A brother asked Abba Silvain: Father, what must I do to find compunction? Listless despair [accidie], sleep and sleepiness torment me. When I rise, I struggle to say the psalms. I can’t shake off my drowsiness, and can’t finish a single psalm without singing it aloud.
The elder answered: My child, first of all, to say the psalms with melody is prideful because it suggests to you the thought that while you chant, your brother does not. Secondly, it hardens your heart and prevents you from entering into compunction. If you desire compunction, leave chant behind. When you stand to pray, concentrate on the meaning of the verses. Remember that you stand before God who knows heart and soul. When you arise, before you do anything else, glorify God with your lips and recite the symbol of faith and the Our Father. Then begin your canon, meditate upon and lament your sins.
The brother said: ever since becoming a monk, Father, I chant the akolithia of the canon and the hours according to the octoechos. The elder replied: And that is precisely why compunction and grief escape you. Remember the illustrious Fathers and their simplicity. They knew neither modes nor troparia, but only some psalms, and they shown through the universe like beacons. Such was Abba Paul the simple, Abba Pambo, Abba Apollo and the other god-bearing fathers who could raise the dead, performing great wonders, and who received great power over demons, again, not because of odes, troparia, or tones, but because of their compunction filled prayer and their fasting—things by which the heart arrives at the perpetual fear of God, strengthening the grieving that purifies man of all sin and makes the soul whiter than snow. Regarding chant, it has brought many low, and not only the worldly, but even priests have been made effeminate by it, falling into luxuriousness and other shameful passions. Thus chant is a worldly affair, [an occasion for people to gather in churches]. Remember, many are the heavenly hierarchies and in none is it said that they chant according to the octoechos. Instead, in one is sung Alleluia, in another, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Hosts, and in another Blessed be the glory of God. My child, if you want to acquire compunction through prayer, imitate the holy fathers, guarding your spirit from distraction as best as you can. Love the humility of Christ, and wherever you go, don’t show off a subtle mind, or behave like a professor, but instead act as a simple person and lowly student.
Thus will God grant you compunction.
Filed under: Chant, Chant & Prayer, Christian Orthodoxy, Desert Fathers, Orthodox Christianity, Prayer, Psalmody, Religion
