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Besides this, since we are incapable of ourselves for this and for
any other good action whatsoever, and since we can of ourselves
offer nothing to the Lord God (from whom all good things come)
which is not his already, with this one exception, as he has
deigned to show us both by his own blessed mouth as well as by his
example, that we should turn to him in all circumstances and
occasions as guilty, wretched, poor, beggarly, weak, helpless,
subject servants and sons.
And that we should beseech him and lay before him with complete
confidence the dangers that are besetting us on all sides,
completely grief-stricken in ourselves, in humble prostration of
mind, in fear and love, and with recollected, composed, mature,
true and naked, shamefaced affection, with great yearning and
determination, and in groaning of heart and sincerity of mind.
Thus we commit and offer ourselves up to him freely, securely and
nakedly, fully and in everything that is ours, holding nothing
back to ourselves, in such a complete and final way, that the same
is fulfilled in us as in our blessed father Isaac, who speaks of
this very type of prayer, saying, Then we shall be one in God, and
the Lord God will be all in all and alone in us when his own
perfect love, with which he first loved us, will have become the
disposition of our own hearts too.
This will come about when all our love, all our desire, all our
concern, all our efforts, in fact everything we think, everything
we see, speak and even hope will be God, and that unity which now
is of the Father with the Son, and of the Son with the Father,
will be poured into our own heart and mind as well, in such a way
that just as he loves us with sincere and indissoluble love we too
will be joined to him with eternal and inseparable affection. In
other words we shall be united with him in such a way that
whatever we hope, and whatever we say or pray will be God.
This therefore should be the aim, this the concern and goal of a
spiritual man - to be worthy to possess the image of future bliss
in this corruptible body, and in a certain measure experience in
advance how the foretaste of that heavenly bliss, eternal life and
glory begins in this world. This, as I say, is the goal of all
perfection, that his purified mind should be daily raised up from
all bodily objects to spiritual things until all his mental
activity and all his heart's desire become one unbroken prayer.
So the mind must abandoned the dregs of earth and press on towards
to God, on whom alone should be fixed the desire of a spiritual
man, for whom the least separation from that summum bonum is to be
considered a living death and dreadful loss. Then, when the
requisite peace has been established in his mind, when it is free
from attachment to any carnal passion, and clings firmly in
intention to that one supreme good, the Apostle's sayings are
fulfilled, Pray without ceasing, (1 Thessalonians 5.17) and, Pray
in every place lifting up pure hands without anger or dispute. (1
Timothy 2.8)
For when the power of the mind is absorbed in this purity, so to
speak, and is transformed from an earthly nature into the
spiritual or angelic likeness, whatever it receives into itself,
whatever it is occupied with, whatever it is doing, it will be
pure and sincere prayer.
In this way, if you continue all the time in the way we have
described from the beginning, it will become as easy and clear for
you to remain in contemplation in your inward and recollected
state, as to live in the natural state.
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