When we have been remodeled into living witnesses of Christ through solitude, silence, and prayer, we will no longer have to worry about whether we are saying the right thing or making the right gesture because then Christ will make his presence known even when we are not aware of it.
When we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being….It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe.
The crisis of our prayer life is that our mind may be filled with ideas of God while our heart remains far from him. Real prayer comes from the heart….The prayer of the heart is a prayer that directs itself to God from the center of the person and thus affects the whole of our humanness.
Hesychia, the rest which flows from unceasing prayer, needs to be sought at all costs, even when the flesh is itchy, the world alluring, and the demons noisy.
The literal translation of the words “pray always” is “come to rest.” The Greek word for rest is hesychia…The prayer of the hesychasts is a prayer of rest…a rest in God in the midst of a very intense daily struggle….The prayer of the hesychasts is a prayer of the heart.
Silence is above all a quality of the heart that can stay with us even in our conversation with others…The final question…is not whether we say much or little but whether our words call forth the caring silence of God himself. It is to this silence that we are called.