ourselves. We must put ourselves before God more often. And this standing, in fact, is prayer. And when there is no standing before God, then this is not a prayer, but simply muttering or reading. Because of our sinfulness, we cannot stand before God for a long time, but let it be in our lives at least sometimes, for a brief moment. Then this moment will increase – until we reach unceasing prayer. Unceasing prayer does not at all mean constantly saying something about oneself. Unceasing prayer is a remembrance of God, a remembrance of the fact that every second the Lord looks at you, reads your every thought, watches your every action, and hears your every word.

When a person lives in such a state, he cannot sin, he is afraid, he is ashamed to insult the One Who shed His Blood for him. He keeps his conscience taut like a string and drives away all temptations. Because the devil constantly besieges a person with thoughts: one thought has come, then another. And you can savor them, look at them, revel in them, or you can reject them with anger: "Lord, help me; Lord, save me; Lord, drive this dirty stuff away from me" – and be in a constant struggle. It is with this struggle that unceasing prayer and spiritual life begin.

A certain monk was asked: "Father, who taught you unceasing prayer?" Constant temptation and constant reflection. The devil constantly wants to tempt a person to sin, and a person constantly turns to God: "Lord, save me from sin, I do not want it, my mind is indignant; although my heart is inclined to sin, I want to enjoy it, but my faith and my mind reject it. Lord, help me." And so it goes on unceasingly for a day, a month, a year, ten years, twenty years, and all one's life – until the soul is filled with the Holy Spirit; And then the devil will not be able to approach man.

Otherwise, many are surprised that they have scattered prayer or thoughts besiege them. St. Anthony the Great, the founder of monasticism, spent twenty years in a cave before clearing his head of thoughts, saw no one and prayed unceasingly to God. This is Anthony the Great! How much work do we need to do to achieve at least some purity? Therefore, we must begin this work while we still have the strength for it, the sooner the better, as long as we have some kind of bodily and mental energy, as long as we have the desire. Unfortunately, many people come to God in such a state that it is difficult to help them. That's how it happens that a person comes to the doctor – oh, he says, a year and a half earlier, it would have been possible to save him, but now that's it, now it is only possible to maintain it, to prolong life, but not to cure. So it is in the spiritual life. It is possible to corrupt oneself so much that it is no longer possible to save oneself, because every sin decomposes our mind, decomposes our heart, corrupts our conscience, decomposes our entire being. Therefore, we must hurry, not postpone it until tomorrow, but begin this spiritual work right now, so that we may have time and not be robbed. No wonder the Lord says: "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There, as we say, in the next world, people will really weep and gnash their teeth in impotent anger, because they will not be able to get enough of sin.

And in order for us not to sin, we need to know God, to know prayer, to know standing before God. Then we will always be with God – both here and there. And it doesn't matter to us where we are, in Africa or in the tundra, fired from work or promoted, whether our leg hurts or not. For us, it will only matter whether we are before God and whether we are pure before Him. This will be our main concern. This is the goal and meaning of the Christian life: unceasing communion with God. And it can be attained only in purity, because only "the pure in heart, for they shall see God" are blessed.

Therefore, through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, let us try to cleanse our hearts of all sin – not only our lives from sinful actions, not only our tongues from sinful words, but also our very souls, hearts, and thoughts from sin. Amen.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,

August 9, 1986, evening

7th Sunday after Pentecost

"As Jesus walked... Two blind men followed Him and cried out: "Have mercy on us, Jesus, Son of David!" And here is one of the episodes told to us by the Evangelist Matthew.

"And when he came into the house, the blind came to him. And Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I can do this? They say to Him, "Yes, Lord! Then he touched their eyes, and said, According to your faith be it done unto you. And their eyes were opened."

Often we evaluate our prayer incorrectly. If we managed to pray quietly, no one seemed to disturb us, there was silence in our souls and our thoughts did not run away, then we have a sweet feeling of duty fulfilled in our souls and it seems to us that we have prayed well. In fact, this is most often a deep misconception. In fact, there is no such thing as a good or bad prayer – there is either prayer or no prayer. Prayer can be evaluated only by its result: what is being fulfilled was prayer, that is, communion with God.

The blind who followed Jesus Christ turned to God – and received what they asked for. Why did the Evangelist Matthew choose this one out of many episodes? For thirty-three years, living on earth, the Lord performed so many miracles that the whole world would not be able to contain books about them if they were written. But individual miracles have remained in the memory of the Church for our edification. Most often, we come to church with some kind of need, and everyone wants with all their might for their request to be fulfilled, some even cry. And in this Gospel it is written what we need to do in order for our prayer to be fulfilled. Therefore, we need to assimilate this Gospel narrative by heart in order to follow it as much as possible.