Living Prayer

132 Pages·1966·13.142 MB·English

by  Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

prayer
living
by metropolitan anthony
(anthony bloom)

PRAYER
LIVING
by
Metropolitan Anthony
of Sourozh
LJ
Templegate Publishers
Springfield, IL
Published in England by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd.
89 Lillie Road, London SW6 IUD
Published in the United States by:
Templegate Publishers
302 East Adams Street
P.O. Box 5152
Springfield, IL 62705
©
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, 1966
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a
newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of
this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recor-
ding, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 68-16522
ISBN 0-87243-054-5
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
vii
I The Essence ofPrayer 9
II The Lord's Prayer 20
III The Prayer ofBartimaeus 46
IV Meditation and Worship 51
V Unanswered Prayer and Petition 70
VI Thefesus Prayer 84
VII Ascetic Prayer 89
VIII The Prayer ofSilence 95
EPILOGUB 113

METROPOLITAN ANTHONY
is widely recognized as one of
the great contemporary masters of the spiritual life. He was
born in 1914 in Lausanne. His father was a member of the
Russian diplomatic service; his mother was the sister of
Scriabin, the composer. He spent his childhood in Russia and
in Persia. Following the Russian Revolution the family
moved to Paris, where he studied science, receiving his
doctorate in medicine from the University of Paris.
During World War II he was an officer in the French Army.
After the fall of France he worked as a surgeon in a Paris
hospital, and participated at the same time in the Resistance
In 1943, while working as a physician, he privately took
monastic vows. He was ordained in 1948, and came to
England in 1949 to serve as Orthodox chaplain to the
Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, a pioneering
ecumenical group. In 1958 he was consecrated Bishop, in
1962 he was made Archbishop of the Russian Church in
England and Ireland, and in 1966 he was elevated to the rank
of Metropolitan.
Metropolitan Anthony is known for his preaching and writing
on the spiritual life. He has taken an active part in the
ecumenical movement in several countries, including work
with the World Council of Churches, and conferences
conducted at the monastery ofTaize.

FOREWORD*
Worship to me means a relationship. I used not to be a
believer, then one day I discovered God and immediately
he appeared to me to be the supreme value and the total
meaning oflife, but at the same time a person. I think that
worship can mean nothing at all to someone for whom
there is no object of worship. You cannot teach worship
to someone who has not got a sense ofthe living God; you
can teach him to act as if he believed, but it will not be
the spontaneous attitude which is real worship. Therefore,
as a foreword to this book on prayer, what I would like to
convey is my certitude in thepersonal reality ofa God with
whom a relationship can be established. Then I would ask
my reader to treat God as a neighbour, as someone, and
value this knowledge in the same terms in which he values
a relationship with a brother or a friend. This, I think, is
essential.
One of the reasons why communal worship or private
prayer seem to be so dead or so conventional is that the
act ofworship, which takes place in the heart communing
with God, is too often missing. Every expression, either
verbal or in action, may help, but they are only expressions
ofwhat is essential, namely, a deep silence ofcommunion.
We all know inhuman relationships thatlove and friend-
ship are deep when we can be silent with someone. As
* Adaptation ofa talk given on the BBC in the 'Ten to Eight'
programme first broadcast in 1965.
:
FOREWORD
Vlll
long as we need to talk in order to keep in touch, we can
safely and sadly assume that the relationship is still super-
ficial and so, if we want to worship God, we must first
;
ofall learn to feel happy, being silent together with him.
This is an easier thing to do than one might think at first;
it needs a little time, some confidence and the courage to
start.
Once the Cure d'Ars, a French saint of the eighteenth
century, asked an old peasant what he was doing sitting for
hours in the church, seemingly not even praying; the
peasant replied: 'I look at him, he looks at me and we are
happy together/ That man had learned to speak to God
without breaking the silence ofintimacy by words. Ifwe
can do that we can use any form ofworship. Ifwe try to
make worship itselfout ofthe words we use, we will get
desperately tired ofthose words, because unless they have
the depth ofsilence, they are shallow and tiresome.
But how inspiring words can be once they are backed by
silence and are infused with the right spirit
'O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show
forth thy praise* (Ps 51:15).