Stop asking God for help.

[Arsenios]

The "prayer of silence"? As I understand it, prayer is communicating with God. Silence seems to me to be the opposite of communication, however.

True prayer is Union with God - The Marriage of the Lamb - Attainable in this life in an earnest...
Communicating with God in words is a start - An earnest on our part - Toward being one in Christ...

Sorry if the Mystery of this Union, which is not visible to those not knowing it, seems un-Biblical to you... There is abundant witness to this relationship with God in Scripture, and especially with the Prayer of Christ in John for His disciples/Apostles...

I don't understand what you mean by the "closet of self." Never read of such a thing in Scripture.

Matt 6:6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.

Many take from this the rampant existence in ancient times of specially contructed "closets", and perhaps even that not having one exempts that person from such a Christ-instructed prayer...

The closet is your own body, and entereing it is keeping your thoughts within your own skin, and within that skin, overcoming the world by shutting yourself off from all senses, and turning to God in prayer, and then maintaining that focus without even [worldly originated] words...

One can take Christ to mean here that one needs to get out a hammer and saw and some lumber and plans for a new closet dedicated to prayer...

The ancient Faith has always understood this passage to be better underestood in the light of this:

Luke 8:10
And He said:
Unto you it is given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God:
but to others in parables;
that seeing they should not see,
and hearing they should not understand.

I have also no where in the Bible encountered the sort of prayer you describe, involving a closing off of the senses, emotions and thoughts to focus solely upon God. How does one do so without thought? How does one exist without constant sensory stimulation and emotion? Your silent, self-denying prayer sounds very mystical but not very do-able... I also don't see such prayer urged upon us in the Bible.

It is discipled by the Apostolic Churches, although these days not so much by the apostatic Latin Church...

Amen!

May you also be praying as you depart this life!

Well, I'm not so sure. How do you know that what God knows of my future is as you describe here? On what concrete basis do you assert that He knows my life as having already been lived? How can my life be already lived when I am only just now living it?

To deny such knowledge limits the illimitable God!

I agree. But this doesn't mean we can assert just whatever we like about God's foreknowledge or capabilities.

I am but giving you the historical witness of the Body of Christ from the Beginnings...

I can, I think, say that God does not answer a prayer that isn't in some reasonable proximity to my making it. How would we recognize an answer to prayer as such otherwise?

Granting and answering silent prayer are two things... We often do not recognize answers or grantings until years later, if at all...

Yes, prayer is much broader in purpose and scope than making requests of God. Scripture does teach, though, that we can ask for wrong things and do so in wrong ways (see my last post).

:thumb:

I generally avoid making obscure mystical statements if I can at all avoid it. I find that often when such statements are made there is little actual understanding of them. What, exactly, do you mean by "true prayer"? And how is such prayer properly divorced from language?

I hope [a silent and wordless prayer] I have answered this question - The Faith of Christ which He discipled to His Apostles is ENTERED... It is not merely read or heard and assented to in agreement... That entry is Baptism...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

The "prayer of silence"?
Silence seems to me to be the opposite of communication...

What, exactly, do you mean by "true prayer"?
And how is such prayer properly divorced from language?

The ancient teachings of the Faith of Christ all disciple silence...
The language of the Age to Come will be silence...
God is encountered fully only in silence...

Our fallen minds tend to be very noisy, whether inwardly or in spoken or shouted or spitted words...
Communion with God is the opposite of communion with creation...
That is why we pray...
Yet so often we pray for our needs as creation's creatures...
But what can one ask for from God who already knows all?
Yet we are commanded to pray without ceasing...

So if we fill our thoughts with the prayer of beseeching God for His Mercy, "O Lord Jesus Christ have Mercy on me, the sinner", and if we do so constantly, asking neither for worldly needs nor those that are Divine, but only for His Great Mercy (which is, of course, Divine), we can begin to cleanse our hearts by displacing all our fallen thoughts with this one holy prayer that places our whole life in the hands of God's Mercy... Never ceasing this ongoing prayer of supplication...

Remembering always that should you decide to do so, you will be tested...

And should the Mercy of God one day overshadow you, all your thoughts and words will depart from you, and you will only know Union with Him Who created you and the whole of creation...

That, you see, is true prayer, in silence and stillness of heart and soul...

It is the Marriage of the Lamb...

It cannot be imagined...

There is nothing to be desired beyond this...

There is nothing beyond God...

I pray that my words have not put you off in some way...

This is important...

It is missing in most of the teachings of the western confessions...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Here is a prayer of St. Isaac the Syrian from over a thousand years ago...

Let us take refuge in the Lord,
And ascend a little...
To the Place where thoughts dry up...
And our stirrings vanish...
Where memories fade away...
And passions die...
Where human nature...
Becomes serene...
And is transformed...
As it stands...
In the Other World...

This is the heritage we are finally seeking to deliver to you...
To you here in the west so long delayed from its Grace...
By the detour endlessly routed through apostacy...
And now so belately being brought to Light...

Or as Paul writes: [in the same vein]

2Co 12:1-6
I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell;
or whether out of the body, I cannot tell:
God knoweth
such an one caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man,
(whether in the body,
or out of the body,
I cannot tell:
God knoweth
How that he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Of such an one will I glory:
yet of myself I will not glory,
but in mine infirmities.
For though I would desire to glory,
I shall not be a fool;
for I will say the truth:
but now I forbear,
lest any man should think of me above
that which he seeth me to be,
or that he heareth of me.

And the simple truth is:

Rom 8:13
For ... if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body,
ye shall live.

Arsenios