Unceasing Prayer and Fr. Benyamin - Life of Fr. Benyamin the Hermit

It happened that some of the soldiers that were on guard duty and who were stationed at the monastery of St. Bishoy and the Suryan Monastery, visited him in his cave. They marveled at his solitude and his manner of life, they asked him what does he do in this wilderness, and he answered saying that he prays, so they asked him what does he do (his work), and he answered them, “My work is prayer, is prayer not work? And a marvelous one!!!”

Regarding prostrations (Metanyas), he used to refer to them as his canon, and he loved to carry them out in the early morning before sunrise, and he did a great number of prostrations daily.

Also, everyday at sunset he would go out into the desert to pray some prayers in addition to all of the litanies (the petitions of the Divine liturgy).

He used to say regarding prayer, “We are strangers in this world, but also in the monastery, we must offer many prayers or else we will perish!!” -keeping in mind that Fr. Benyamin was a hermit in the desert. His mouth never ceased from praising, and especially the arrow prayers (The Jesus Prayer)… “O my Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me, O my Lord Jesus Christ help me, I praise You O my Lord Jesus Christ, and so on”

He used this prayer at 9 in particular, while working with his hands like removing the sand for example and other work.  He would use a short sentence that starts with “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ…” and would add the rest to it which would represent his personal needs. He would begin his prayers that way, and he would pray these prayers until he poured out many tears.

Prayer is boring...Or is it?!

|Fr. Mina the Hermit (Pope Kyrillos VI)

St. Seraphim of Sarov

I promised in the very first blog posts that I would post from the teachings of our holy father, Pope Kyrillos VI from one of the  first spiritual books I read which helped me greatly. Although the letters were addressed to his disciples the monks, there is much to learn from them and they also tell us of the holy life that H.H. lived. As most of us know, H.H. lived as a hermit; he was a great ascetic and loved to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. His reverence for the Holy Mysteries is something that I always remember him for. In the individualistic secular world that we live in, we too often forget our communication with God. Prayer has been pushed to the periphery of our lives and most of the time we only embrace it in times of tragedy and need. Of course there is nothing wrong with falling on one’s knees before God in these occasions, but it might be a problem when that becomes the only time we meet with the Divine.

In the Orthodox Church, we focus a lot on the mystical union the believer has with Christ, it really is the goal of our lives- that is union with Christ. A lot of converts will notice a difference when they are received into the Church; they see that their spiritual lives survive on their constant union with the Beloved. Well not only converts but anyone who has lived most of his life away from the Church where prayer is a rare thing, and is not talked about. It is not a surprise that when one reads a spiritual book, by one of our holy fathers and mothers, to see that they talk a lot about prayer, especially the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer deeply rooted in the Scriptures is taught by all of the Orthodox Saints from all over the world. It might be given a different name as with the Coptic Orthodox Christians who usually refer to it as the “Arrow Prayers”, in essence it is the calling of the Name of Jesus by which we are healed and saved.

The Church emphasizes unceasing prayer and the constant awareness of God through the practice of the Jesus Prayer. We cannot put on Christ if we don’t know Him, and to know Him would require an intimate relationship with Him which we develop through prayer. But what is prayer? Is it a time dedicated in the day where we recite words? Is it when I go to church and pray the liturgy? Is it just the Jesus Prayer? These are all correct answers but we must look deeper into this and the only teaching I remember that I could not forget  to this day is by St. Theophan the Recluse, here is what he says:

“The essential part is to dwell in God, and this walking before God means that you live with the conviction ever before your consciousness that God is in you, as He is in everything: you live in the firm assurance that He sees all that is within you, knowing you better than you know yourself.”

I believe that this is real prayer that we continue to live being aware that God sees all our actions, our thoughts, our desires and everything within us, the awareness that He is in us and not outside of us…He is not the old man in the sky. Our audible prayers are a great aid and are very essential, they must be carried out, our prayers and chanting aid us in keeping this awareness of God in our hearts, the Jesus Prayer “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner” accustoms the person in remembering that he is under the mercies of God who became man to save him, the sinner.

I am not teaching anyone about prayer, I am simply offering my reflections on what I have read and what I am struggling to follow. I want to share what I am learning, to share the beauty of our faith. I’ll talk more about Pope Kyrillos VI in the next post. Leave a comment! :)

St. Theophan the Recluse

The Praying Monk - Life of Fr. Benyamin the Hermit

The Work of his Hands:

The work he did while he was in his cave as part of the rule of the monk (prayer, reading and work) was the making of leather crosses, a common work done by those who did not leave their cells. Fr. Benyamin also worked on copying books, which is an essential work especially in the previous generation. Monks undertook the responsibility of copying holy books and church service books. There are still some of the books which he copied with his beloved ones and in the library of Baramos Monastery. A year before his departure, he copied the book of Psalms, during 5^th and 6^th weeks of Lent, 1986. After his departure, we found his copying utensils in his cell.

Many times he had to remove large amounts of sand from around his cell or did some repairing himself.


His Food:

It is not appropriate for a person to deny himself different types of food and drinks, but when one is concerned with spiritual food he eventually becomes less concerned with temporal food.

Some of the Fathers of the monastery of St. Bishoy said that Fr. Benyamin settled for little to regain his strength. He relied on potatoes as his main meal as he used to eat a small portion of potatoes with bread every day. Each week he had one meal of boiled vegetables, some cheese and powdered milk. During the holy fifty days, in keeping with his mealtimes without changing, he accustomed himself to following the rules of the Church by not abstaining from food. He also had a hot drink during the day with some sweets or biscuits, while eating on his regular scheduled times without changing. By this he kept his regular rule during the feasts to make it easier for him to return to it after the holy fifty days.

During the regular days, he lived on 10 litres of water for a week and on other times he would live on a small amount of bread with 3 containers of water (gas can size) for a whole month.

From time to time he would ask for bean foods like beans and lentils and most of this food he would distribute it to others like the workers and the Bedouins. One of the Fathers that carried his necessities from the monastery to the cave, said that he used to need 14 loaves of bread and would return a number of them to the monastery from time to time.  During the Lord’s Feasts he would go to the monastery of St. Bishoy then Baramos Monastery and would eat what is offered him for these occasions. 

His Prayers:

He spent a lot of time in prayer, he would pray the full Agpeya (The Coptic Book of Hours) daily. There are about 70 psalms in the Agpeya that we have in our hands, and the rite of the hermit monk requires the monk to pray 150 psalms.

He would pray the psalms found in the Agpeya including the ones that are repeated in addition to the rest of the entire psalter (book of Psalms), and he would pray a great number of the psalms as follows:

-The collection of psalms in the Agpeya including the ones that are repeated, and that would be 138 psalms (while counting Psalm 118 as one psalm).
-The collection of the rest of the psalms that are in the Psalter and that are not in the Agpeya, which would be 74 psalms. He would pray a third of them after the sext (sixth hour), the other third after Compline (twelfth hour), and the rest after the Midnight Prayer. That would amount to 212 psalms prayed everyday according to his rule.

After he finished his prayers, he would read a chapter from the Old Testament, a chapter from the New Testament, and a chapter from one of the Epistles/Letters while standing in the position of prayer, he would do this many times in one day and as a result, Fr. Benyamin studied the entire Holy Bible very well.

He himself told some of the Fathers, that a monk in the monastery used to pray 151 psalms everyday despite living in communion (cenobitic) and was responsible for one of the monastery’s jobs, so how much more should the hermit do.

And most likely he was speaking about himself…

And he used to say, “There is nothing better than prayer, and I wish to stand for many hours every day before God.”

Fr. Kyrillos and the Man who Repented

Fr. Kyrillos El-Makary

St. Macarius the Great

One of the monks of the monastery (St. Macarius Monastery) never went out to the world except for a few times for medical purposes. On one of these visits to the doctor for treatment, the monk saw that the man was around his age and they looked at each other and found out that he was his colleague during his time in college. The monk in a friendly way invited the man to the monastery and this was during the beginning of Lent. The man accepted the invite and went to the monastery on one of the days of the fast and the following happened:

The man arrived at the monastery at 10 in the morning and sat at the guest place. The church bell rang for liturgy that was from 11 till 1. The man did not care and did not go to the church, and after a bit Fr. Kyrillos El-Makary arrived and met with this man.

He asked him: “Why didn’t you come to liturgy and receive communion?”
The man laughed greatly, indicating sorrow.
And told Fr. Kyrillos, “Me take communion?!”
Fr. Kyrillos asked him, “Why not take communion?”

The man told him that for more than 25 years he did not receive communion or fast and that he is now, of course, not fasting for Lent. Fr. Kyrillos told him, “Go quickly and receive communion and I am the one who is telling you to go receive communion” The man in turn told him that he already had breakfast of milk, cheese and eggs before he came to the monastery and that he had just smoked cigarettes as well…!! But Fr. Kyrillos insisted that he go to the church to receive communion and gave him the absolution.

The man was moved and  embarrassed, and was confused over Fr. Kyrillos’ insistence that he receive communion. Indeed, he went to the church and partook of the Holy Mysteries…after spending all his life away from communion.

When the time for visiting was over, the Father responsible for the visitors told them that the visiting time is over. He noticed a man sitting beside the relics of St. Macarius the Great, weeping and this was around 6 in the afternoon. The Father then told Fr. Kyrillos of the man’s situation and asked him what should they do. When Fr. Kyrillos heard of this, he told the Father to leave him and not to bother him.

After a short while, the man left the monastery at 7 pm and then left the whole world, and departed into the heavens at 3 am on that same day after he partook of the Holy Mysteries and in repenting before the relics of the three saints (St. Macarius the Great, St. Macarius of Alexandria and St. Macarius the Bishop) and under the blessing of Fr. Kyrillos and his loving and big heart, the lover of sinners and the one who goes after those who have gone astray.

The relics of St. Macarius the Great, St. Macarius of Alexandria and St. Macarius the Bishop

The Monk and his Cave - Life of Fr. Benyamin the Hermit

Fr. Benyamin in front of cave

His Life in the Cave:

Fr. Benyamin’s cave was simple, it consisted of a room where he received the Fathers at the entrance and on the right side a narrow passageway which led to a small kitchen and a very primitive bathroom. There are two more rooms in the cave, one of them was his hermitage (his lock-up place or inner cell) and the other room he wanted to turn into a prayer altar, but didn’t. The cave contained only a humble mattress, some simple food utensils and a number of books like the Bible and the sayings of the fathers. There weren’t any other books, clothes or money in the cave.

On one of the walls of his hermitage (the inner cell) he hung a panel on which he wrote:

“Know my brother the reason we stay in the cell, so that we know nothing of the world and what is in it or if people are good. When we hear the news of the world we will condemn and judge them and say that this one is righteous and that one is evil, and that is the work of God and not of man.”[1]

From this saying we can interpret Fr. Benyamin’s manner of life. For the person who loves his readings, this shows the direction he is taking, but the one who chooses sayings from the books to write them down and hang them up, well that summarizes and describes his manner of life.

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[1] A quote by Mar Isaac the Syrian which I couldn’t find in English and translated it from the Arabic reference.