Κεφ. ΜΘ'
The Primacy of Unceasing Prayer
While bodily ascetic practices are limited by physical weakness, prayer remains the mind's constant and essential weapon in spiritual warfare.
We are not commanded to work, keep vigil, and fast without end, but we are instructed to pray without ceasing. This is because those practices heal the passionate part of the soul and require the body to perform them, yet the body, because of its inherent weakness, cannot sustain such exertions. Prayer, however, prepares the mind—strong and pure—for the struggle, since the mind is naturally able to pray even apart from the body and to fight the demons on behalf of all the soul’s powers.
Read the original Latin
Ἐργάζεσθαι μὲν διὰ παντὸς καὶ ἀγρυπνεῖν καὶ νηστεύειν οὐ προστετάγμεθα, προσεύχεσθαι δὲ ἡμῖν ἀδιαλείπτως νενομοθέτηται· διότι ἐκεῖνα μὲν τὸ παθητικὸν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς θεραπεύοντα καὶ τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν ἐργασίαν προσδεῖται, ὅπερ δι’ οἰκείαν ἀσθένειαν πρὸς τοὺς πόνους οὐκ ἐπαρκεῖ· ἡ δὲ προσευχὴ τὸν νοῦν ἐρρωμένον καὶ καθαρὸν πρὸς τὴν πάλην παρασκευάζει, πεφυκότα προσεύχεσθαι καὶ δίχα τούτου τοῦ σώματος καὶ ὑπὲρ πασῶν τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς δυνάμεων τοῖς δαίμοσι μάχεσθαι.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent