Archbishop Demetrios of America - Speaking to God

Archbishop Demetrios of America

Speaking to God

Translated by Kevin Christopher Pluchino

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

New York

2012

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

8 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075

www.goarch.org

2012 by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

ISBN: 978-1-58438-024-5 978-1-58438-035-1 (ebook)

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Prologue to the English Edition

This book was written originally in Greek fifty years ago and published in Athens, Greece by the Christian Student Union. Last year the same Christian Student Union published it again in a third edition which was exhausted within weeks. Recently, the book attracted the attention of some people here in the United States, who decided that an English translation would be something truly desirable. Mr. Kevin Christopher Pluchino was kind enough to undertake the work of such a translation. He handily completed the work, and here we have an excellent English translation accurately and handsomely faithful to the original Greek text. He has my warmest thanks for his remarkable contribution.

Times have dramatically changed since 1960 when the book was originally composed. However, when one reads this book today in its English translation, one can see that some basic and substantive human conditions remain exactly the same. Ultimately the need of speaking to God is not affected by any change in time, space, existential needs and social circumstances.

Therefore, I offer this book to our beloved people, especially to the youth, as if it has been written for them, here in America, today. I pray that it will be of assistance in our effort to speak to God, our Father and Creator.

+Archbishop Demetrios of America

New York - October 26, 2011

Introduction

Billions of words are heard every hour upon our planet. They are made up of the substance of every kind of conversations between people.

How many of these words though are addressed to God? How many belong to a dialogue between man and God?

We dont know. That which we do know - from bitter negative experience - is that the dialogues between the inhabitants of Earth and our Heavenly Father must be increased. An urgent need exists for us to have a conversation with Him as the first and foremost element of our lives.

We should speak with God. We should present our problems to Jesus. We should set in front of Him our hard times and our disappointments. We should place our plans, worries, and desires in His hands. This is the meaning and message that this book wishes to bring to the world of our youth, particularly students.

The following pages are not exactly prayers in the usual meaning of the word prayer . They are more so attempts at prayer, topics of prayer, and thoughts in prayer. Written in the first person they all can with great ease be placed upon everyones lips, because more or less they echo, with major or minor changes, those things that each person has in his or her own heart. From this point of view, each reader could simultaneously have been the author of this book.

The First Cycle of this edition contains prayers by which we ask God to teach us how to pray. In the Second Cycle we talk to Him about ourselves and our problems. In the Third Cycle we sing praises of His glory and His majesty. In the Fourth, we entreat Him on behalf of our brothers and sisters, while in the Fifth Cycle the prayers address the need for a true approach to the Gospel.

The reader should not be surprised by the sudden ending of many of the prayers in this book. It is not rare for a conversation with Jesus to remain half-finished. There come times when words cannot express the movements of the soul. When this happens, ones lips are sealed; expressions are almost cut in half. Yet the heart takes it upon itself to continue praying, conversing with heaven, in its own language.

First Cycle

And it happened when Jesus

was in a certain place praying,

as He finished, one of his disciples

said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray.

Luke 11:1

I dont know how to pray

My God, I dont know how to pray. Yet I so deeply feel in myself the need for prayer. I want to pray.

Hour by hour the intense longing to talk with You altogether comes over me. The longing to come into contact with You, the Ineffable and Unfathomable. But I lose the words. I cannot piece together what I mean. My thoughts become confused. So often I dont know what to say, while I understand that I have so much to say. Something indefinite, confused, something without shape or form, is in movement within me. A whole world of ideas, feelings, thoughts, and experiences is in a constant tidal wave within me.

I do not want to hide from You, God. In the past years I have prayed but little. From the time I was a child, in my last few years of elementary school, until today, prayer seemed to be almost absent from my life.

Therefore even now that the thirst for contact with You burns me up like fire, I cannot--I do not know how to talk to You. I try to pray, and the same words I used to use when I was a child come to my mouth. But in the condition that I am in today, they seem so strange and foreign that I am embarrassed to use them in prayer.

I beg You, Almighty God: Teach me how to pray. Speak to me. Show me by what divine art I can commune with You. I am sitting at Your feet ready to listen to You. Right now my eyes are fixed only upon You.

The same old question burns my lips as that which Your Apostles asked, Lord, teach us to pray .

Be the conversant I am looking for

My God, conversation with You is something simple. But at the same time it is also difficult. A dialogue with You, I feel, constitutes the highest art, the most profound science, and the most authentic life.

Oh, how I feel the pressure of being without any training, education, or effort in this direction! God, I feel like an invalid, because up to now no one has taught me the art and method of conversing with You.

I spent many years for my education. I can make myself understood just fine to people who were born in many other places, from places where snow doesnt melt to places where the sun scorches the ground.

I speak freely and comfortably with them. You gave me the ability to have long and interesting conversations with them and with others.

But when it comes time to talk to You, who are my Father who made me, then a terrible weakness comes over me. An odd difficulty engulfs my words. Dialogue with You stops and dies before it begins.

You know, All Wise God, my desire to have a dialogue with You. The wish to converse with You is torturing me. I long to be able to talk to You and for You to answer me. For You to whisper inside me and for me to listen happily and ecstatically.

Lord, I feel a deep pain when I think about how I can go on for hours with my friends and even strangers on serious or empty, meaningless topics while with You I cannot accomplish talking to You even a few minutes, or so often for a second.

I start my day or end it without this supernatural dialogue with You.

Dont leave me, my Savior, in this state any more. Make me a participant in Your living Word. Build up in my contrite spirit and in Your pure and infinite Spirit a bridge of dialogue which my very existence demands.

Become the other Conversant whom I have looked for all these years.

Make me feel Your presence

Lord, I have to tell You that prayer is a problem for me. How should I collect my spirit, which is split and squandered in a thousand pieces? How should I concentrate; how can I close off from all around me and within me each entrance from the outside world, appearances, and sensations?

My mind buzzes like a beehive. My ears are bombarded by a million noises. In my eyes images and pictures flash constantly one after the next. And when I close my eyes, my imagination composes and presents me with a sight of many colors.