About the prayer

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh - About the prayer


This search for silence is essential for prayer. Shortly after my ordination a woman from an old ladies' home asked me about prayer. I told her to ask someone who knew how to pray. She said she had asked them and got no help, so she came to me instead. She had tried for years to pray, I said, "How can you expect God to get a -word in when you're speaking all the time? Go into your room, put an easy chair so that it faces the room and the icon, and sit there and knit.” This sounded; like an unlikely prospect, so prosaic, but when I saw her again, she said "It worked.’’ I said, "What works?" "Well”, she said, "I had a lot of thoughts at first, but then I was aware that the room was quiet and I heard the knitting-needles clicking on the arms of the chair. I was aware that the silence kept deepening and began to hold me, and was a Presence." There was the One who had stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee. We should put ourselves into an ordinary situation, and instead of repeating fixed prayers let the silence conquer us. When the maximum depth has come that one can bear serenely, then we can let the words that are given us be said. It is like looking at the bottom of a pool when it is still and you can see everything there. If the turmoil can't be overcome because of the onslaught of the outer world rather than just idleness or inner disorder, then you may have to go and deal with the thing that is pressing on your mind or cry out for help.