nogreaterlove.myfreeforum.org :: Prayers by the Lake

Claire

Are there days gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return? They all attracted you like silk, and now remain behind you like a cobweb. Like honey they greeted you, like stench you bade them farewell. All were totally filled with illusion and sin.

See how all the pools of water in the moonlight resemble mirrors; and how all the days that were lit up with your levity resemble mirrors. But as you stepped from one day to the next, the false mirrors cracked like thin ice, and you waded through the water and mud.

Can a day that has a morning and an evening as doorways be a day?

O luminous Lord, my soul is burdened with illusions and longs for one day—for the day without doorways, the day from which my soul has departed and sunk into the shifting shadows—for Your day, which I used to call my day, when I was one with You.

Is there any happiness gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return?

Of two morsels of the same sweetness the second is the more trite. You would turn your head away in boredom from yesterday's happiness, if it were set out on today's table.

Moments of happiness are given to you only in order to leave you longing for the happiness in the bosom of the everhappy Lord; and ages of unhappiness are given to you, to waken you out of the drowsy dream of illusions.

O Lord, my only happiness, will You provide shelter for Your injured pilgrim?

O Lord, my ageless youth, my eyes shall bathe in You and shine more radiantly than the sun.

You carefully collect the tears of the righteous, and with them You rejuvenate worlds.

Claire

Accept the sacrifice of my words, my Father.

Cense my sacrifice with the fragrant incense of a saint's prayer and do not reject it.

I am poor, and I have nothing else to offer on Your sacrificial altar except these words.

My words are my life and my song, my flame and my sacrifice. I have taken from what is Yours and am offering it up to You -- accept it and do not reject it.

Accept my mite, O Son Who Resurrects, accept and do not reject the mite of a pauper.

The world squeezed me like an accordion, scarcely did I take a breath and I moaned. Let Your angels give melody to my moaning and let them offer it up before You, my love.

I remind myself of all the blessings You have bestowed on me during my lifetime, my unfailing Companion, and I am offering up to You a gift in return from myself.

When the choirs of angels begin to sing around Your throne, when the archangels' trumpets begin to blare, when Your martyrs begin to weep for joy, and Your saints begin to sob their prayers for the salvation of the Church on earth, do not despise the sacrifice of my words, O Lord my God.

Do not mishear, but hear.

I pray to You and bow down to You, now and throughout all time, and throughout all eternity.

Written at Lake Ohrid 1921-1922.

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Jayem Sea

My soul runs after truth, O Son of Truth, and there is no end to her running and no term adequate to describe her exhaustion.

It would be better to be at peace, my soul, and to attract truth to yourself by means of your peace. What would you think of someone who said at midnight: "I cannot bear to be without light, I must run to the sun to bring back some rays?"

Why begin a race of a thousand years, when light is faster than you and can fall into your lap in a matter of seconds?

Open yourself to light, O soul, and light will come into you.

The walls that stand between you and truth and loom up before you like colossal mountains, which you have been trying to cross by running to the point of exhaustion, are your own creation and are more fragile than the white foam on the lake. If only you could open your eyes wide enough not to see them. Truly, the existence of these walls depends upon your seeing them. If you did not wish to see them, they would not exist.

I once watched a chicken on top of a blackboard running around inside a circle that had been drawn on it with white chalk. I watched him for a long time as he ran to and fro and hesitated to jump over the white line, which he probably perceived to be a living creature or a high wall.

This is like my soul, I said in sorrow, when she thinks that she is cut off from her freedom either by some mighty giants or by frightful towering walls. In actual fact, between her prison and her freedom there exists only an imaginary line, thinner than a hair.

All the walls of your prison, my soul, consist of your fear of the world, of your desire for the world and of your thoughts about the world. All these walls you yourself have built according to the instructions of your senses from the material that they have given you, a material that is truly more fragile than foam.

In the beginning you did not have senses, my soul, and you were not separated from truth. After you became blind, you sent out your senses to chase after truth. And those greyhounds have been chasing and fetching the closest and easiest game, and bringing back wolves to their blind master, who has been eating them as though they were venison.

Do not run, my soul, for it is characteristic of the senses to run. Servants and slaves run, but a master remains peacefully still.

Behold, in that corner of profound peace and virginal purity left within you, your pre-eternal eye has opened. This eye does not see the walls of your prison, therefore neither does it run up mountains that do not exist. This eye is the Son of Truth, one of the Trinity that rules over all the heavenly kingdom, from which you barred yourself by wanting to be the "Fourth." Truly I tell you, a "fourth" does not exist anywhere throughout what exists.

By your playing and clowning around with me in the darkness, my soul, you have made me into a "fourth." All your people out of the world of "fourths" will cast stones at the Son of Truth. Flee, wretched soul, flee from the world of "fourths." Totally unshackle yourself from it, totally reject it, totally despise it and--bow down before the Truth of the Trinity, which is given to you through the Son of Truth.

O Lord of Truth and Life, help my soul to prostrate herself before You and sob: "You are my Being, my Life and my Truth, O beloved Son of the Holy Trinity. You are my everything, and I surrender myself, naked and poor, to You. I no longer have anything to reject or to scorn or to despise, because nothing even exists except You. Have mercy on me, and receive me into Your arms' embrace."

- Prayer LVI

Claire

XCIV

In the valley of tears You brought dead bones to life, O Divine Son.

Let the prophet rejoice, for You fulfilled his prophecy.

All the strength, all the beauty, and all the wisdom, for which the whole of mankind has been yearning from the beginning, is found in You, the Ultimate Man.

All the food of life and all the drink of life, by means of which the living have been living from one end of time to the other, are found in You, the Ultimate Man.

Through You the Triradiate Ray dared to project itself into the darkness of death and the shadow of nonexistence. Beneficence was in that Ray and, like every benefaction, it was abused. Therefore the Ray withdrew, and the darkness of death and the shadow of nonexistence reigned.

Then You came with a new Ray and a new beneficence.

You opened up a bakery for the hungry and a tavern for the thirsty, and You invite all those who hunger and thirst to eat and drink and to be living beings.

Whoever desires life, must nourish himself with life.

You brought God to us in the vale of torments; You brought God to us, not to show Him to us as an image (the dancing of images devours our soul), but as bread for us to eat and thereby come back to life. We nourished ourselves with images and died. Truly, all those things which mortals eat and drink are images, that do not nourish or quench thirst or give life, unless God enters into them.

Let my soul eat God, and she will be crowned with everlasting life.

Let my mind eat God, and it will be crowned with everlasting wisdom.

Let my heart eat God, and it will be crowned with everlasting joy.

Let my body eat God, and it will be resurrected from the dead.

Let all people eat God, and they will return home, they will return to the Ultimate Man.

You have no grave among us. Earth contains only earth. Sepulchers are buried in graves, and remain in them.

O Prince of the Holy Triad and King of all creatures, who at Your word began to breathe and see, nourish me with Your bread, and quench my thirst with Your drink.

Lest my body disintegrate, and my soul box her way through Hades as a fleshless shadow, filled with absurd perceptions, filled with fleshly desires, filled with fright and frightful images.

Lest I lose, O Lord, both bodies: my earthly body, which is closer to perishing than the autumn grass, and my heavenly body, which the spirit is waiting to weave and make ready for eternity.

Lest I lose, O Lord, both spirits: my earthly spirit, which has betrothed itself to death by being wedded to earth, and my heavenly spirit, which I have not received within me to bring its eternity into me.

Lest I lose, O Lord, both lives: my earthly life, which resembles life, and my heavenly life, which is life.

Come closer to me, and closer still, O Heavenly Bread, and do not resist my mouth.

Come closer to me, and closer still, O Heavenly Drink, and do not avoid my lips.

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