If you were a Sister in 15th century Grevencloster in Cologne, you would already have made a decision to devote your life to prayer. And to other duties, of course – Tertiary sisters as a whole were known for their contributions to the social good. And it’s nice to sleep, occasionally. Or so I’m told.
So our hypothetical Grevencloster sister is sitting in her convent, thinking to herself: golly, I should pray. But some days, prayer is just inspiring, and other days, well, keeping your mind on your spiritual practices can be a challenge.
There’s a self-help book for that.
The sisters of the Grevenconvent owned a substantial manuscript, now Köln HAStK 7010 155: 310 leaves, or 620 pages, copied in two columns. It contains a dialect-inflected vernacular version of the Vitaspatrum, a collection of lives, sayings, and stories about the early Christian desert fathers. Its advice is provided through a series of encounters: someone asks a question, an elder or other authority answers, and each small story gives the reader something to think about.
The twelfth book – chapter, in modern parlance – is devoted to prayer. Across thirteen sayings and stories, it offers examples of extraordinary devotion alongside advice for getting through a regular plain old day. And it begins with a reassuring admission: concentration is hard. We all need to keep practicing:
1. Abbot Agathon: the labor of prayer: The brothers once asked Abbot Agathon which virtue required the greatest labor in the community. He replied: “Brothers, I think there is no greater labor than praying to God. For whenever a person prays to his God, immediately the devil seeks to disrupt his prayer, because they know that nothing hinders them so greatly as prayer. In every other labor within the community, a person has some rest; prayer, however, requires a good struggle until the end.”
Prayer, our reader learns, is hard, but worthwhile. Even the desert fathers, with lives that were exemplary enough to be collected and copied centuries later, recognized the difficulty of sustaining prayer. Agathon gives that difficulty a spiritual explanation: the devil is a disruptor, and prayer interferes with his business. Expect resistance, but keep on keeping on.
But how does one keep praying while also doing everything else? Abbot Lucius has an answer—and a pointed question for people who claim to have solved that problem already.
4. Abbot Lucius: praying without ceasing: Once some monks called “the Prayers” (Anbedere) came to Abbot Lucius at Ennatho. The abbot asked them what manual work they did. They said: “We undertake no manual work. Rather, as the Apostle says, we pray without ceasing.”
The elder said: “Do you not eat or sleep?” They answered: “Yes.” He said: “Then who prays for you?” They did not know how to answer him.
Then he said: “Brothers, you do not do what you say. But I will show you that I work with my hands and nevertheless pray without ceasing. With God’s help, I sit making mats from palm leaves, and meanwhile I say, Miserere mei, Deus—‘Have mercy on me, O God.’ Is that not prayer?” They said: “Yes.”
The elder continued: “When I have worked and prayed like this throughout the day, I earn sixteen pennies, more or less. Of these I give two to the poor at the door, and they pray for me while I eat and sleep. Thus in me is fulfilled what is written: ‘Pray without ceasing.’”
Clever story, eh? Reinforces the idea that prayer is in the intention, and that keeping the intention in focus while also accomplishing the more plebian “work of the world” – here, mat-making; in the convent, perhaps spinning or stitching or polishing the silver – turns work-time into prayer time. And then, too, a person can give alms to add other’s prayers to his or her own, and that will allow for a ceaseless chorus of prayers to rise up to the heavens.
For a sister with work to do, this offers an appealing possibility. A repeated prayer can accompany the familiar movements of repetitive tasks. Plus, the community of prayer can extend beyond the person doing the praying. Nor is this a distraction, as she read about before, but an effective use of all available time to accomplish multiple ends, here a combination of physical labor and the spiritual task of prayer. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Still, the sister may feel that as far as prayer goes, she’s walking through the motions. She already prays the hours (as the rule commands). But a prayer life can still leave plenty of room for spiritual ambition. Lot, who has established his own routine, wants to know what comes next.
3. Abbot Lot and Abbot Joseph: becoming fire: Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said to him: “According to my ability, I fulfil my little rule: I observe a little fasting, prayer, meditation, and stillness, and I strive as best I can to purify my thoughts. What more should I do?”
Then the elder stood up and raised his hands toward heaven, and his fingers shone like fire. He said: “If you wish to become entirely like fire, do not stop at what you have already attained.”
That is quite an answer to “What more should I do?” Lot gives us a modest inventory of his practices. Sounds like a good monastic existence. Joseph makes us realize that prayer can go beyond the ordinary: fiery fingers here are echoed in the story of Abbot Sisoes, who achieves rapture while at prayer – as long as he strikes the right attitude
11. Abbot Sisoes: rapture during shared prayers: It was said of Abbot Sisoes that whenever he stood in prayer, unless he quickly lowered his hands, he was immediately caught up in rapture (ghetucket). When another brother happened to pray with him, he quickly lowered his hands so that he would not be caught up in rapture and cause any delay.
But back to the Lot example: I’m particularly taken with its final directive: if you are seeking fiery levels of inspiration, “do not stop at what you have already attained.” The Latin version of this story ends with the invitation to become entirely like fire. The Grevenconvent manuscript gives its reader an additional push. Lot’s “little” observances have brought him to a point from which he can now go further; he gets an implicit exhortation to intensity. The combination of these two “fiery prayer” stories reminds us that spirituality can be exciting, transformative, unearthly. It has the capacity for a “wow” of a spiritual moment.
But not every moment trends toward the extraordinary. The smaller in-the-moment prayers matter too. When people ask Macarius how to pray, for instance, he doesn’t require a lot of text:
13. Abbot Macarius: how to pray: Some people asked Abbot Macarius how they should pray. He said: “There is no need to say much. Rather, continually stretch out your hands and say: ‘Lord, as you will and as you know best, have mercy on me.’ But if a temptation enters the mind, we should say: ‘Lord, help me.’ For he knows well what is beneficial for us, and deals mercifully with us here.”
At times of temptation, short and sweet is the best solution: “Lord, help me.” It’s almost akin to a mantra, and can cut into that jumble of thoughts to turn the devotee back toward her duty. It is also a text that can be said while your hands are occupied. The Macarius exemplum gives the reader both words to use when the need arises, and the assurance that God already understands what is needed. Eloquence isn’t required.
He also gives her something to do: stretch out the hands, and do so continually. This reminds us that prayer is embodied. Joseph raises his hands toward heaven; elsewhere in the chapter, Bessarion stands praying with his hands raised, and an elder raises his hands to ask for rain. Prayer takes bodily form as well as spoken form; it is something you do, not just something you say.
Taken together, these stories offer several avenues into prayer. There is struggle for focus, repetition and practice, prayer to accompany work. Three’s generosity, appropriate bodily gesture, and the possibility of becoming like fire. There are even a few words for that moment when eloquence fails you.
And tucked among the longer encounters is a very short saying:
12. The old fathers: prayer orders the thoughts: The elders said: “Continual prayer sets the thoughts in order.”
That sense of order and alignment with what is good in the world is a reward in its own right. As they read, then, the sisters could find both encouragement for the prayer they already practiced alongside an invitation to imagine what more it might become. For our Grevenconvent reader, the next prayer might involve struggle, a steadier mind, or something extraordinary; this spiritual how-to manual gave her reasons to keep going.
For anyone who would like to explore the whole chapter, here is an outline of its thirteen sayings and stories, in manuscript order. The titles and numbers are supplied by me.
| No. | Title (supplied) | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agathon: prayer as lifelong struggle | Prayer encounters continual opposition and requires struggle until the end. |
| 2 | Dulas on Bessarion: prayer and miracles | Prolonged prayer, miraculous water, and prophecy. Gesture: standing with hands raised to heaven. |
| 3 | Lot and Joseph: becoming entirely like fire | Joseph challenges Lot to go beyond his accustomed practices. Gesture: Joseph rises and raises his hands; his fingers shine like fire. |
| 4 | Lucius: praying without ceasing | Manual work, spoken prayer, and almsgiving together sustain continual prayer. |
| 5 | An elder from Mount Sinai: prayer for rain | An elder’s prayer ends a drought. Gesture: he raises his hands; the brother falls down before him, and the elder flees. |
| 6 | Isaiah: prayer rising like fire | A priest of Pelusium calls for silence because one brother’s prayer rises like fire before God. |
| 7 | Pastor: the imperfect harvest | Giving with imperfect motives is better than withholding help altogether. |
| 8 | An elder and visiting brothers: prayer beneath conversation | One brother completes 103 prayers while conversing with the others. |
| 9 | An elder: the soul as clear water | Contemplative prayer requires purification from extraneous thoughts. |
| 10 | Evagrius: the sword of tears | Tears combat intrusive thoughts during prayer. |
| 11 | Sisoes: rapture during shared prayer | Sisoes avoids being caught up in rapture and delaying his companion. Gesture: to avoid rapture, he quickly lowers his hands. |
| 12 | The old fathers: prayer orders the thoughts | A brief maxim on continual prayer and inner discipline. |
| 13 | Macarius: a few words suffice | Simple appeals for mercy and help suffice. Gesture: stretching out the hands in prayer. |
All translations above -- based on my own transcription of Köln HAStK 7010 155, fols. 40r–41v -- are provisional, intended to convey the flavor and contents of the chapter; they have not yet been polished for scholarly publication. Numbers and anecdote headers were supplied for tracking purposes throughout.
For an accessible English translation based on the Latin transmission of Book V – a later part of the collection – see The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, translated with an introduction by Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin Books, 2003).
Image: “Mathilde Standing with Hands Raised in Prayer,” from the Helmarshausen Psalter, Germany, second half of the twelfth century, Walters Art Gal+lery W.10, fol. 6v
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