PRAYER MUST BE LIKE A FEATHER

Prayer is like the lightest feather; if spared on the onset from the penetration of wetness or dampness, it will have a mobility which will bring it to the highest points of the sky at the slightest breeze. But if weighed down by dampness or moisture, it will not fly up, weighed down by the liquid to the earth. 

So, too, with our soul. If sin and the business of the world weigh it down, if dangerous passion has stained it, then it will not rise to the heights of meditation. 

Rightly had the Lord admonished us "Seeing to it that your hearts are not weighed down in drunkenness and intoxication and in the concerns of every day." Therefore, if we wish our prayers to reach upward to the heavens and beyond, we must ensure that our mind is cleared of every earthly defect and cleansed of all passions' grip and is so light of itself that its prayer, free of sin's weighty load, will rise upward to God. 

St. John Cassian

(09-07-02)