One day, the "Curé d'Curé", a French saint of the early nineteenth century, asked an old peasant what he was doing, sitting for hours in the church, apparently without even praying; The peasant answered, "I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are good together." This man has learned to speak to God without breaking the silence of intimacy with words. If we know how to do this, we can use any form of prayer. If we want the prayer itself to consist in the words that we use, then we will be hopelessly tired of them, because without the depth of silence these words will be superficial and boring.

    But how inspiring words can be when there is silence behind them, when they are filled with a right spirit:

    Lord, open my mouth, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise" (Psalm 50:17).

THE ESSENCE OF PRAYER

    Almost from the very beginning, the Gospel of Matthew brings us face to face with the very essence of prayer. The Magi saw the long-awaited star; they immediately set out to find the King; they came to the manger, fell on their knees, bowed down and brought gifts; they expressed prayer in its perfection, that is, in contemplation and reverent worship.

    In more or less popular literature on prayer, it is often said that prayer is an exciting journey. It is not uncommon to hear: "Learn to pray! Praying is so interesting, so exciting, it is the discovery of a new world, you will meet God, you will find the way to spiritual life." In a sense, of course, this is true; But something much more serious is forgotten: that prayer is a dangerous journey, and we cannot embark on it without risk. The Apostle Paul says that it is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31). Therefore, to consciously go out to meet the Living God means to go on a terrible journey: in a sense, every meeting with God is the Last Judgment. Whenever we come into the presence of God, whether in the sacraments or in prayer, we do/do something very dangerous, because, according to the words of the Scriptures, God is fire. And unless we are ready to surrender completely to the divine flame and become a burning bush in the desert that burned without burning, this flame will scorch us, because the experience of prayer can only be known from within and cannot be trifled with.

    Approaching God is always a revelation of both the beauty of God and the distance that lies between Him and us. "Distance" is an imprecise word, for it is not defined by the fact that God is holy and we are sinners. Distance is determined by the sinner's relationship to God. We can draw near to God only if we do so with the consciousness that we are coming to judgment. If we come after condemning ourselves; if we come because we love Him in spite of our own unfaithfulness; if we come to Him, loving Him more than well-being, in which He is absent, then we are open to Him and He is open to us, and there is no distance; The Lord comes very close, in love and compassion. But if we stand before God in the armor of our pride, our self-confidence, if we stand before Him as if we have the right to do so, if we stand and demand an answer from Him, then the distance separating creation from the Creator becomes infinite. The English writer C. S. Lewis[2] expresses the idea that in this sense distance is relative: when Lucifer appeared before God, questioning Him, at the very moment when he asked his question not in order to humbly understand, but in order to compel God to answer, he found himself at an infinite distance from God. God did not move, nor did Satan, but even without any movement they were infinitely distant from each other.

    Whenever we approach God, the contrast between what He is and what we are becomes terribly clear. We may not be aware of this all the time that we live as if away from God, all the time that His presence and His image remain dim in our thoughts and in our perception; but the closer we get to God, the sharper the contrast appears. It is not the constant thought of one's sins, but the vision of God's holiness, that allows the saints to know their sinfulness. When we look at ourselves without the fragrant background of God's presence, sins and virtues seem to be something petty and, in a sense, insignificant; only against the background of the Divine presence do they appear with all their relief and acquire all their depth and tragedy.

    Whenever we approach God, we are faced with either life or death. This encounter is life if we come to Him in the proper spirit and are renewed by Him; it is destruction if we approach Him without a reverent spirit and a broken heart; ruin if we bring pride or presumption. Therefore, before embarking on the so-called "exciting journey of prayer," we must not forget for a moment that nothing more significant, more awe-inspiring, can happen than the encounter with God that we have come to. We must realize that in this process we will lose life: the old Adam in us must die. We hold fast to the old man, we fear for him, and it is so difficult not only at the beginning of the path, but also years later, to feel that we are completely on the side of Christ, against the old Adam!

    Prayer is a journey that brings not exciting experiences, but new responsibilities. As long as we are in ignorance, nothing is asked of us, but as soon as we know something, we are responsible for how we use our knowledge. It may be given to us as a gift, but we are responsible for every particle of truth that we know, and once it is our own, we cannot leave it dormant, but must manifest it in our conduct. And in this sense, we are required to answer for every truth that we understand.

    Only with a feeling of fear, reverence for God, and the deepest reverence can we approach the risk of prayer, and we must grow to it in our external life as fully and definitely as possible. It is not enough, sitting comfortably in an armchair, to say: "Behold, I am approaching the worship of God, before the face of God." We must understand that if Christ were standing before us, we would behave differently, and we must learn to behave in the presence of the invisible Lord, as we would in the presence of the Lord who has become visible to us.

    First of all, it presupposes a certain state of mind, which is reflected in the state of the body. If Christ were here, before us, and we stood completely transparent, mind and body, to His gaze, then we would feel reverence, fear of God, love, perhaps even horror, but we would not behave as freely as we usually do. The modern world has lost much of the spirit of prayer, and the discipline of the body has become a secondary thing in the minds of men, whereas it is far from secondary. We forget that we are not a soul dwelling in a body, but a man consisting of body and soul, and that, according to the Apostle Paul, we are called to glorify God both in our bodies and in our souls; our bodies, as well as our souls, are called to the glory of the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:20).