Work by day
After the morning Office, when he sat down to read the Bible he became like a man enraptured: with every verse he read he would fall many times on his face, and at many of the phrases he would raise his hands to heaven and glorify God many times over. He was about forty years old, his food was sparse, and in temperament he was dry and warm. Because he used to constrain himself in ways his frame would not accept, he often looked like a shadow.
He was compassionate, and extremely bashful. He showed his compassion joyfully, and his nature was pure; very open to any request, he was wise in God. Because of his luminous joy he was beloved by everyone: he was everyone’s favourite. He worked with all the brethren in their cells with the clay whenever this was available. This would be for three or four days at a time, and he would return to his cell only in the evening, continuing thus until the work of the brethren was completed. Moreover, when he worked with the brethren, he did so because of his modesty, and he forced himself to do it, since he did not like to leave his cell – for he spoke to me many times of his aversion to leaving his cell. Such was the divine way of life of that marvellous brother.
Prayer before the cross
At whatever time God should open up your mind from within and you give yourself over to unceasing kneeling, do not give your heart over to care for anything, even though the demons secretly try to persuade you otherwise.
Then look and be amazed at what is born within you as a result.
Do not compare any of the ascetic practices with falling on one’s face before the cross night and day, with one’s hands clasped behind one’s back.
Do you wish that your fervour should never cool and that your tears should never dry up? Then practice this.
Blessed are you if you meditate on what I have told you, and seek for nothing else alongside God night and day.
Your light shall be like the morning’s and your righteousness will quickly shine forth; and you will be like a jubilant paradise of flowers and a fountain whose water never fails.
Beyond prayer
Delight during prayer is different from vision during prayer. The latter is superior to the former, just as a fully grown man is superior to a small child.
Sometimes biblical verses themselves will grow sweet in the mouth, and a simple phrase of prayer is repeated innumerable times, without one having had enough of it and wanting to pass on to another.
And sometimes out of prayer contemplation is born; this cuts prayer off from the lips, and the person who beholds this is like a corpse without soul in wonder. We call this the faculty of ‘vision in prayer’; it does not consist in any image or portrayable form, as foolish people say.
This contemplation in prayer also has its degrees and different gifts, but up to this point it is still prayer, for thought has not yet passed into the state where there is non-prayer, for there is something even more excellent than prayer.
For the movements of the tongue and of the heart during prayer act as the keys; what comes after these is the actual entry into the treasury: from this point onward mouth and tongue become still, as do the heart – the treasurer of the thoughts -, the mind – the governor of the senses – , and the bold spirit – that swift bird – , along with all the means and uses they possess. Requests too cease here, for the master of the house has come.
~Translated by Sebastian Brock, Daily Readings with Saint Isaac of Syria
