The Nine Steps of Prayer

by Elder Cleopa Ilie of Sihastria (+1998)

 

 

The greatest wisdom that guards a person from every sin and leads to eternal happiness is to always keep death before your eyes. Death, death, death, death… death. Keep “Lord Jesus” in your mind and heart, and reflect on the words of Saint Basil. Scripture says that you must walk straight before the Lord, turning neither to the left nor to the right. And to walk straight you need two walls—not walls of brick, not of stone, not of cement, not of iron, not of wood. Two spiritual walls.

To your right, the fear of God; and to your left, the fear of death. Scripture says, “by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.” And again Jesus, the son of Sirach, says, “In all you do, remember the end of your life, and then you will never sin.” Whoever has the fear of God on his right and the fear of death on his left walks straight before the Lord.

We are asleep in sin all the time. If we were not asleep in sin, we would weep. We would weep for our sins all day long! Look at St. Arsenius the Great! He wept for eighty years in the desert. His eyelashes fell out from so much weeping! And he had lived in a palace in Rome! He had been a nobleman! And one day he left for the desert. Those were the saints—the ones who wept for their sins. For we offend God at every moment.

We must always keep the prayer of the mind: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Think of death, guard yourself from sins, go to church, and make your confession every evening. Why? Because we offend God every minute—either in thought, or in word, or willingly, or unwillingly, or knowingly.

My children, prayer is the food of the soul. Just as we cannot live without air, without food, without drink, without warmth, without light, without rest, so the soul cannot live without prayer.

But how can you pray without ceasing if you do not know how? There are four kinds of prayer for us beginners, for children, for the infants of Christ. The prayer of the lips: Saint Paul says, “Offer to the Lord the fruit of your lips.” The prayer of the tongue: the Psalter says, “He was extolled with my tongue.” The prayer of the mouth: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” And the prayer of the voice: “I cry out to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord I make my supplication.”

These four kinds of prayer are the lowest rungs of the ladder of prayer. But these rungs are for the children, the infants of Christ. We must keep climbing the ladder of prayer. Prayer has nine steps, all the way to divine rapture. When you pray, what the mouth says must be understood by the mind. You must bring the words of the mouth to the understanding of the mind. And when the mind understands, then you have reached the fifth step. The first four are the lower ones I mentioned.

But the prayer of the mind is only half of the prayer. Maybe you read the Sbornik (“The Art of Prayer”). A man tells St. Theophan the Recluse, “I have the prayer of the mind, but my thoughts swarm like wasps.” Get down from there! That place is a noisy marketplace! Who told you to remain at the prayer of the mind? You must reach the prayer of the heart. That is to say, what the mouth says, the mind must understand, and the heart must feel. Then you have reached pure prayer of the heart. Saint Isaac the Syrian says that only one person out of ten thousand who strive reaches the pure prayer of the heart.

When the mind starts to move toward the heart, to unite with it, it encounters two toll-houses. And as the mind descends into the heart, it meets the first toll-house, at which you must not stop even for a moment: the toll-house of imagination. Do not imagine God, for neither cherubim, nor seraphim, nor anyone else can imagine God! God has no boundaries through all eternity, so you cannot form an image of Him. Pass quickly through there! Then you arrive at the toll-house of reason, at the gate of the heart. Here the exalted mind is attacked not with sins or passions, but with words of Scripture—these are theological demons. They enter a mind swollen with pride and troubled by lofty questions and speculations: “Where is this from? Is this from the Song of Moses? Who are the horses?” and so on. But then St. Gregory Palamas clarifies, “Many things, O Lord, are divine by grace.” However, he talks about a higher, more spiritual rung.

We have to go through three stages to reach perfection: moral action, natural contemplation in the Spirit, and deification by grace. Moral action still uses thinking in order to reach deification. When you pray, do not theologize, lest you be mocked by demons. The theological demons attack you. To keep your mind captive, the demons of pride rush in: “Look at the great things I understand now because I pray!” And the demons laugh themselves to pieces. And you are not praying; you are theologizing. No! You should descend with a single thought into the heart: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me…” So set theology aside!

And when the mind unites with the heart, what is the sign that you have descended into the heart? A nail of fire appears in the heart. A nail of fire! The heart grows hot like fire, and you feel a great, divine sweetness. What has happened? The Bridegroom has united with the Bride—Christ with our soul, for we have Christ in our heart from baptism. He has united through the rational part, through the mind, with our soul. And now the chest warms, the spine warms, the whole body becomes fire! That is when the mind has reached the heart!

And after the body becomes very warm, the eyes begin to pour forth tears. An old monk in the wilderness told me, poor man: “My mind descended into my heart twice in ten minutes, and I had only five handkerchiefs with me.” Three times he wrung them out, so many tears he wept. “And I wept when the grace withdrew… For two hours or so I was in heaven, seeing divine things.” Yes! He had spoken with Christ! “Pure prayer of the heart, which one out of ten thousand who strive may reach,” says St. Isaac the Syrian.

But above the prayer of the heart is another one: self-acting prayer. Meaning that you do not pray only for an hour or two, but continuously. As it says in the Song of Songs: “I sleep, but my heart keeps watch and prays.” And Saint Paul says: “Pray without ceasing.” I am not saying that I have it—I am speaking in general. There are people who pray without ceasing!

So… we have reached the prayer called self-acting. And above this is the visionary prayer: to sit here and see what is happening on the Holy Mountain, in Jerusalem, in France, in Greece, in Italy, anywhere. This was said of St. Anthony the Great: he had under his guidance ten thousand hermits, and once, speaking with them, he said, “Our brother from Nitria (a thousand kilometers away!) has just left his body, and his soul is coming to bow to us! Go outside for a moment!” And when they stepped out, they spent four hours in divine sweetness! Saint Anthony, from where he was, saw that the man had departed this life a thousand kilometers away. This is the purest and holiest mind: the eighth step. To sit here and see what is happening in Bucharest, in your home, in Spain, in this world! This is visionary prayer, above the self-acting prayer.

There is yet another, higher: contemplative or spiritual prayer. This is also called “the rapture of the mind.” With this, St. Paul was lifted to heaven, to the third heaven. And he knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body—God knew—up to the third heaven! If only one in ten thousand who strive reaches pure prayer, only one in a generation reaches contemplative prayer, say the Holy Fathers. This is the ninth step. It is also called divine vision.

Here you have, in brief, the steps of prayer.

 

Source: https://romelders.substack.com/p/st-cleopa-ilie-the-nine-steps-of

And

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vLmKHpW2KQ