As my soul bows to the ground I offer to you with all my bones and with all my heart the worship that befits you. O glorious God, who dwell in ineffable silence, you have built for my renewal a tabernacle of love on earth where it is your good pleasure to rest, a temple made of flesh and fashioned with the most holy oil of the sanctuary. Then you filled it with your holy presence so that all worship might be fulfilled in it, indicating the worship of the eternal persons of your Trinity, and revealing to the worlds which you had created in your grace an ineffable mystery, a power which cannot be felt or grasped by any part of your creation that has come into being. In wonder at it, angelic beings are submerged in silence, awed at the dark cloud of this eternal mystery and at the flood of glory which issues from within this source of wonder, for it receives worship in the sphere of silence from every intelligence that has been sanctified and made worthy of you.
~From The Prayers of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Prayer 1). Translated by Sebastian Brock. Adapted by the Brotherhood of the Monastery of St. John. Submitted by John Bonadeo.
O mystery exalted beyond every word and beyond silence, who became human in order to renew us by means of your voluntary union with the flesh, reveal to me the path by which I may be raised up to your mysteries, traveling along a course that is clear and tranquil, free from the illusions of this world. Gather may mind into the silence of prayer, so that wandering thoughts may be silenced within me during that luminous converse of supplication and mystery-filled wonder.
~From The Prayers of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Prayer 7). Translated by Sebastian Brock. Adapted by the Brotherhood of the Monastery of St. John. Submitted by John Bonadeo.
May the cross of shame which you mounted for my sake become a bridge to that peaceful abode; may the crown of thorns with which your head was crowned become for me the helmet of salvation on the heated day of battle; may the spit which your face received prepare me to have an open face before the tribunal at your advent; may your holy body which was exposed on the cross crucify me to this world and its lusts by means of love for you; may your clothing, for which lots were cast, tear asunder before my eyes the garment of darkness with which I am inwardly clothed; may the water and blood which came forth from you become for me a document granting liberty from the ancient state of servitude; may your body and your blood which have been mingled with my body remain within me as a pledge that I will not be deprived of the constant sight of you in that realm which has no end; may the mysteries of the faith which I have preserved uncorrupted in myself preserve for me something to glory about on that day when the world is made ready to receive your advent and may they replace there the inadequacy of my ascetic practice.
~From The Prayers of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Prayer 24). Translated by Sebastian Brock. Adapted by the Brotherhood of the Monastery of St. John. Submitted by John Bonadeo.
