But the less you possess, the simpler is your mode of life. All excess has been thrown away, and the heart gathers itself together at its core. Little by little it tries to get into the kernel, where the stairs to heaven are to be found.
Then prayer, too, becomes simpler. Prayers gather around the centre and enter it. There in the depths is seen the only prayer that is needful: the prayer for mercy.
For what can a sinner, and the chief among them (I Timothy 1:15) desire other than that the Lord might have mercy on him? Has he anything to give? Does he have strength of his own, a will of his own, any composure of his own? Can he undertake anything by himself? Does he know anything? Does he understand, does he perceive anything, that he, who owns nothing, can call his own?
He owns nothing: for sin is nothingness, that which does not exist. Sin is emptiness, darkness, denial. There the sinner rests, in that nothingness.
As such he sees himself, and the less he himself possesses, the richer he is: for the emptied room within him is filled not with perishable goods, but with the fullness of eternal life, its light and its affirmation-love and mercy. It is the Lord who dwells as guest in his house.
But how can he, this sinner, merit the Lord’s arrival? How can he ever imagine that the Lord will look upon him in his darkness? However he tries to cleanse himself, however he struggles and works, however he follows the commandment of the Gospel and watches and fasts and in every way endeavours to deny himself for the Lord’s sake, he sees himself even so fall back in to ill humour and quarrelsomeness, lovelessness and laziness, impatience and ingratitude and all imaginable vices. How can he ever expect the Lord to come into such a room?
Therefore he prays: Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on me, a sinner. For truly I have tried to do what it was my duty to do to serve Thee: I have ploughed the field of my heart that Thou gavest me to tend, and I have led the cattle there (Luke 17:7-10), but I am only Thy humble servant and without Thee I can do nothing. So have mercy on me and fill me with Thy grace.
Through work he increases his faith (Luke 17:5), through prayer he gets strength to work. Thus work and prayer live closely together, until they flow together and become one. His work becomes to pray, and his prayer is his work. This is what the saints call spiritual activity, the prayer of the heart, or the Jesus Prayer.
~Tito Colliander, The Way of the Ascetics
