"I say to you all: watch!"

One of the essential characteristics of Orthodox Spirituality is Watchfulness. The pious Christian must keep watch continuously, so as to guard his heart from the assaults of the enemy, who constantly hammers him with wicked thoughts, with unclean fantasies, with passionate feelings.

This spiritual vigilance, accompanied by continual prayer, so long as it is practiced with consistency, with humility and a mindset of repentance, purifies man both spiritually and bodily, making him a vessel of the uncontainable God. This labor is not a formal duty, a virtue that at some point comes to an end, but is a lifelong activity, for the devil also struggles throughout life to deceive the soul and to separate it from her Bridegroom, Christ. God-loving souls, wholly dedicated to the love of our Lord with attentiveness and prayer, were found worthy to repeat with humility and gratitude: “I sleep, but my heart is awake.” Divine Angels cover this blessed soul even in sleep; thus, as soon as the eyes open upon awakening, the whole being turns in doxology toward our Lord, and the day begins with divine blessing. The believer, with deep awareness of his weakness, falls mentally before the Cross of our Lord and calls upon heavenly assistance, to be delivered from the roaring lion. The environment which our age offers us is now almost universally hostile to hesychasm. Therefore, great intensity of Watchfulness is required, for today the Patristic saying holds true more than ever: “The one who wishes to be saved must be many-eyed.” May the eyes of our soul always be turned toward our Redeemer, that every artifice of the devil may be dissolved. The God-inspired Abba Barsanuphios counsels us most wondrously: “Those sailing on the sea, even if calm happens to come upon them, yet still they are in the deep, and they await the storm and the danger and the shipwreck, and the brief calm has not benefited them at all; for only then do they have safety, when they arrive at the harbor; and many have even been shipwrecked at the very mouth of the harbor. So also the sinner, so long as he is in the world, ought always to fear shipwreck.” Let the exhortation of our Lord be our constant companion during this perilous voyage across the sea: “Take heed, watch and pray..., and what I say to you, I say to all: watch!”

 

- Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili (+2013), Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, May 2/15, 2005

 

Greek text: https://353agios.blogspot.com/2015/05/blog-post.html