At daybreak Jesus went to a deserted place
- METROPOLITAN ANTHONY BLOOM
Prayer is the search for God, encounter with God, and going beyond this encounter in Communion.
Thus it is an activity, a state and also a situation; a situation both with respect to God and to the created world. It arises from the awareness that the world in which we live is not simply two-dimensional, imprisoned in the categories of time and space, a flat world in which we meet only the surface of things, an opaque surface covering emptiness.
Prayer is born of the discovery that the world has depths; that we are not only surrounded by visible things but that we are also immersed in and penetrated by invisible things. And this invisible world is both the presence of God, the supreme, sublime reality, and our own deepest truth. Visible and invisible are not in opposition; neither can they be juxtaposed like in an addition sum. They are present simultaneously, as fire is present in red hot iron....
Living only in the visible world is living on the surface; it ignores or sets aside not only the existence of God but the depths of created being. It is condemning ourselves to perceiving only the world's surface.
But if we look deeper we discover at the heart of things a point of balance which is their finality. There is no inwardness to geometric volume. Its finiteness is complete. The world of such forms is capable of being extended but cannot be deepened. But the heart of man is deep. When we have reached the fountainhead of life in him we discover that this itself springs from beyond. The heart of man is open to the invisible. Not the invisible of depth psychology but the invisible infinite, God's creative Word, God himself.
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Acknowledgement
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. "At daybreak Jesus went to a deserted place." from Courage to Pray (Crestwood, NY: Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984).
Reprinted with permission.
The Author
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh (1914-2003) was best known as a writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life. He was a monk and Metropolitan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was founder and for many years bishop — then archbishop, then metropolitan — of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Patriarchate of Moscow's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. As a bishop he became well known as a pastor, preacher, spiritual director and writer on prayer and the Christian life. Among his many books are Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh: Essential Writings, Coming Closer to Christ, and Living Prayer.
