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Wednesday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day
Isaac the Syrian (7th century), monk near Mosul, saint of the Orthodox churches
Ascetical Discourses, 1st series, no.32

"A hundredfold"

Just as all the force of the laws and commandments God gave to men comes to fulfillment in purity of heart (as the Fathers say), so all the means and methods with which God is prayed come to fulfillment in pure prayer. Groanings, prostrations, petitions, lamentations: all the forms that prayer can take have their end, in fact, in pure prayer... Meditation no longer has anything to detain it: neither prayers, nor movements, nor lamentation, nor power, nor liberty, nor petition, nor desire, nor pleasure in what it hopes for in this life or in that which is to come. After pure prayer there is no other... Beyond this limit lies wonder and no longer prayer; prayer ceases and contemplation begins...

Prayer is the sowing and contemplation the harvest of the grain. The reaper is astonished to see what cannot be expressed: how is it that from the tiny, bare seeds he has sown such abundant sheaves can have suddenly sprung up before his eyes? The sight of his harvest takes his breath away...

Just as hardly a man in several thousands can be found to fulfill a little less badly the commandments and things of the Law and come to purity of soul, so one in a thousand can be found who is worthy, with much vigilance, of attaining pure prayer, of crossing the threshold and discovering this mystery. For it is not granted to many but to few to know pure prayer.