Elder Ephraim: How the demons hate the Jesus Prayer - The Jesus Prayer burns the demons

Elder Ephraim of Katounakia: The experience of personal struggle

At the end of the month of February 1998, the tall cedar of the desert of Katounakia fell. He was the modern hesychast of Mt. Athos, the embodiment of Orthodox Athonite Hesychasm, the embodiment of renunciation and departure, and of great obedience and ceaseless prayer. 

The late spiritual father was one who approached the divine through the experience of personal struggle. He was a great teacher of our times and a faithful guide. He was the one who taught and practised Hesychasm, departure, obedience, prayer. 

He came from the region of Thebes, but he never visited his relatives, as far as I recall, after being tonsured a monk. He was a disciple of true departure. 

He placed himself under the guidance of the elder Joseph, from whom he learnt the mysteries and spiritual ascent of inner labour and prayer, the monk who became his father and whom he served as a son. 

He was always eager to fulfil the rigorous discipline which harsh and strict elders required. 

Father Ephraim's specialty was to speak, teach and advise others about such obedience. This was his beloved topic. On an almost daily basis, he would refer one thing to all and relate to all, obedience. And with that expressive tone of his strong voice, with the persuasion and experience of an old Biblical figure, he would often come back to the topic so dear to him with a new surge of refreshing ascetic demeanour, to the sweetest lesson and the unique matter, obedience. 

This is the requirement of sacred humility and the coming of the Grace of the Holy Spirit, the cause of all fruitfulness, the pretext of pure prayer. "Do you have obedience? You have prayer. If you don't have obedience, you do not have prayer", he would say, without his words receiving any objection (and Father Ephraim insisted correctly). For, according to St John of Sinai, "obedience means that we place our own discernment into the care of the rich discernment of the spiritual father". 

Countless souls travelled the pathway to the ascetic dwelling of the Holy Father Ephraim of Katounakia -laity, monks, priests and bishops- visitors and beggars of spiritual mercy. The sick came and left healed. The burdened came and left feeling lighter. They came weak and left strong. 

I remember the late spiritual father even before his fine monastic community was formed, when he was alone.When he made the seals for the prosphora loaves in his humble hut. With a cassock that was mended a thousand times. With spiritual vision and practical virtues, precisely as developed by St Isaac the Syrian in his ascetical works... 

May we have your blessing, Holy Father, and may your worthy community follow your hesychastic "model". Amen! 

From Elder Ephraim of Katounakia

 

"I was making some prostrations once, when the following thought occurred to me: “Where you kneel and make prostrations, there the feet of Christ are”. I instantly fell to the floor and started kissing the ground where Christ had stepped. I literally kissed it. These things come by themselves, you cannot provoke them. This is grace, my brother."

"Everyone has a cross to carry. Why? Since the leader of our faith endured the cross, we will also endure it. On one hand, the cross is sweet and light, but, on the other, it can also be bitter and heavy. It depends on our will. If you bear Christ’s cross with love then it will be very light; like a sponge or a cork. But if you have a negative attitude, it becomes heavy; too heavy to lift."

"I do not blame you for committing various sins, even serious ones. No, I don’t. You are human. But I do blame you for not confessing them. Did you fall? Run to your spiritual father. Did you fall? Confess everything to your spiritual father. Remember St. Mary of Egypt? The very first thing she did was to confess her sins."

"There was a young girl who went to St. Nektarios’ monastery in order to become a nun. While she was still a novice St. Nektarios said to her: “My child, we have about ten sheep. Take them to the field to pasture.” “Let it be blessed”, she said. After a couple of days, she went to confess her thought: “Elder”, she said, “a thought is disturbing me. I am here to become a nun, not a shepherd.” “My dear child”, he replied, “whenever I cense in the church I see you standing there in service.’ Although the young nun may have been a shepherd (she spent many hours out of the monastery), her mind was on the Jesus prayer; her thought was in the church and therefore St. Nektarios could see her there."

"Once at a monastery, the priest was censing during the service, and bypassed a father without censing him. Afterwards, the father asked the priest: “Father, why didn’t you cense me?” “Forgive me, elder, I did not see you at the service.” “But, father, I was standing right there in the service”, he said. “No, I did not see you.” When the others listened to their dispute, they said to the elder, “Elder, the priest is insightful; he knows what he is saying.” The father thought for a moment… “Well, the priest is right,’ he admitted, “my mind was wandering all over the place.” The cause behind this was his distracted mind.

“Having a peaceful and serene mind depends entirely on you. It does not depend on temptations or your fellow struggler’s behavior. You yourself will be responsible for your salvation. When you long for your salvation and struggle hard, then the outcome will be according to your wish.

“I myself do not make sure that I pray; I only make sure than I am obedient.”

Man should struggle as long as he lives. His first fight is against his own self upon which he must prevail. Man’s main enemy is not the devil. It is man himself who is a threat to his own self, for he does
not listen to others; he only listens to his own thoughts… our ego rules us."

  

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