The first person to pray was Adam. Prayer was his daily conversation with god, until the time of his fal .
According to a contemporary elder of Mt. Athos, prayer in Eden, “was a prayer of joy, gratitude, worship, love, eros, unceasing praises and doxologies that poured forth from hearts that had not tasted sin. It was prayer of angels, a song of original creation, a movement of holy souls and immaculate minds in whom divine glory was reflected. It was an uninterrupted Hal elujah of joy. The original prayer of Adam was not contrite and mournful, a prayer of affliction and a request of mercy, as it was after the fal . It was not an effort to eliminate the passionate powers of the soul dispersed in the world through senses” (Monk Theoklitos Dionysiatis).
After the fal of the progenitors, prayer changed. Unceasing doxology was transformed into continuous lamentation. The prayer of gratitude became supplication for mercy, since the children of God had become children of wrath and the immortal had become mortal. The fal of Adam is a result of disobedience, the beginning of error, unbelief in God, deception, and loss of community with God. Poor Adam is an example to be avoided. The deceptive demon struck Adam in his Achil es' heel, his weak point. Satan exploited the fervent desire for deification of the first humans and led them to their fal . Satan's saying, “You wil be like God,” was the bait which led Adam and Eve to their fal . The very same serpent returns again, often more severely, to be transformed in various ways, to artful y deceive many throughout the ages, right up to our own times.
After the fal prayer becomes a problem, and the cause of this problem is, of course, not the Creator but the creature. The Creator had clearly forewarned Adam and Eve of the danger. Yet, fal en from his original condition in paradise, Adam suffers but does not humble himself. He struggles but does not surrender. He is distressed but does not confess his mistake. He only hesitates, feeling shame and fear. He hides and tries to justify himself by placing the blame elsewhere. His relationship with the loving god has become broken and problematic. Prayer becomes struggle. Petitions appear to go unheard, while God seems distant, silent, unresponsive. Do we not often meet ourselves in the person of Adam?
In the pastures of the Old Testament the sojourner wil meet great personalities, praying individuals who have many significant secrets to tel us. The first is the Patriarch Abraham. In al his life, without the slightest hesitation, Abraham walked “as the Lord God had spoken to him.” Abraham asked and God gave.
God indicated and Abraham ran without hesitation or question. It was the Lord God who was speaking to him.
Abraham was not fussy, resistant or calculating. God said “I shal not hide whatever I do from my son Abraham,” and Abraham responded “I am but earth and ash.” God told him “I shal be with you in al that you do,” and Abraham kept the words of God in mind. Abraham did not resist god, even in the great test, the sacrifice of his only son given as a divine promise in his old age. He did not even ask one “Why?” These are the kind that God seeks, those who keep nothing for themselves, who do not hold back, who do not keep consolations in secret drawers for a future need.
Isaac, his son, followed faithful y in Abraham's footsteps. God said to him: “I shal be with you and bless you. . I shal fulfil my promise which I made to Abraham your father.” God kept His promises.
The same way was followed by Jacob, who saw the heavenly ladder and heard God say to him: “I shal be with you to protect you in al the ways that you shal go.” Jacob was the one with whom “a man wrestled until the morning,” and who used the singular expression: “I wil not let You go unless You bless me.” And he was blessed and he say God “face to face.”
The same God, responding always to the petitions of saints, was with Joseph as wel , and he “poured mercy upon him.” Why do we not have the courage of patience, so that our prayers may be fulfil ed by divine mercy and the blessing of God?
The Prophet Moses, the greatest personality of the Old Testament, the beloved friend of God, had his first meeting with God in the burning bush that would not be consumed. What God asked of Moses was perhaps greater than what he asked of Abraham. God asked Moses to become the leader of a people. In his humility, Moses rightly asked: “Who am I that I should go?” only to hear: “I wil be with you.” God is not hindered because His servant is “not eloquent but slow of speech and of tongue.” God wants heart, faith, purity, virtue. “I wil be with your mouth and teach you what you shal speak. . what you shal do,” God told Moses. This was the beginning of an amazing conversation between God and Moses which endured for eighty years. Moses transmitted the complaints, the petitions, the tribulations of a difficult people to God.
God answered him directly and the prophet reported the responses to the people. Thus, through the supplications of a single person, God saves an ungrateful people, giving them everything they needed – manna, fowl, water, even a cloud to guide them by day and night. For forty years in the desert their garments did not wear out, and their whole life passed within a continuous miracle. From the bitter slavery of Egypt they were led to freedom, to the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey.
And yet, not a day would pass when they would not express resentful discontent with the man of God, the righteous and humble Moses, or would not miss the food of Egypt. “Were there no graves in Egypt that you brought us out here in the desert to die?” they would complain. But Moses endured unperturbed. The story of the journey of the people of Israel from the land of slavery to the land of freedom is the story of every soul, from the life of sin to the joy of liberating repentance, to the blessedness of the children of god. We remain always the same, stiff-necked, uncircumcised in the heart, ungrateful, resentful, unhappy that we do not sin even more.
In spite of al difficulties, the Prophet Moses never ceased to invoke the live, justice and faithfulness of God, and to emphasize His glory. This is precisely what al the saints do, as does our mother, the Church. Two lines, repeated many times in the Book of Exodus, are these:
“And the Lord did as Moses had said.”
“The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one would speak to his friend.” This is how God spoke with His prophets. This is how the saints speak with God.
It happened on one occasion that the faith of the great prophet was tested, and this doubt cost him the Promised Land, which he was not permitted to enter but only to see from afar.
( The life of Moses is most edifying reading. It provided the honored name given to my unworthy self at the time of my monastic vows. )
In the Book of the Psalms of David, the great prophet-king and preacher of repentance, we have the most beautiful prayers ever written. They are the very words of God on our own lips, the words He loves to hear, tel ing us the way He wants us to follow. God Himself said of the Prophet David, “I have found a man according to my heart.” And He il umined David, his elect, to write these beautiful prayers. In the 150 Psalms the marvelous acts of God are revealed – His commandments, His prophesies, His wisdom. Everything is summed up in this golden crucible. That is why Abba Philemon considers the Psalms to encompass al Sacred Scripture. That is also the reason why so many of our holy Fathers have preoccupied themselves so extensively with Psalms.
The Psalms reveal the confidence of man in God. They nourish our hope and offer us a presentiment of this gift. They give joy, gladness, peace, because, by prayerful y reciting the Psalms, we feel ourselves under the overshadowing protection of God. One of our neighboring elders, of over seven decades on Mt. Athos, often had the Book of Psalms in his hands when we visited him. He told us: “This is the most beautiful book in the whole world!” Before receiving Holy Communion, on days of no work, and on Sundays, he would read the entire Book of Psalms.
We have only mentioned a few of the personalities of the Old Testament, but al of the other righteous people and prophets of the Old Testament followed similar ways of prayer. They impress us by their outspokenness, their faith, their responsibility and their courage.