Love towards God and the difficulty in praying ceaselessly

ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 

 previous:https://hristospanagia3.blogspot.com/2018/11/is-spiritual-life-tiresome.html

Love towards God and the difficulty in praying ceaselessly

How is it when you are in love with a certain person? Just tell me, do you need any special effort to think about this person? No, you don’t. Your mind constantly revolves around this person; constantly… And you may be walking a heavily crowded sidewalk of a central avenue with a lot of noise and distraction, and you don’t see anything, you don’t hear anything! Why? Because your mind is focused on the person you love. This is how our relationship with Christ is, our love for Christ, Divine Love. This is what I mean when I say we should love God.

Does it need any effort? Of course, not. As soon as we start this flaming love for God, no effort is necessary. We pray spontaneously. You might say “How am I supposed to do this, now that I don’t love Him yet?” Well, in the beginning, you need to force yourself a little. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ said [Matthew 11:12] “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force”. At the start, we will have to think of Him deliberately, to force ourselves.

It is like when we try to set up a fire. What happens then? In the beginning we get smoked; the fire does not start immediately. The wood gives out smoke, our eyes are watering, they are full of tears, but later… when the fire is burning alright, smoke is gone, humidity is evaporated out of the wood, and we are full of joy. We are so happy to be there, in this comfortable heat. This is what happens with the Jesus Prayer, the ceaseless prayer.

f. Savvas Agioreitis

To be continued...