"I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding" (1 Cor 14:15).
Prayer is a matter of such importance in the spiritual life that anyone wishing to know whether he is on the path to perfection should observe whether he has made any progress in prayer.
For if we consider the Lord's word, "Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive" (Mt 21:22), we must necessarily conclude this. Whoever knows how to ask in prayer with faith for all that is needed for the perfection of the spiritual life receives it all. Therefore, without doubt, he advances toward the perfection of the spiritual life and finally attains it.
If you wish to add the clarity of a near example to this reasoning, I point you to this man of prayer. The streams of the life from above filled his soul to overflowing and watered even his dead flesh. Thus his tomb, raised from the earth, became like the prophet's heavenward chariot, sending forth power and grace.
Ask him how he reached such perfection. How did he seize such grace? How was he lifted to such glory? Was it by wisdom acquired through much learning? His life answers that he did not seek such wisdom at all. He entered no dwelling of such wisdom and gathered no writings of learned philosophy for himself.
Was it by the guidance of teachers? True, in childhood he had an extraordinary teacher. When he was still unable to read and slow to understand, this teacher taught him in a single moment to read the Church's book of prayer. Yet with that all his instruction ended.
After an unparalleled short course of study, Bartholomew grew up without a guide, and Sergius lived in the wilderness without a teacher.
Was it through strenuous ascetic labors? Yes, his labors were strenuous. Yet according to the Apostle, "If anyone competes, he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully." Therefore strenuous labors cannot be taken as the root principle of progress. They require another and higher principle, which gives them a lawful direction leading to success and the crown.
What could this principle have been in the life of Sergius? No other is visible than the prayer of faith. Constant exercise in prayer taught him the faithful art of prayer. Through this he became capable of receiving everything asked in prayer.
Thus through prayer he acquired power and strength for ascetic labors, and wisdom for directing them. He seized the kingdom of heaven and its gifts in such abundance that even now he distributes from his fullness, helps the labors of others, and successfully leads the prayers of others.
Judging by the great importance of prayer for the spiritual life, we must be very careful about the best and most reliable way to perform prayer.
Let us be attentive. The Apostle, by saying how he himself would best wish to pray, gives us the most reliable instruction on how we also should pray. "I will pray," he says, "with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding."
In the Apostle's saying, first, two outward forms of prayer are presented: "I will pray" and "I will sing." These are verbal prayer and sung prayer.
Concerning these forms of prayer it is enough to observe briefly how faithfully the holy Church follows the apostolic example and institution. Even now she uses reading and singing alternately in divine worship, verbal prayer and sung prayer.
This institution must be regarded as common in use and beneficial to all. It is not only for the uninstructed and those led by sensory impressions, but also for people of exalted thought. For the divinely wise Apostle, together with all the faithful people, wishes not only to pray with spirit and understanding, but also to sing from the abundance of a God-loving heart and compunctionate feeling.
Second, in the Apostle's saying there appear two special ways of prayer: prayer with the spirit and prayer with the understanding. "I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding."
To understand these higher forms of prayer, one must examine what the words spirit and understanding mean in the apostolic language.
When we hear the Apostle say that "those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but those according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit" (Rom 8:5), we understand that spirit is something higher in man, opposed to the flesh, or to sensuality.
When the same Apostle also says, "With my mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Rom 7:25), we see that the understanding is also something higher in man, opposed to the flesh.
Therefore spirit and understanding seem to be almost one thing. The Apostle truly joins them when he expounds the truth, or essence, of Christian teaching, which consists in being "renewed in the spirit of the mind."
If any difference between understanding and spirit may be observed here, it is perhaps this. Spirit appears within the understanding as something more exalted and more inward. It is manifested in the understanding as the soul is manifested in the senses.
Yet in the Apostle's sayings about prayer, the activity of the understanding is presented in a certain contrast with the activity of the spirit. For example, "My spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful." Therefore there must be no small and very perceptible difference between them.
To disclose this difference, let us read the Apostle's words somewhat more fully. "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding" (1 Cor 14:14-15).
Now we see that the expression "I will pray with the spirit" stands in place of the earlier expression, "I pray in a tongue." Consequently, prayer with the spirit is one with prayer in a tongue. To understand prayer with the spirit, one must have a concept of prayer in a tongue.
So as not to weary you further with difficult inquiry, let us hasten to say wherein the matter consists.
After the Lord's Ascension, the Apostles "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication" (Acts 1:14). Then, on the tenth day, "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4).
Thus the gift of speaking in other, unlearned tongues appeared as a most radiant fruit of prayer and as a most solemn sign of the descended and active Holy Spirit.
From that time, the prayer and zeal of the faithful took a special direction and striving toward the attainment of this gift. In those times it was useful for spreading Christian teaching, and pleasant to those possessing it, since it visibly assured them of the presence of God's grace.
Since this striving of the faithful corresponded to the intention of grace to spread Christianity, grace came down with generous bounty to this striving.
Thus in church gatherings it often happened that the spirit of those praying was caught up toward the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God descended upon the spirit of those praying and, like an irresistible torrent, poured forth through their mouths in prayers, hymns, doxologies, and prophecies in various tongues.
The abundance of this gift was so great that sometimes those seized by the Spirit uttered prayers and sang divine hymns in languages that most of those present, or even none of them, understood at all.
It was for this occasion that the Apostle said, "If I pray in a tongue," that is, in an unknown tongue disclosed only by the gift of the Holy Spirit, "my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful."
The understanding is unfruitful because others do not understand it. Therefore the word of prayer sown by his tongue does not bring forth in others the fruit of similar prayer.
After this, I hope it is somewhat clear what prayer with the spirit is. It is that prayerful state in which a man, winged by faith and love, strives and is caught up toward the Spirit of God.
He does this with the very summit of his being, with his highest faculty and power, by which he is, as it were, contiguous with the divine. He receives the visitation of the Spirit of God and surrenders himself to this visitation.
Then it is no longer so much the man himself who prays, as the Holy Spirit who breathes within him. He is the Spirit who breathes "where He wills" (Jn 3:8). "The Spirit Himself" intercedes for him "with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom 8:26), or with words that often surpass the understanding of the sensual man.
Distinguished from this state, the Apostle's prayer with the understanding is another form of prayer. In it the mind of the one praying is indeed lifted up to God with reverent thoughts, pious desires, and holy feelings of compunction or joy.
Yet it does not surrender without limit to the movement of spiritual rapture. Rather, it governs its thoughts, desires, and feelings. In this case the spiritual powers act in their ordinary and proper order.
Therefore the petitions and doxologies of prayer are spoken in a way understandable to all, and so can stir those who hear them to participate in prayer.
The holy Apostle approves both these forms of prayer and proposes them for use when he says to the Corinthians, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding."
That is, I do not wish, nor do I advise you, to use only one of these forms of prayer exclusively. I consider it better sometimes to pray with the spirit, and sometimes to pray with the understanding, alternately, as circumstances require.
Pray with the spirit for yourself and for God. Pray with the understanding for God, for yourself, and for the edification of your neighbors.
Here one cannot pass without special notice, and even amazement, that the Apostle sets prayer with the spirit, which is a gift of the Spirit of God, alongside prayer with the understanding, which is a free act of the human spirit.
How is this? Are we really as able to use prayer with the spirit as prayer with the understanding? Did you consider this, holy instructor?
Undoubtedly, brethren, the Holy Spirit in Saint Paul does not err in the instructions given to us. Evidently we truly are able to pray with the spirit, as soon as we truly and completely surrender ourselves to the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of prayer.
Evidently we are able, because, similarly, by the wondrous condescension of the Spirit of God toward us, the prophets also are able to use the prophetic spirit. The same Apostle clearly bears witness to this: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor 14:32).
Yet we should be still more amazed that the Apostle does not strive to strengthen and spread gracious prayer with the spirit. Rather, in some way, he limits and restrains it in its movement.
He complains about the excessive use of prayer with the spirit. With a certain indignation toward prayer with the spirit he says, "My spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful."
He seems to prefer prayer with the understanding and especially urges it: "In church," he says, "I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (1 Cor 14:19).
What does this mean? It means that the grace of the Holy Spirit in the primitive Church was poured out like a sea.
At that time many believers did not need to be stirred to prayer or drawn to the works of the spirit. Rather, their boundless zeal had to be moderated, lest, immersed in the spirit, they forget the ordinary duties of outward human and Christian common life.
If we turn from this spiritual spectacle of the primitive Church to her present condition, and to ourselves, must we not fall into another kind of amazement? Or perhaps into fear and horror, because of the sorrowful difference between the present and the past?
THEOSIS