Pray without Ceasing

How often should we pray? In one of the Apostle Paul’s letters, he recommends that Christians pray without ceasing. The desert monks took this suggestion very seriously. They left society so they could pray all day long in their huts and caves. Most of the time, they prayed by singing the Psalms, which many of them had memorized. But even doing this all day long posed some practical problems, as today’s passage acknowledges.

Some monks called Euchites, or “men of prayer”, once came to Lucius ( a senior monk) in the ninth region of Alexandria ( Egypt) . 

Lucius asked them, “What manual work do you do?”

They said, “We do not work with our hands. We obey Saint Paul’s command and pray without ceasing” (I Thess. 5:17). 

Lucius said to them, “Don’t you eat?” 

They said, “Yes we do.” 

Lucius said to them: “When you are eating who prays for you?”

Then he asked them, “Don’t you sleep?” 

They said, “Yes, we do.” 

Lucius said, “Who prays for you while you were asleep?”  And they could not answer him. 

Then Lucius said to them, “I may be wrong, brothers, it seems to me that you don’t do what you say. I will show you how I pray without ceasing although I work with my hands. With God’s help, I sit down with a few palm leaves, and plait them, and say, “Have mercy upon me, oh God, after Thy great mercy : and according to the multitude of Thy mercies do away with mine inequity” (Psalm 51:1). 

Lucius asked him “Is that prayer or not?”

They said, “It’s prayer all right,” 

He said, “When I spend all day working and praying in my heart I make about 16 pence. Two of these I put outside the door, and with the rest I buy food. Whoever finds the two pennies outside the door prays for me while I am eating and sleeping: and so by God’s grace, I fulfil the text, “pray without ceasing”.

These early Christians believed that when the poor received alms, they prayed in gratitude for their benefactor. Lucius relies on this practice. Even when he cannot pray, someone else will pray on his behalf, thus achieving constant prayer. Note the shift in emphasis. The two visiting monks are praying for their own sakes. Lucius has found a way to pray that broadens the scope of prayer, so that prayer becomes beneficial to more than just the one who prays. Ideally, most of our prayers are not about ourselves, but create a sort of amorphous spiritual cloud that includes the welfare of others. Peace with you.

-Rev. Stephen Milton, Lawrence Park Community Church, Toronto

Quotation source: The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, (London, 2003),p.131-2.

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