In your prayers do not search for delight, that’s typical for the sinner. The desire to feel pleasure is already proud self-deceiving.
Search for your dead, hardened heart to come
to life, to open up to feeling one’s own sinfulness, one’s own falling, one’s own insignificance, to perceive them and by denying oneself to become aware of them.
Then, the fruit of the prayer: the repentance will appear in you.
The feelings that give birth to the prayer and repentance, are reflected in the calm conscience, in the spiritual peace, in the reconciliation with your nearest and with the life occasions, in having mercy for others and in the suffering for others, in the restraint from the passions, in the coldness towards the world, in the obedience to God, in the power to fight the sinful thoughts and inclinations.
These feelings and the hope in the salvation, let them be enough for you.
St Ignatij Brjanchaninov
(English translation: Violeta Nedanovska)
