Abstract: The interior reunification of each person is achieved through perseverance in prayer, which makes the virtues sprout in the soul and transforms the body of the believer into a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Fathers speak about the union of mind and heart in prayer in order to find God, which is done through certain moments of preparation of special importance. These follow one another in a natural connection, in an unceasing gradation in the spiritual ascent and lead to the continuous keeping of the memory of God in mind and heart. With a view to this permanent pneumatization, the spiritual man continually sacrifices himself through prayer in his interior liturgy, which is a surrender of the whole man to God through tense attention, through a longing call, through epiclesis and through the piercing and humility of the whole being.
Reunificarea interioară a fiecărui om se realizează prin stăruirea în rugăciune, cea care face să rodească virtuțile în suflet și transformă trupul credinciosului în locaş al Sfântului Duh. Sfinții Părinţi vorbesc despre unirea minţii cu inima în rugăciune pentru a-L afla pe Dumnezeu, care se face prin anumite momente de pregătire, de o importanță specială. Acestea se succed într-o legătură firească, într-o gradaţie neîncetată în suişul duhovnicesc și conduc la păstrarea continuă a amintirii lui Dumnezeu în minte și inimă. În vederea acestei pnevmatizări permanente omul duhovnicesc se jertfeşte continuu prin rugăciune în liturghia sa lăuntrică, care este o predare a omului întreg lui Dumnezeu prin atenţie încordată, prin chemare aprinsă de dor, epicleză şi prin străpungerea şi umilinţa întregii fiinţe.
Cuvinte-cheie: rugăciune, credință, isihie, virtuți, nepătimire, experierea lui Dumnezeu, harul
dumnezeiesc, pnevmatizare
Summary: This study emphasizes the major importance of prayer in the life of man, through which he can come to the knowledge of God by grace and union with Him. In other words, prayer is the foundation of man’s life and spiritual growth, it is saving and sanctifying, because it fills his soul with the presence of God’s love. In the ascent of the spiritual man and in his divinized state, full of the power of irradiation is felt the work of Holy Spirit. All new life, filled with the fire of God’s love, is due to the Holy Spirit. This is why the Holy Fathers emphasize that the whole striving of the true life of the believer is to rediscover the grace of the Holy Spirit received at Baptism, but covered with sins. The one with whom the spiritual man increases the unceasing bond is risen Christ, One who has become radiant in the light, One who is felt first of all as subject, focus of love, dwelling within the heart. And it is only because Christ is felt to be present in His pneumatized, transparent and radiant state of life, that the whole spiritual ascent leads the spiritually endued man towards a pneumatization and transparency in light in the future life. In view of this permanent pneumatization, the spiritual man continually sacrifices himself through prayer in his interior liturgy, which is a surrender of the whole man to God through tense attention, through a longing call, through epiclesis and through the piercing and humility of the whole being. “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live!” (Psalms 104, 33). To make one’s life a liturgy, a prayer, a doxology, is to make a mystery of the permanent bond between God and man, “God descends into the soul through prayer and the soul rises to God”, says Saint John of Damascus. Instead of concluding, we will recall a word of Saint Isaac of Syria, who, when asked by someone about the summit of all efforts in the work of appeasement, replied: “When will one become capable of perseverance in prayer. For when he reaches this, he has reached the summit of all virtues. And since then, he has made himself a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit”.
Pr. prof. univ. emerit Ștefan Buchiu – profesor de Teologie Dogmatică în
cadrul Facultății de Teologie Ortodoxă „Justinian Patriarhul” a Universității din București;
e-mail: stefan.buchiu@unibuc.ro
