When Apples Are Sometimes Oranges

One of my big confusions during the first few years of my journey as an Orthodox Christian was caused by an assumption I had that words used by different Orthodox spiritual writers would refer to the same thing. There may be a philosophical name for this way of thinking about words and reality (other than ignorance), but I don’t know what it is. It took me a few years and abundant consternation to finally figure out that, for example, the words soul, or prayer, or nous (sometimes translated intellect) did not necessarily have the same meaning when used by St. Paul, the Desert Fathers, St. Gregory of Palamas or St. Theophan the Recluse. In fact, even within the writings of one Holy Father, sometimes words take on slightly different meanings in one context than they have in another. Figuring this out the hard way cost me several years of headache wondering why apples sometimes looked more like oranges.

St. Isaac the Syrian addresses this problem directly in homily twenty-three as he tries to address some misunderstandings about the nature of “spiritual prayer.”  For St. Isaac, “prayer” refers to an act of the human will (manifested in various forms, or what he calls “modes”) by which a person “give[s] his attention to God, and he yearns for and awaits mercy from Him.” The highest form of prayer for St. Isaac is what he calls “pure prayer,” that is, prayer without distraction—a state that St. Isaac points out is exceedingly rare, especially as a sustained experience.  Spiritual prayer, for St. Isaac is a state beyond pure prayer that is no longer prayer. It is no longer prayer because the human will is no longer leading or making the prayer happen, but rather the Spirit now leads and the will and mind now just go along for the ride. St. Isaac cites St. Paul’s experience in 2 Corinthians 12, “whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know” as an example of this spiritual prayer.

But then St. Isaac anticipates a question: If spiritual prayer is not prayer, why is it still called prayer? St. Isaac begins by explaining that “The Fathers were wont to call every good motion of the spiritual activity by the name of prayer.” Prayer, for the Fathers, is a general term that can refer to any motion (that means thought or action) that points one to God or by which one draws near to God. This is why you will often hear holy people say that almost anything can be prayer, if it directs your attention to God.  All sorts of activity, everything from a walk in the woods (even perhaps a walk around a golf course) to a midnight vigil, from the practice of inner silence to the building of houses for the needy, all of these in some ways and for some people can be called prayer, if indeed the motion (the thoughts and activities) direct one’s attention to God in a way that the person “yearns for [God] and awaits mercy from Him.”  

But then St. Isaac goes on to point out that what is sometimes called spiritual prayer is other times or by other people called theoria, or knowledge, or noetic vision.  “Do you see,” St. Isaac says, “how the Fathers interchange appellations for spiritual things?” And why, you may ask do they do this.  He goes on to explain: 

“For the exactitude of designations holds valid for things here, while there is no perfect or true name whatever for things of the age to come, but a simple [state of] knowing only, surpassing every appellation, every rudimentary element, form, colour, shape, and compound name.”  

When it comes to things of this world, yes, we can define and label them. Type 316L stainless steel is, well, type 316L stainless steel. It is defined and the definition is agreed upon. It can be counted and measured and weighed so that when an engineer calls for type 316L stainless steel, the manufacturer knows exactly what she means. But spiritual realities are not “rudimentary elements.” They cannot be measured, weighed or counted. Spiritual realities are just known.

Of course this causes problems for those of us raised and educated in the world of Einstein and matrix coding, a world in which we have been taught to quantify even the most intimate aspects of our experience. It seems we have come to believe that nothing really exists if it cannot be defined and reduced to numbers that can be compared to other numbers. The world of the spiritual Father is so far from us. It seems absurd to us to take the word of a holy man or woman about a matter that we ourselves have not personally seen, tasted or touched, that at least someone has not counted, defined and numbered.  It seems quite irresponsible, even foolish to us that we would take the word of a holy man or woman about a spiritual reality just because, well, just because they are holy and they themselves have known it. What make this even more difficult for us is the fact that the transfer of such knowledge is deeply personal. It cannot be objectified into words which, if transposed into a different context, will have the same meaning.  

Holy people use different words to describe the same experience, words that will help the hearer, the specific one(s) that the holy person is speaking to. There is no attempt (because it would be impossible) to objectify the language. The goal is not analysis, but the goal is to help the hearer also enter the experience and him or herself to acquire the direct knowledge of the spiritual experience or reality that the holy person is speaking of.  St. Isaac puts it this way:

For this reason, once the soul’s knowledge is raised out of the visible world, the Fathers employ whatever appellations they please to indicate that [state of] knowing, since no one knows its name with exactness. But to make the soul’s deliberations steadfast therein, the Fathers resort to appellations and parables, according to Saint Dionysius, who writes, “we use parables, and syllables, and permissible names, and words, on account of our senses; but when our soul is moved by the operation of the Spirit toward those divine things, then both our senses and their operations are superfluous when the soul has become like unto the Godhead by an incomprehensible union, and is illuminated in her movements by the ray of the sublime Light.”

What does he mean?  He means that there are no right words, there are no definitions for this experience of knowing that which is “out of this visible world” because, as St. Isaac says, “no one knows its name with exactness.”  Nevertheless, “on account of the senses,” that is, because the saints are still in the body and still have mouths and minds and a reasoning faculty, because of this and in order to help others and to help themselves “remain steadfast” in what their souls are deliberating or knowing or thinking about as and after they have been “raised out of this visible world,” because of this very experience of illumination in the “sublime Light” and the soul’s transformation into the likeness of the the Godhead, because this happens while the saints are still in the body, they find that they are compelled in some contexts to talk about it. Some things they cannot speak of, as St. Paul tells us, there are “inexpressible words that are unlawful for a human being to utter.” However, there are some aspects of their spiritual experience that they can and apparently are compelled to talk about.

However, when they talk, they do not use words the way an engineer or scientist does. They use “parables and syllables,” that is, they use the tools of this visible world to try to point to the reality of the world unseen. It’s kind of like using a wrench to model and explain open heart surgery. It is clearly not the right tool, but if you grasp the intentions of your teacher and follow closely his or her motions and if you already have at least a little familiarity with the experience of surgery and the human anatomy, you might just learn something new. And whether the teacher is holding a wrench or a screwdriver in his hand as he does his demonstration really makes no difference whatsoever. The wrench is just a parable.  \It stands in for a reality that for whatever reason cannot be exactly represented. And this is also how it is with words when one is reading or listening to holy men and women speak of spiritual realities. The goal is not to understand the exact meaning of the words.  The goal is to experience, or at least begin to experience, the spiritual realities to which those words point.

So, the next time you are reading a holy Father and are baffled by his words, don’t fret yourself very much. The words point to realities that have, as St. Isaac says, “no perfect or true name.” Nevertheless, through prayer, inner quietness, and contemplation (which, by the way, may all refer to the same thing), through these and with longing and desire to know the realities to which our holy Fathers and Mothers point, it is possible (at least in some small ways) ourselves to have our souls “raised out of the visible world” and to be ourselves illuminated by a small ray of the divine Light.

Giving Birth To Prayer

Now that we are well into Great Lent and have, I hope, pushed ourselves a little in fasting and prayer, it’s probably time to take stock of what is really happening.  I imagine most of us are failing miserably.  Even if we have managed to keep a strict diet, obeying to the best of our ability the outer guidelines of the fast and even if we have attended most of the extra services, still I’m pretty sure most of the people reading this are frustrated or disappointed with their actual performance on a spiritual level, that is, their actual ability to draw near to God in the Fast.  And so, what I am about to say may seem pretty depressing, but stay with me, it gets encouraging toward the end.

St. Isaac the Syrian, in his homily twenty-three, speaks of prayer, what prayer is, what pure prayer is and what is even beyond pure prayer. Most of what he says in this long homily has no application whatsoever to my life at this point, or to the life of anyone I know living in the world.  He speaks of pure prayer leading to a state of being swallowed up by the Spirit so that one no longer prays but merely dwells “with awestruck wonder” “in that gladdening glory.” Most of us never dwell anywhere near such a place. Most of us consider ourselves immensely blessed if we can experience just a brief moment of pure prayer now and then, that is, prayer without distraction. As to what holy Saints experience beyond pure prayer, I just have to take St. Isaac’s word for it. I have never experienced it. When I pray, I certainly do not dwell in a place of awestruck wonder in gladdening glory.

But despite the fact that most of what St. Isaac says in this homily is way out of my league, one thing he says does indeed comfort me quite a bit. It comforts me in that he tells me that I am not unusual in my struggle to pray. It comforts me in that he lets me know that my experience of distracting thoughts and wandering mind in prayer is indeed the beginning  of genuine prayer—in fact, it is itself genuine prayer. There are many ways to pray. We pray in Church, we pray at home. We pray chanting and reading, bowing and prostrating. We pray while reading spiritual books and with inarticulate sighs and cries. We pray with petitions and with praises and by reciting the mighty acts of God in history. All of these and more are ways of prayer.  And all of these ways of prayer, according to St. Isaac, are controlled by the authority of our free will. We decide if we will pray and, often, how we will pray (although here it seems we have less freedom: we don’t so much pray however we like, as we pray however we can, however we are able). We pray because we want to pray—or better yet, because something in us wants to pray.

And here’s the rub. Something in us wants to pray, but much in us doesn’t. But that’s not even it. It is more a matter that so much is running around in our mind unattached and uncontrolled, random and scattered. We don’t even know where it all comes from. When we want to pray, we must create a bit of quiet in ourselves and into this quiet floods all of the things I had forgotten to remember; random and petty thoughts, judgements, accusations; memories I hadn’t thought about for years; and a seeming limitless supply of filth, anger, resentment and envy. It all shows up when I start to pray.  

And so, St. Isaac says, prayer is a matter of the free will. It is something one has to choose, and having chosen to pray, one must continue to choose to pray all throughout the prayer. Prayer is a choice one makes and keeps making; and for this reason, St. Isaac says, “there is a struggle in prayer.” This struggle in prayer, or this struggle to pray when you’re saying prayers, is, according to St. Isaac, the norm. In fact, one of the elders that St. Isaac himself consulted on this matter told him (back in homily twenty-one), “Reckon every prayer, wherein the body does not toil and the heart is not afflicted, to be a miscarriage, for it has no soul.”  

This is, I know, sort of back-handed encouragement, but it does encourage me. By this elder’s standard, my prayer has lots of soul. My feet and back and sometimes my head often ache in prayer. My heart is often afflicted by its struggle with distracting and impure thoughts in prayer. In fact I sometimes wonder if I have wasted my time, if I have just done nothing for an hour while others were doing the actual praying. Or if my little prayer rule at home was just a joke because nothing seemed to happen—nothing more than me spending the whole time trying to pull my mind back into the prayers I am saying with my mouth. I wonder, “Is this really prayer?”  

Well according to St. Isaac, it is really prayer. In fact, according to one of St. Isaac’s spiritual fathers, this very struggle means that the prayer is alive, that it has a soul. That very struggle is the pain of childbirth—of prayer-birth.  We give birth to prayer.  

There is, St. Isaac tells us, prayer beyond struggle. He calls this pure prayer, prayer that does not wander, where no foreign thought enters. But St. Isaac also tells us that this pure prayer is the regular experience of only one in thousands (not one in a thousand, but one in thousands).  The point he seems to make is that only through regular and disciplined struggle to pray as an act of the free will is one able eventually to train one’s thoughts in obedience and as a gift of Grace (for all progress in the spiritual life is a gift of Grace) one is able to be at one with his or her prayers.  That is, one is able to attain pure prayer. But this is not the common experience of prayer. Far from it. Most of us experience prayer as struggle, as something we must choose and continue to choose.

That only one in thousands attain this state of pure prayer, according to St. Isaac, is to me quite an encouragement. I have never been a one in thousands kind of guy. I don’t win contests (unless it is a free weekend in Las Vegas—I keep seeming to win those without even entering the contest).  No, I’m no headliner. I’m always striving just to work my way up to the middle of the pack. And so for me to know that struggle in prayer is normal, that it is indeed prayer itself as I will mostly experience it, that for me is encouraging. Something isn’t wrong with me. It’s not “supposed to be” different. It’s supposed to be labour, like giving birth. My will is fighting to pray, my will is fighting to pray and this very fight according to St. Isaac is prayer.  Yes! Man, I sure pray a lot, because prayer is never easy for me.

But having said this, I want to be quick to add that even though prayer is mostly struggle, it is not and should not always a terrible struggle. In fact, if prayer is always a terrible struggle for you, you probably need to talk to your spiritual father or mother or someone whom you think might help you because you might just need to try some different ways to pray. There are means of prayer, what St. Isaac calls “modes” of prayer that work better for some people than they do for others. My wife is an iconographer.  She paints as prayer. I paint as torment. What works amazingly well for one person, can be nothing but torment for another. Some people find Life by chanting alone in the middle of the night, others pray better in a choir at church. Some pray akathists hymns, others find it works better just to say the Jesus Prayer. And then there are physical prayers such as prostrations and manual labour for the needy (including, by the way, vacuuming, washing dishes and fixing the plumbing at the Church). Some find Life in reading spiritual books, others journal as prayer. We each probably need to try lots of different modes of prayer until we find ways of praying that actually help us pray.  The Church is a storehouse full of various modes of prayer.  Don’t give up on prayer just because you can’t stay awake during the all-night vigil. There are lots of ways to pray. 

And one more thing. There is such a thing as sweetness in prayer, which is not the same as pure prayer, for the experience of sweetness in prayer occurs in the midst of our struggle to pray. Sweetness in prayer, according to St. Isaac, is that experience when a particular verse or phrase or idea stays with you and evokes a small amount of joy or wonder that captivates you for a moment in prayer. You repeat the phrase, you stay on the thought, you read or repeat the line over and over again as though you were sucking the juice out of it. As though suddenly you have come across a sweet, plump raisin in a bowl of really dry granola.  And when we have these experiences of sweetness in prayer, St. Isaac tells us that we should stop praying, or stop our outer activity of prayer and dwell for as long as we can on that sweet word or thought that has been given us, for here we have been given a gift from the One we are petitioning in prayer. Now is the time merely to receive the gift, asking is no longer necessary, the words of our prayer can, for a moment, be set aside.  

However, soon the thoughts start to wander again.  Soon my hyperactive mind is in analysis mode, trying to figure out how I can apply or interpret or explain to someone else the little treasure that was given me. And so the sweetness slips away, and I must return to the work of my prayer, my reading or whatever it was I was doing. I return to the discipline, to the exercise of my will to focus my thoughts, to pay attention, to turn away from all of the thoughts that suddenly seem so very important. I return to birth giving, to the labour of giving birth to prayer.

Advice On Distracting Thoughts In Prayer

I just received the newsletter from St. Barbara’s Monastery, in Santa Paula, CA.  I consider the Abbess there, Abbess Victoria, my first spiritual father.  Or as I sometimes say, “my first spiritual father was a mother.”  In this newsletter, Abbess Victoria gives excellent advice on what to do with worries and other distracting thoughts in prayer.  I can think of nothing more edifying than to share with you than what she has written.  She writes:

The advice of our Holy Fathers and Mothers is simple and direct, but probably too difficult for us to use all at once without practice.  They remind us that worries are temptations and that, when beset by worries and troubles of all kinds, we should as Christians give them over to the Lord and do this as quickly as possible.  How?  Not by some extraordinary feat of concentration whereby we might herd our thoughts into a box and seal them away!  Not at all!  Rather, when we cannot simply turn away from them, we do this by making our worries the very subject of our prayers.  The only sure way to put our worries to rest is to ask the Lord—not neglecting to employ the intercession of His saints—to resolve whatever is troubling us in whatever way He deems best, thus surrendering the outcome into His hands.  Our Holy Fathers and Mothers lived their daily lives on this exalted and most simple plane.  Not only do such prayers resolve the difficulties themselves causing our worry.  They bring peace of heart, purify, correct and illumine our thoughts, and lead us to repentance and pure prayer—the prayer that is beyond words.

However, to repeat what was said above, to live and pray this way takes practice.  As with anything else, at first one must remind oneself that there is a way to be rid of the burden of worry, and the way is Christ.  Then, one must make the effort to turn to Him, to pour out one’s worries and troubles to Him, and to give the burden of them to Him.  Over time, one finds oneself referring to this pattern more and more readily in the face of whatever comes until it is simply second nature.

I have to say that this is about the best, simply-presented advice on overcoming distracting thoughts in prayer that I have ever come across.  Yes, it’s not easy—it takes practice.  But it is very simple advice.  We have to give what is causing us worry to God in prayer trusting Him with the outcome.  In this way, any distracting thought can become prayer.  Even shameful or sinful thoughts.

How can this be?  When a shameful thought comes to my mind in prayer, if I can’t immediately turn away from it, I then “show” it to God or His Mother in my mind as further evidence of my poverty and need for help and mercy.  Of course, I am not really showing God anything He doesn’t already know about, but the intentional act of mentally pointing out to God the filth or frivolity that happens to be tormenting my mind at that moment shifts my focus from the distracting thought to a certain shame and humiliation I feel knowing that God and even His Holy Mother take pity on me and still come to me despite the pig muck that sometimes tenaciously sticks to me.  Those feelings of shame and humiliation reduce my prayer to nothing but a heartfelt “You see what a mess I am, please save me.”  This is a prayer that, in my experience, God always answers.  

I have found that feeling ashamed and humiliated before God and the Saints is very beneficial, salvific even.  Of course, one has to have correct theology or else shame can be destructive.  If one wrongly assumes that God’s love is based on our performance or our righteousness, then shame only produces guilt and a sense of hopelessness.  If one wrongly thinks that one has to clean him or her self up before they come to God in prayer, then they will quickly give up on prayer.  However, if we liken prayer to the Prodigal Son’s coming to his senses and beginning his walk home (with big clods of pig muck hanging from his clothes, mashed in his hair and clinging to his bare feet), then we too—regardless of what ugly swinish thoughts may be bombarding our mind—we too can come to God in prayer.  Like the Prodigal, we come stinky and covered with muck (our filthy thoughts), but like the Father in the parable, God runs out to meet us.  And it is this encounter with God (when He clothes us) that cleans us up.

Prayer, when I struggle with unclean thoughts, is sort of like a filthy child coming to Mum and saying, “I need a bath.”  Yes, it is embarrassing.  Yes, it is humbling.  And yes, Mum loves me and will not reject me; she will clean me up.

We had a young family over for dinner last week who have a two year old boy (Samuel) they are potty training.  I was amazed by the love and trust this little boy had in his parent’s love.  With his wet pants he came to his mum and dad, not really ashamed at all, almost wondering where these wet trousers came from.  Dad rushed him to the toilet. Mum ran out to the car to find the bag with the extra clothes.  Baby sang songs on the toilet.  Mum set a timer to set him on the toilet again later.  Baby played happily in his new clean pants until the timer went off about an hour later, and led to the toilet he peed, accompanied by parental shouts of joy.

I want to be like little Samuel in my relationship with God.  I am a spiritual two year old and God and His Mother and my guardian angel and all of the saints (its a big family) are training my little two year old spiritual mind to stay out of the gutter of empty or unclean thoughts.  Like little Samuel, I sometimes get it, but I often don’t.  But even when I fail miserably, I do not doubt my family’s love.  I do not doubt that mum will change my pants.  I do not doubt that God will come to my aid.

Of course, I would rather think of myself as a more spiritually sophisticated person than that.  But maybe that’s my big problem in the first place.   I am not always calling out to God for help.  I am not always keeping disciplines, like timers set to help me remember when to pray and how to avoid spiritual “accidents.”  I think I am beyond such things.  I think I am ready for school when I’m still not quite ready to be out of diapers.  But regardless of my maturity or lack thereof, God’s love is a constant.  And assured of God’s love no matter what, I can bring any “mess” I find in my mind to God in prayer—which I often do.  

St. Paul asks us, “Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?”  Nothing.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God—not even my mental ugliness, confusion and distraction.  All of this can become prayer because none of it changes God’s love for us.

Closing The Door To Tormenting Demons

"Beware of idleness," St. Isaac the Syrian warns the hermits, for "without it a monk cannot fall into the hands of those who strive to enslave him." St. Isaac warns hermits not to neglect psalmody nor prayer because in abandoning them, the solitary opens a door to the demons. The judgement of God comes upon us not because we have neglected spiritual discipline, as though God punishes us for legal omissions, failing to accomplish our duty, or incorrect use of our resources; but rather the judgement of God comes upon us through the torment of demons because we ourselves have opened the door to them. The spiritual disciplines help us shut the door; without spiritual disciplines, our wandering mind, roaming lusts, hidden fears, and latent self-importance emerge, prying open the door for the tormenting demons to enter.

"It is written," St. Isaac says, "He who is not subject to the will of God, is subject to his adversary." Spiritual disciplines are the primary way we subject ourselves to the will of God. For those in the monastic life, and especially for solitaries, those disciplines are all-consuming activities of prayer, reading, and work. But for us in the world, the spiritual disciples relate to our neighbor: love your neighbor, don't kill, don't commit adultery, be kind, be content with what you have, be generous to others, don't judge, weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.  

I imagine some of my readers are wondering: "Are these spiritual disciplines?" Yes. These are par excellence spiritual disciplines. When we struggle to be kind or generous or content, we are struggling to be like Christ, and the door through which tormenting demons enter is pressed firmly shut. Of course what we find out right away when we seriously embark on the spiritual life in the world is that we fail miserably at keeping the spiritual disciplines that Christ and the Apostles commanded. We find out right away that we cannot easily be kind, even when we want to be kind--and then there are the many times we don't want to be kind! We find out right away that within ourselves, within the resources of our own will and desire, we do not have what it takes to practice the spiritual disciplines. And because we fail to practice the disciplines, the tormenting demons attack us--the door of our mind being left wide open for them.

Yet, it is the very suffering caused by the demons, the guilt, the confusion, the anger, the lustful passion, it is this very suffering that drives us to God in prayer. It is our awareness of our great need that turns us to God again and again for help. But how do we pray?  

Certainly, "Help, God!" is a good start. However, in the same way that one might use home remedies for a minor cold or to mend a scratched knee, yet will go to an expert in medicine for a serious condition; so also in our spiritual life we go to the doctors, the men and women who have spent a lifetime learning prayer. We go to the monastics, and particularly to those monastics (or monastic writings) that have proven over time to be reliable and helpful in producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in those who have heeded their advice.  

Remember, the goal is not to pray like a monk while living in the world. The goal is to love our neighbor as Christ while we live in the world. Prayer rules and techniques are the means, the means to transformation so that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit and show forth the love and life of Christ.

We shut the door to the demons and avoid God's judgement by actively pursuing the spiritual life. This pursuit requires repentance and our own healing and manifests itself in love of God and neighbor. Prayer is a part of this, an essential part--I might even say an integral part of our pursuit of God and of our shutting the door to the demons that torment us. But he who says the most prayers is not necessarily (and not probably in my experience) the one who is experiencing the most success in the spiritual life in the world. The one who is succeeding in the spiritual life is the one who is learning love the unlovely, who is looking for opportunities to be generous to those who ask, who tries to shut down judgemental thoughts, and who is practicing kindness and mercy even when he or she doesn't feel like it.  

Such a one will be heeding the advice of St. Isaac, avoiding spiritual idleness and therefore not becoming the prey of his spiritual adversary.

Behold The Bridegroom Comes...Late

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching, and again unworthy is that servant whom He shall find heedless.  Beware therefore O my soul, lest you be weighed down with sleep and lest you be given up to death and the door of the kingdom be shut against you; but rouse yourself crying: Holy, Holy, Holy are you O our God, through the intercessions of the Theotokos have mercy on us.

Troparion for Bridegroom Matins

Several of the parables of Jesus deal with the topic of a Master or a Bridegroom delayed in His coming. Those who are waiting, these parables teach us, must stay alert while they wait. The worthy servants are the ones who are awake to receive the Master when He comes. The Psalmist expresses very well the attitude of alert ones: "My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning."

This attitude of alert waiting is liturgically expressed in the prayers of Matins, said traditionally very early in the morning. Matins, in its fuller form, is a one-and-a-half to two-hour (sometimes longer) prayer service that ideally ends just as the sun is rising. Like the watchmen waiting for the morning, the prayer of the monastics and others who rise early to pray liturgically manifests the inner attention and longing for the coming of the Master--even though those who are waiting are sometimes more than a little groggy. They are rousing themselves and crying to God, "Holy, Holy, Holy." And they are begging the Theotokos and all of the Holy Ones to intercede for them.

Most of us in the world, however, do not keep watch in a liturgical way. The responsibilities of our life and the weakness of our faith is such that we struggle to rise two hours after dawn and only with great effort manage to pray the Our Father or some other small prayer rule. We are weak, but we are not abandoned. We can still keep vigil in our hearts.  

How is this? How can we pray with attention when we don't actually say many prayers? What is our prayer if it is not our prayers? Are we the ones weighed down with sleep because we struggle to pray, because we are not satisfied with the level of our prayer life and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it--much that actually makes a lasting change? Is the Door of the Kingdom still open for us?

Yes.

Actually, it is a terrible thing to be satisfied with your prayer life. Only those in delusion think they pray as much as they should. Jesus saves the sinners, not the satisfied. When we suffer pain because we are acutely aware of our failure in prayer, then that pain itself becomes our prayer. That pain is our longing. That pain is our vigil. That pain is our attention as we await the coming of our Master who will save us from ourselves.

With longing we wait for the Lord. Prayers help us express this longing, but it is the longing itself that the Lord is looking for.