The Desert Fathers on postures for prayer

Mother Anne Clarke, Abbess OSB, Malling Abbey

On standing in prayer, from the 3rd Century CE

It was also said of [Abba Arsenius] that on Saturday evenings, preparing for the glory of Sunday, he would turn his back on the sun and stretch out his hands in prayer towards the heavens, till once again the sun shone on his face. Then he would sit down. [Arsenius 30]

Abba Macarius was asked, "How should one pray?" The old man said, "There is no need at all to make long discourses; it is enough to stretch out one's hands and say, 'Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.' And if the conflict grows fiercer, say, 'Lord, help!' He knows very well what we need, and he shows us his mercy." [Macarius 19]

Abba Lot visited Abba Joseph and said to him: “Abba, according to my strength, I recite my little office and carry out my little fasts, prayer, meditation, seclusion and according to my strength I purify myself of my thoughts. What else must I do?” Then the elder stood up, spread out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten burning lamps. And he said to him: “If you will, become totally like fire.” [Joseph of Panephysis 7]

On kneeling in prayer, from the 5th Century CE

On the Lord’s day we pray standing, [thereby] expressing the steadfast quality of the age to come. On other days, though, we bend the knee, indicating thereby the fall of the human race through sin. When we rise from bending the knee, indeed, we make clear the resurrection that has been granted to us all through Christ and which is celebrated on the Lord’s day. [Nilus of Ancyra, Epistula III, 132 (PG 79, 444 D)]

A modern commentator on the tradition

It is often said nowadays that one must also “pray with the body”, and therefore much importance is ascribed to the corresponding “techniques”. What the Fathers meant though, was something different. The body does not stand, as it were, on its own beside the soul. Rather the two make up a perfect unity. The whole man prays, body and soul, whereby the body so to speak, provides the soul with a medium through which it can make visible… its striving for God, which is invisible in and of itself. And this is no insignificant thing, as we shall see, because this “embodiment” keeps the inner disposition from evaporating into something insubstantial. [Gabriel Bunge, ‘Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition’ (2010), pg 152, author’s emphasis]

Further reading

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks by Benedicta Ward (Editor, Translator), Penguin Classics (2003)

Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom Of The Desert, by Dr. Rowan Williams (2004)

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