Saint Ilarion Felea: Towards Tabor

All the work of the soul’s perfection is the work of prayer. Breathing gives the body air so that it can live; prayer gives the soul grace so that it can be saved.

Copyright: Basilica.ro

PERFECTION THROUGH PRAYER

“Lord, it is good for us to be here!” (Mt. 17:4)

Through prayer, one masters the passions, acquires the virtues, and receives the light and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Sacraments—Baptism, Chrismation, Repentance [Confession], Divine Liturgy with Holy Communion, Priesthood, Marriage, and Holy Unction—are all done through prayer, from beginning to end. Holy peace and love are born of prayer like rays of the sun. Religious life without divine worship, and thus without prayer, is flight without wings. All the Church’s worship is a flight, a breath of the soul, a prayer that is thought, sighed, whispered, uttered, or sung. Breathing gives the body air so that it can live; prayer gives the soul grace so that it can be saved. All of Christian worship is Orthodox teaching (dogma) in prayer. Through its worship, the Church is Heaven’s gate; prayer is the key that opens it. The most beautiful world is Paradise; prayer is the eye of the heart by which it can be seen. Religion is the connection of love and union with God; prayer is the ladder that climbs to and speaks with Him. The body dies without nourishment; the soul withers without prayer. “Prayer is the nerve center of the soul” (Saints Kallistos and Ignatius Xanthopouloi), it sustains the soul so that it can live and progress in daily devotion and ascend the ladder of perfection. 

Prayer is the voice of joy that fills the soul with light, with the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, with holiness and peace. You come out of prayer like out of a fire: illuminated, purified, gratified. Do you want to escape your passions and repent for your sins? Pray, O my soul! Do you want to commune with Christ and live together with Him? Pray, O my soul! Do you want your good desires to be fulfilled? Pray, O my soul! Do you want your prayers to be received and heard? Pray, O my soul! Give wings to your prayer, so that it can reach Heaven. The wings of prayer are fasting and almsgiving (physical and spiritual acts of mercy). Do you want to thank God for the blessings you have received? Pray, O my soul! Because “gratitude is prayer.” (Saint Peter of Damascus) Do you want to escape the pain on earth and understand how good it is in heaven? Pray, O my soul! Do you want to meet God, see Him as He is in the mirror of your heart, and be united to Him? Pray, O my soul! Do you want to reach the glory of light, joy, peace, and eternal blessedness after death? Pray, O my soul! Pray with faith, warmth, humility, perseverance, love, and devotion; pray as sick patients ask their doctors to heal their wounds, as children ask their parents to give them gifts, and students ask their teachers to share knowledge with them. Pray, O Christian, trusting that prayer nourishes faith, inspires hope, sparks love, teaches humility, sustains piety; trusting that prayer is the greatest weapon against temptations, doubts, and passions; the greatest comfort in suffering, medicine for illnesses, help and joy in life until after death. 

There is a law that fire burns and water extinguishes it. One law eliminates another law. So too is prayer: a law that eliminates another law. A medicine that heals illness, a balm that sweetens suffering; a light that extinguishes darkness, a power that humbles the mighty, strengthens the weak, makes the poor wealthy, and frees the slave—a power that does not cost anything and is available to everyone.  

All the means for the soul’s purification, illumination, and salvation are contained in prayer. All become effective and salvific through prayer. All the work of the soul’s perfection is the work of prayer. A Christian reads all of his sins and responsibilities in a prayer book. If we read attentively, we see in prayers the sins we need to renounce, the virtues we need to cultivate, the gifts we need to ask for and receive from God, and, thus, to purify, illuminate, and perfect our soul. 

It is true, and it is good for us to take note of this, that for beginners in the spiritual life, prayer does not immediately reveal its amazing beauty and power. “To beginners the law of prayer is burdensome, like a despotic master; but to the more advanced it is like the power of love, impelling those smitten by it as a hungry man is impelled towards a rich banquet. To those who genuinely practise the virtues, prayer is sometimes like an overshadowing cloud (cf. Exod. 1 3: 21) that keeps off inflammatory thoughts; at other times, bedewing them as it were with tears, it grants them spiritual visions. Whenever the soul, paying no attention to external things, is concentrated in prayer, then a kind of flame surrounds it, as fire surrounds iron, and makes it wholly incandescent. The soul remains the same, but can no longer be touched, just as red-hot iron cannot be touched by the hand. Blessed is he who in this life is granted the experience of this state and who sees his body, which by nature is of clay, become incandescent through grace” (Elias the Presbyter and Ekdikos, “Gnomic Anthology II,” ch. 105-108, Philokalia vol. 3, p. 46).

Whoever advances in a life of prayer distances himself from a life of sin. One cannot live in both for very long. One must choose. And whoever attains to knowing the beauty and joy of prayer never lets go of it again. Prayer takes the soul directly to God. Through prayer, we live a life in Christ; through prayer, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; through prayer, we partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord; through prayer, we are united to God, saved, and our soul is deified. Prayer opens the way for the soul to heaven, contemplation, religious ecstasy, and the blessed, ineffable vision of God. “Prayer may be defined as the intellect's unceasing intercourse with God. Its task is to engage the soul totally in things divine, its fulfillment—to adapt the words of St Paul (cf. I Cor. 6: 17)—lies in so wedding the mind to God that it becomes one spirit with Him.” (Niketas Stethatos, “On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect:One Hundred Texts,” ch. 77, Philokalia vol. 4, p. 129)

That is why we have said and we repeat that prayer is the greatest power that helps man’s purification, illumination, perfection, and salvation. Those who pray restrain their thoughts, words, and passions; those who pray cleanse their souls; those who pray enlighten their minds and hearts; those who pray adorn their lives with the Gospel’s virtues; those who pray are perfected and attain the joy of salvation in the light of Tabor and glory of God. Prayer is a trumpet resounding in heaven and resurrecting the dead (Jn. 11: 41-45). The power that water has in flowers and sap in trees is the power that prayer has in the lives of the righteous and the saints: it becomes a reason for life and fruit-bearing, for salvation and immortality. O soul, let us ascend to the mountain, here! Be a tree of prayer, with all your branches lifted up to heaven, O soul.

So great is the power of prayer, beloved Orthodox Christians. In the glory of the Taboric light, the Lord’s disciples forgot about themselves and the world. They felt so well here, that they would have happily remained there forever. A warm prayer poured from their joyful hearts: “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” (Mt. 17:4) Let us remain here; let us live here; let us never be separated from You, Lord.  

Here, on Tabor, on the mountain of spiritual perfection, supplicatory prayer and prayer for salvation both cease. Here we encounter prayer of thanksgiving, praise, and glorification. Here, we encounter pure prayer. 

“He who prays only with his mouth prays to the wind and not to God. For, unlike men, God is attentive to the intellect and not to the words spoken.” (Saint Peter of Damascus, “Book I: A Treasury of Divine Knowledge—Introduction,” Philokalia vol. 3, p. 81) Pure prayer unites the mind, word, and spirit: through words it calls on the Name of God, through the mind it gathers itself and reaches for God, through the spirit it discovers humility and love, and therefore the mercy of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Saint Theoleptos of Philadelphia)

Here, on Tabor, we encounter living prayer, spiritual prayer, holy, attentive prayer, perfect prayer, prayer in God’s presence, prayer that fills the heart with love, peace and joy to the point of tears. Here, we encounter prayer of gratitude and exceeding gladness of a soul that lives enshrouded by the Lord’s glory. Here, the blessed soul—completely and eternally blessed—offers thanksgiving, praise, and glory to God. Here, time is lost in eternity, and the soul rests in unending peace and joy. Here and now, it rejoices and sings praises to God, like the angels and Church’s choirs:

“Glory to Thee Who has shown us the light. Glory to God in the highest…”

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord…Hosanna in the highest…”

Here, on Tabor, in the fullness of joy and peace of soul, the Apostles pray long; they give thanks to God for all things. How could our soul not give thanks if it were with Christ, in the light of God’s grace and glory, lifted up, illuminated, reconciled, and united to Him? Here is your homeland, O soul, your peace and happiness! It is good for us to be here, O soul! Here are the crowns, here is the heavenly glory and eternal life. Here is God. Here, on the mountain, let us ascend, O soul! Be a tree of prayer, with all your branches lifted up, to Heaven, O soul. With mind, arms, gaze, heart, and all your being, pray and cry out: Lord, sanctify me by the grace of Your Blood and the word of Your truth. Number me, Lord, among those freed from the great constraint, among those who have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, among the redeemed, bearers of crowns and palm branches, among the blessed chanters and choir of the saved who surround Your throne and that of the Lamb, singing and saying: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb…Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (Rev. 7:9-17)

Trans. Grig and Ioan Gheorghiu

Father [now Saint] Ilarion Felea (1903-1961) was a greatly appreciated preacher of the Gospel, as much by the common people, as by intellectuals, during the first half of the previous century. Professor at the Theological Academy in Arad, he wrote many theological works, the most important of which being Towards Tabor, a work that Father Justin Pârvu considered “the best work of Romanian Orthodoxy until now.” He was arrested in 1951 and imprisoned in Gherla, then Aiud prison, where he died in 1961 as a confessor of the faith. Father [Saint] Ilarion Felea is a true liturgical genius of Orthodox theology, of the Orthodox Church. On July 13, 2024, he was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church and given the title “Holy Priest-Martyr Ilarion Felea,” commemorated on September 18.  

Further reading: Towards Tabor (The Orthodox Word #315) by Diana Suvak