STORMING HEAVEN

STORMING HEAVEN

“...The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12)

In the condition we find ourselves in, it takes a great deal of effort to be able to pray.

The very beginning of prayer requires a tremendous effort in order to round up our scattered attention, to concentrate, to recollect our mind that has been dispersed amidst ten thousand created things and innumerable thoughts that demand our immediate attention and then, by an act of will, lead our mind back into our body and down into the place of the heart.

It may take years to find the place of the heart, not to mention, to be willing to cast out the money changers who have taken up their abode there.

The Hesychast Fathers say that, once the mind has been brought down and enters the place of the heart, it should not be left idle there, but ceaselessly be occupied with the repetition of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have Mercy on me, a sinner!”

Sometimes shortened to simply, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”

This prayer, by virtue of the name of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, when said with a lively sense of His actual presence, of His mindfulness of us and His Divine Providence actively at work in our life, is the most effective means of repelling enemy suggestions and dispersing various fantasies and mirages that seek to take us away from our prayers.

Once the prayer has been established in the place of the heart, the most important thing, and the one that takes the most violent effort, is not to come out of the place of the heart too soon.

And, believe you me, at first, it will not only take everything you’ve got, but truly show you what you are really made of, to keep the mind from popping, almost immediately, out of the heart, to be caught up in dozens of different thoughts that absolutely demand our attention and that we have to be thinking about RIGHT NOW!

We become like the God that we worship and this practice will quickly show us exactly which gods we actually worship on a day to day, moment to moment basis…

Nevertheless, the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and can only be found with the mind in the place of the heart, where the violent take it by force.

There’s only one way - it takes an act of will. We have to want it. We have to want God and the Kingdom of Heaven more than any created thing:

“When you thus enter the place of the heart, give thanks to God and, praising His mercy, keep always to this doing, and it will teach you things which in no other way will you ever learn.” - St Nicephorus the solitary.