pure prayer :: most fitting

Leave a comment August 21, 2019 nourishinggrace

Pure prayer is not the personal property of monks or a small group of individuals. It is for everyone, it is the one activity that is the most fitting to the human person. Every human being is called to the wedding feast of the Lord, and thus every human being lives in order to practice pure prayer. It is the most simple practice or activity that a person can undertake. Of course, it is another matter entirely if a person has become accustomed to allowing his mind to wander about and be tyrannized by thoughts, so that when he turns to prayer, he does so with a head filled with distractions and thus can not engage in pure prayer.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery

The Mystical Marriage : Spiritual Life According to Saint Maximos the Confessor

that element that unites us with God

Leave a comment July 31, 2019 nourishinggrace

culpeper – virginia
small rural town
down to earth people

Love is not the feeling or emotion I have when I sin, or when I hurt, or when I have a feeling of sweetness in my heart. This is why Saint Maximos says, “When the mind – not the heart – begins to make progress in the love of God. Love is that element that unites us with God. Love distances me from myself and binds me closely to God. And my deeper being, that tends toward God, and which can draw together with it the whole of the human person, is my spirit. The human spirit is similar to God in the sense that it can draw near to God, and can be united with Him. If, then, my sprit loves God then my mind will also be absorbed by God, and then I can say that I love God, and my mind will bring with it my body, and my soul.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

one signifies the other

2 Comments May 10, 2019 nourishinggrace

Prayer is the transcendence of time and thus an enty into the timelessness, eternity, perfection and splendor of God. Prayer is our inclusion in the life of God, our perichoresis in God, and – if I may put it this way, our obliteration in God, so that we might become one with Him. This is what happens in prayer; this is what prayer is. And this is why love and prayer are so closely aligned that each can signify the other.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

of blessed memory

The Mystical Marriage : The Spiritual Life According to Saint Maximos the Confessor

in simplicity of heart

Leave a comment May 8, 2015 nourishinggrace

The soul is like hardening clay

if it clings to materiality

and like soft wax when it clings to God

Saint Maximos the Confessor

Therefore the Christian, who is called to a heavenly country, who is only a stranger and a sojourner upon earth, ought not attach his heart to anything earthly, but should cling to God alone, the Source of life, our resurrection, and the Life eternal.