UNSEEN WARFARE
“Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”
(Mark 14:38)
In our day and age it is rare for anyone to even believe in God as a living being who exists entirely independently of whether or not we believe in Him or not, a God who loves us, who cares for us, is mindful of us, is always with us and is attentive to our concerns.
If we do, we may have at least some sense of what it means to Pray. We may know how to say some prayers, the Our Father or, ‘now I lay me down to sleep… ‘, etc.
But we rarely pray with full consciousness, with concentration and attention, truly understanding, with the knowledge that we are in God's presence, and really meaning what we are praying, from the bottom of our heart, with love, with trust, with complete confidence in God's Divine Providence for us.
(Except perhaps, in times of extreme distress, in danger or in the deepest grief…)
Even then, if we have some belief and an idea of what it is to pray, very few of us have been taught, or understand what it means to ‘watch’, even though, as pointed out in the scripture above, watchfulness is an indispensable precursor and concomitant to prayer.
The art of watchfulness is, for the most part, forgotten and unknown to us.
“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)
In the absence of our usual distractions, in the stillness of the mind, we can watch and see our thoughts arising, before they actually ‘hook into us’, take us away from our prayerful state and motivate us to act according to their suggestions.
“Sitting on high, observe, if only you know the art, and you will see how and when and whence, how many and what kind of robbers are trying to enter to steal the grapes.” (St John Climacus)
Not all of our harmful thoughts come directly from the suggestion of fallen angels. Many originate from our own psychological and emotional predispositions, inherited from our ancestors and developed during our own personal history, (although the demons certainly know how to play on these and make the most of them…)
Our thoughts determine our lives.
The Hesychasts Fathers, who have experience in the doing of prayer, acknowledge that, if to be still and to be able to watch the arising of thoughts is a great accomplishment, even so, we ought not to leave our mind idle, but combine that highly desired watchful state together with prayer.
If nature abhors a vacuum, the demons love it and are quick to fill it with their suggestions.
For this reason, they recommend a short prayer to keep us focused and in the act of entreating God for His Providential care for us.
In particular, they recommend the ‘Jesus Prayer': “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
This prayer, with it's scriptural roots and profound Theological significance, has proven throughout the history of the Church to be particularly effective.
This practice of watchfulness, of the guarding of the heart, combined with prayer, allows us to avoid temptations of every kind and to draw closer to God who wants nothing more than to restore us entirely to our Original Blessed State and to raise us up from there into the likeness to God which is our true Birthright.
