Hesychastic prayer

[Arsenios]

I have been reading about Elder Joseph and Elder Arsenios the cave dwellers on Mt Athos, and they frequently spoke of finding places "suitable" for the practice of Hesychasm, which I am taking to mean the practice of fasting, labors, vigils, and [hesychastic] prayer...

Now what I found myself wondering about is the following: What is it that makes a place suitable for the persuit of hesychastic praxis? And the converse, what is it about this praxis that makes it require special selection of sites?

And perhaps the bigger question, being someone who is isolated from the hesychastic praxis of the Church by geography and access, what does this practice "look like"?

I remember Elder Joseph not wanting to live around other monks because they would be 'listening' to his prayers, implying that this was intrusive to the prayers themselves... I can understand that, but does that mean that hesychastic prayers are loud??

I would really like to see responses to what this kind of life looks like, in all its phases... For the reason that I would like, if possible, to practice as much of it as I can, as a lay person [a reader] in a small mission parish...

Thank-you...

Rdr. Arsenios

[Fr Seraphim (Black)]

Dear Reader Arsenios,

The most suitable place? 'A broken and a contrite heart.'

The proof - St. John of Krondstadt, St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco and countless others who had no external solitude.

Each has their particular calling, within the Christian scope of all of us being called to Repentance. Elder Joseph kept going higher up the Mountain to find the conditions the Mother of God was calling him to; but once he had more disciples they moved further down the Mountain, until they came to rest at New Skete, which is virtually on the water.

The externals remain externals, it depends on what we do with the gifts God has given us here and now.

[Peter Farrington]

Dear Seraphim

Your words are so true.

I remember when I was in Senegal testing a vocation as an evangelical missionary, I was alone in a rural village during the day, watching the local folk in the fields, and I was so disappointed that I had forgotten to bring a book on prayer, excerpts from the Philokalia actually.

Then after while it struck me how stupid it was of me to be disappointed that I didn't have a book about prayer when what I really needed was to just pray.

I am sure that I am not alone in the temptation of thinking that 'if only..' I had a place of complete solitude, or a different job, or X and Y and Z, but as you say so well, what God actually requires of us can be performed in all places and all times. We/I just like to make excuses for not doing it.

Peter

[Andrew]

The testimony of the saints shows that no matter what station of life we are in, we can all come to know God and be deified by his abiding presence. Rich or poor, man or woman, adult or child, simple or intelligent, hermit or citydweller, married or monastic, none of this blocks us from pursuing the spiritual life, and each of these stations can be transfigured by the Holy Spirit.

It seems to me that the best way to go about the deep, hesychastic way of life that the hermits of Mount Athos calls for solitude. That does not mean that it is impossible to see the Uncreated Light while, so to speak, "in the world." It is all by the grace of God.

[Arsenios]

Dear Fr. Seraphim -

Thank-you...

Arsenios