Beginning to Pray

by Anthony Bloom

A new, attractive edition of this modern spiritual classic. †

Genres: Religion, Prayer, Spirituality, Christianity, Christian, Theology, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh was a prominent writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life, as well as the founder and leader of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh.

See also: Antonie de Suroj, Anthony of Sourozh, Antonijus Surožietis, Антоний Сурожский, Anthony van Sourozh, Антоний Сурожки

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Accessible but not simplistic. A welcome and far cry from the rote spiritual pablum I was raised on regarding prayer in daily life. Bloom explains that prayer starts (and often ends) in silence, an attitude that echoes much I've read about meditation.

My favorite passage describes an elderly French peasant who spends hours on end every day sitting quietly in the village church, apparently doing nothing. Perplexed, the priest finally asks the old man what he's doing. He replies, "I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy." Charming but also revealing of the Bloom's view of prayer as an act of patience above all.

I would've liked to have read this quietly encouraging little book 30 years ago, but such was my impatience and youthful arrogance back then thatI doubt it would've had much impact. (middle age does have some benefits)

[Michael O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book for Christians to grow and have a better prayer life. Metropolitan Anthony emphasizes taking prayer beyond the point of being a chore or a duty or a wish list of things one wants from God, and taking it to the deeper level of building a relationship with Him. Overall, a good read for Christians desiring to take their prayers into a better, more profound direction!

[Natnael Tefera Mulatu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beginning to pray is an eye-opening book about the world of praying. It comes down to our shoes and asks why do we feel that God is absent in our lives as Christians? Most of us don't seek God until the moment when we are hit with a crisis or seek to get something. The experience of the absence of God is not his absence but ours. We are absent because when we approach God our intentions are not out of a real desire to know him.

The book also explains the idea of humility. The way we understand it is a sort of sheepish way of artificially behaving and considering ourselves less important which is not what it is. Rather, it is the idea of being just like our earth. " The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don't need. It's there, silent and accepting everything, miraculously making out of all the refuse new richness despite corruption, transforming corruption itself into the power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold, out of every seed."

It mentions when we seek God with humility and love letting go of ourselves and understanding our sinful identity, we open ourselves for exploration into a world as big as an ocean. That world exists inside us. St. John Chrysostom said, "Find the door of your heart, you will discover it is the door of the kingdom of God." The way we figure out our way through the ocean is by going inward and knocking on the door of our soul. The bible mentions "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Matthew 7:7 The door of our soul is not the easiest to find but we should seek it in a vulnerable way removing our artificial mask of pretending.

Anthony mentions that silence is an important step in learning how to pray. "The day when God is absent, he is silent." Thus, we need to find peace with the idea of being silent. He asks how many of us can sit down without doing nothing for 5 minutes. Anthony explains that we live by "reacting to our environment", and the moment we stop reacting we fill helpless. When we sit do nothing, we learn how helpless creatures we are to not be able to handle our own presence. As we sit in silence longer and longer, it seems silence shouts at us. When we let go, cry to God about our helplessness, and surrender completely with humilty, we open ourselves to a relationship.

This book is not a one-time read, it deserves to be read multiple times. The amount of peace and tranquility the book has by itself is evidence of how different it is in the way it's written.

[Mark Rizk Farag · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, deep, practical, accessible and concise look into Orthodox spirituality and prayer.

[Theron Mathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beginning to Pray is a wonderful little book that is simple to read and opens up a world of prayer that is a beautiful encounter with God. Met. Bloom writes very complex ideas into truly simple and wonderful language. There is a sense that Met. Bloom truly knows what it means to pray. The following link will give more info about Met. Bloom.

It is difficult to summarize so much that the book presents. In fact, there are so many nuggets of truth, I imagine multiple readings over time would enhance its value. Here are several things that were especially meaningful to me as I read the book.

1. Prayer is not formulaic or ritualistic. By this I mean, that prayer is not some magic incantation that forces God to behave for us. It is an encounter and a relationship (26). Bloom makes this clear by saying that it can not be forced by us for there is nothing that we can do to make God interact with us. We want God to react and respond to our cries but he has much more justification to complain at our lack of response to Him.
2. Prayer is a relationship of love. This becomes true for us through the beatitude of poverty. All that we possess is a gift from God, and we possess nothing that we can keep. Every gift is a sign of God's love; holding onto possession takes us out of the realm of love (39-42).
3. Prayer turns inward. The inward journey of prayer is not a journey into myself but through myself toward God (46). It is a risk to go inward, because you strip away those things that you thought were real, this throws one into a crisis that only God can fill.
4. Stirrings of the heart teach us to pray. The prayers of the church teach us to pray, and Bloom gives excellent guidance in applying these to our lives. Whenever a prayer of the Church touches us deeply and stirs us, we should grab hold of this, learn it, pray it and live it.
5. Prayer must be lived. Words of prayer are words of commitment to God. Bloom makes an interesting statement that Christ is not going to be crucified for us every day, there is a moment that we must take up our own cross. When we speak to God we must be willing to live and commit to what we say.

This text is so simple but has the power to transform your prayer life. In the words of the Fathers: "A Theologian is one who truly prays."

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book about one Orthodox bishop's reflections on prayer. Very personal, very honest. He had a strong emphasis on encountering God in doubt and darkness, especially when all of our formulations and images of God fail to match with reality. I appreciate the fact that he recognizes that sometimes God doesn't show up, and sometimes we have to wrestle with him in order to reach him. It's a real relationship, and prayer isn't just saying set prayers, nor is it just talking to God as if he were our imaginary best friend. Prayer is connecting with the reality of God's sustaining presence in every moment of life, being totally connected to the present moment in which we are living, and in which God is acting.

"The realm of God is dangerous," says Anthony Bloom. "You must enter into it and not just seek information about it... The day when God is absent, when he is silent -- that is the beginning of prayer."

[Bethany Ritter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book surprised me. At times I struggled with it because the author was so reverent towards God that he seemed to loose the personal relationship with God. But then, as I kept reading he seemed to describe my exact experience of wrestling to be in the presence of the Lord - searching Him and finding Him, then searching Him and hearing silence. I think this booked has really helped me to embrace intentional silence as a practice of prayer rather than always resorting to words in prayer.

“In the process of searching you will have endured pain, anguish, hope, expectation - all the range of human emotions. God will have been the desired One and He will have been the frustrating One. He will have been the One you long for and the One you hate because He escapes you, the One you love beyond everything without whom you cannot live, and whom you cannot forgive because he does not respond, and many other things.”

[Max Berendsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Kirolos Elkes Bishoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I look at Him, He looks at me and we are happy.”

Feel the depth by having a personal name, by praying for others, by having the intercessions of st. Mary… pause the time around you to focus only on Him. Be still, be silent, don’t rush it. Day by day, your will becomes truth, your loath to understand Him and love Him will become true. You will finally open the door and greet Him by His name. A name that you personally know. And He will greet you with yours.

[Ty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapters on Time and Names were both good, but the very brief meditation on Staretz Silouan was my favorite part of the book. I'll look to him next.

[Elizabeth Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful and understated, some of the most freeing content on prayer i’ve come across

“In the process of searching you will have endured pain, anguish, hope, expectation—all the range of human emotions. God will have been the desired one and He will have been the frustrating one. He will have been the one you long for and the one you hate because He escapes you, the one you love beyond everything, without whom you cannot live, and whom you cannot forgive, because He does not respond, and many other things…when we can address Him with violence, as well as with love, then we have established a relationship of prayer”

[Gene Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teachings, theories, and ideas about prayer abound. And the gap between talking abstractly about prayer and the practice of prayer can be vast. In light of all this, one may very well wonder where God is and how one goes about communing with God in a genuine and meaningful way. Enter Anthony Bloom, a medical doctor turned priest who was part of the French resistance during WWII. As the title of this book suggests, Bloom's goal is to reflect on the basics of prayer, not starting with the words we speak, which we're often tempted to think is the primary substance of prayer, but with the heart. By talking about the importance of applying to ourselves the first Beatitude ("Blessed are the poor in spirit") and embracing the reality of the Kingdom of God as something that dwells in us, Bloom sets the stage for very practical considerations regarding different forms of prayer (including spontaneous prayer, the use of pre-written - or more accurately, pre-prayed - prayers, and continuous prayer), an appreciative approach to each new day, and time management, topics that readers might not connect with prayer but which, under Bloom's tutelage, become clearly relevant. Perhaps his most important lesson is that what one prays one must strive to live up to. Rating: Close enough to 5 stars.

[Petrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great but problematic book. Has really good advice to catechumens and Christians re-investigating their praying life, yet also can make one extremely confused due to some of the "self-help book" nature counseling. There is a bit which may strike many at first as iconoclastic because Father Anthony wasn't careful enough to explain the context behind that part. Yet if one inquires what he is saying further, he is not really saying anything iconoclastic, rather that it is poorly explained which makes the book problematic *especially* to the catechumen. Of course though, that is a good teaching in itself on how we should not take these books as our "Bible" in the Protestant sense. Remember to talk with your priest about things you may see as problematic. Nor should we praise the written text in itself, but rather God who allows us in our free will to find our way to His Truth, from whom all the true wisdom ultimately comes from.

[Debbi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when first became Orthodox and loved it. I gave a copy of it to my goddaughters for Lent and thought I'd read it again myself. It starts off a little slow and it just wasn't holding my attention. I had wondered what it was that made me love it so much, but then I got to the chapter titled "Knocking at the Door" and was captured by Met. Anthony's words. This isn't so much a book about how to pray as it is a book about drawing closer to God. Met. Anthony doesn't give us rubrics and examples. Instead, he encourages us that prayer is an encounter and a relationship with God, and to begin that relationship we must be silent before Him.

A simple but powerful book and I plan to pick it up again and again.

[Einzige · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book which does a great job of capturing the true significance of what prayer actually means for a Christian. Likewise it does not shy away from the difficult and unpleasant realities of prayer.

Definitely a solid introductory book for people who think mindfulness and contemplative meditation are things only found outside of Christianity.

That said there were also some parts which I thought were a bit iconoclastic and co-redemptrixy but that's neither here nor there.

[James Maxon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony Bloom offers some unique and personal observations on prayer. Whether you follow Orthodoxy or not you are bound to come away with a better foundation in your own prayer life.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is very accessible and readable, the ideas it covers are by no means simple. This book covers both practical and spiritual approaches to God in prayer that utilize silence and presence to begin a relationship in prayer with God as Person, helpful for the novice and experienced in prayer.

Anthony Bloom offers practical tools to encourage prayer, such as pairing action with particular prayers, allowing particular time to pray, saying particular words to pray (sometimes ones that are honest rather than pious, simple rather than lovely), etc. This book centers on the idea that God is a Person and must be engaged as a Person. Particularly helpful is the idea that God can feel absent when we speak because we have not ceased speaking, or we have not truly sought Him. God is not simply a Being waiting to hear our words and ready to listen whenever we may choose to speak, but beyond all else a Person with Whom an interpersonal relationship is possible. The rest of the book grows up from this assumption.

Throughout the book, he creates a narrative that can assist the one who is praying. First, one approach the door, knocks, waits, then addresses God. This kind of mental narrative of prayer is a helpful one, first for it's practical application. Sometimes we pray outside a closed door. Sometimes we try to rush in, not waiting for God to meet with us. Or we will simply list the our need before God, without ever speaking to Him. In all of these cases, the passing of time becomes the major problem. Silence itself may seem enjoyable to us, but silence must be accompanied by the passing of time around us without activity, and this can be an agony.

One chapter of this book, the chapter in which the book shines distinctly, addresses the matter of time:

"Now as far as time is concerned, there are moments when one can perceive that the present moment is there, the past is irremediably gone, it is irrelevant except to the extent to which it is still in the present--and the future is irrelevant because it may happen or it may not...What you have got to do is to be so completely in the present that all your energies and all your being are summed up in the word now. You discover with great interest that you are in the now."

This emphasis on the now- of all the past gathering behind and the future fractaling out ahead, both remaining entirely irrelevant to this moment of now- offers the opportunity to make the time spent in prayer potent and focused. Now is the moment we stand before the living God, and that "now" is moving along with us in time, not moving against us. There is peace in this thought, that for all of our hurrying and busyness and anxiety, time will carry us along from past to present to future all the same, but our true experience is only one of the present, and therefore we should be entirely present in it.

Silence, presence and a relationship with God as Person are unique features in an astoundingly short book.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like reading things by Russian Orthodox Christians now and then in my spiritual walk. Metropolitan Anthony (he was Patriarch of London for a few decades) escaped the Russian Revolution with his family as a child, was in the French Resistance as a young adult, and lived as a simple monk throughout his entire ministry as bishop, so he was pretty much a badass. He died in 2003. He writes incredibly wise things that make me think - and at this point in my reading of spiritual books, not many folks can do that anymore. Probably not for everybody, but if you "look inside" on Amazon, you'll get a sense of whether he speaks to you or no.

[Elizabeth White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hard one to rate. I would give it 5 stars if you're evaluating it as a book for new Orthodox Christians who need an introduction to the Orthodox mind on prayer - fewer stars if recommending it for the one who is further along in knowledge and spiritual growth. I personally cherished this book when I first read it many years ago. And now, as is a habit of mine, I go back every once in a while to books such as this to remind myself of the basics.

[Shea Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple and accessible, even to a "spiritual but not religious" person, but deep insights from personal stories and wise illustrations. It is full of the kind of statements about spirituality that you might say "How do you even know that?" and yet your soul knows it to be true. A must-read for all those curious about the spiritual life and any Christain looking for deeper prayer.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent short book on the correct basic attitudes to enter the prayer of the heart.
This is a re-read for me, and I am actually going to start re-reading it right away, and take more notes.

[JennanneJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I didn't agree with everything in this book (spontaneous prayer only "works" in times of dire distress/need?, and praying for Mary to save us), overall i thought it was an excellent beginning guide to finding moments of time to pray. It illuminated some practicalities of praying.

[Joanna Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“So often when we say ‘I love you’ we say it with a huge ‘I’ and a small ‘you’. We use love as a conjunction instead of it being a verb implying action. It’s no good just gazing out into the open space hoping to see the Lord; instead we have to look closely at our neighbour, someone whom God has willed into existence, someone whom God has died for. Everyone we meet has a right to exist, because he has value in himself, and we are not used to this. The acceptance of otherness is a danger to us, it threatens us. To recognise the other’s right to be himself might mean recognising his right to kill me. But if we set a limit to his right to exist, it’s no right at all. Love is difficult. Christ is crucified because he taught a kind of love which is a terror for men, a love which demands total surrender: it spells death.

“One of the things which God continues to try to teach us is to replace the imaginary and minute amount of disturbing strength we have by this frailty of surrender, of abandonment in the hands of God.”

“This is the weakness in which God can manifest. His power and this is the situation in which the absence of God can become the presence of God. We cannot capture God. But whenever we stand outside the realm of ‘right’, only in the realm of mercy, we can meet God.”

“We cannot live a life of prayer, we cannot go ahead Godwards, unless we are free from possession in order to have two hands to offer and a heart absolutely open - not like a purse which we are afraid of keeping open because our money will drop out of it, but like an open and empty purse - and an intelligence completely open to the unknown and the unexpected. This is the way in which we are rich and yet totally free from richness.”

“It is not the flesh that is responsible, and I think in that sense we must learn to control our imagination. As long as our imagination has not taken hold of us, things are outside us; once our imagination has got entangled and imprisoned in things, then we are glued to things. You know there are such things as meat and vegetables and puddings and so on. As an objective fact you know it. If you settle down and ask yourself ‘I’m not really hungry but there are so many nice things one can eat, what would I fancy?’ In five minutes’ time you will have projected tentacles over a variety of things. You will be like Gulliver, knit to the ground by one hair and another hair and another hair; each of the hair is really nothing, but the sum total will keep you solidly tied down. Once you have allowed your imagination full sway, things are much more difficult. In that respect we must be sober and we must fight for freedom. There is a great deal of difference between attachment and love, between hunger and greed, between a live interest and curiosity, and so forth. Every one of our natural propensities has got a counterpart which is marked by evil and which is one of the ways in which we get enslaved. This is what I meant by withdrawing tentacles. To begin with, say ‘no’. If you haven’t said ‘no’ in time, you are in for a fight. But then be ruthless about it, because reason and detachment are more precious than what you get as a slave in terms of enjoyment.”

“There was nothing to bother about, I had no need of straining myself, and then I perceived that this silence was not simply an absence of noise, but that the silence had substance. It was not absence of something but presence of something. The silence had a density, a richness, and it began to pervade me. The silence around began to come and meet the silence in me. All of a sudden I perceived that the silence was a presence. At the heart of the silence there was He who is all stillness, all peace, all poise.”

[Navel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
- Psalm 45:10, LXX

Metropolitan Anthony of blessed memory leaves us a succinct tract on how to pray. 4 stars as it would have been nice to have more quotes from the saints about prayer.

The Orthodox prayer is always focused on stillness, or hesychia. God is found in the silence and peace so often hard to find in the busy modern world and genuine humble seeking of Him.

"What can we do? This is the first exercise. It can be done at moments when you have absolutely nothing to do, when nothing pulls you either backwards or forward and when you can use five minutes, three minutes or half an hour for leisure and for doing nothing. You sit down and say 'I am seated, I am doing nothing, I will do nothing for five minutes', and then relax, and continually throughout this time (one or two minutes is the most you will be able to endure to begin with) realize, 'I am here in the presence of God, in my own presence and in the presence of all the furniture that is around me, just still, moving nowhere.' There is, of course, one more thing you must do: you must decide that within these two minutes, five minutes, which you have assigned to learning the present exists, you will not be pulled out of it by the telephone, by a knock on the door, or by a sudden upsurge of energy that prompts you to do at once what you have left undone for the past ten years."

[Kirstie]

I’m not sure what number of stars to give any of the Orthodox books that will be showing up in my feed over the next weeks. Orthodoxy has a fundamentally different theological and anthropological paradigm than my tradition, so it’s hard to assess Orthodox books with a simple rating. I’ll stick to brief commentary.

This book addressed some specific weaknesses I have in prayer: rushing, getting distracted, saying words I don’t actually mean, etc. The way the author talks about the human work of prayer feels foreign and a little off-putting to a Lutheran reader, but I don’t think the tone is legalistic. Actually, it’s comforting. He writes conversationally, acknowledging that human beings have a lot of struggles in prayer and that’s normal. But he also points the reader to something higher and suggests, “Yes - God deserves your reverence, honesty, and love. But yes - you can learn to pray. You can put these things into practice. Of course you won’t do it perfectly but why would that mean you shouldn’t try?” He humbly gives suggestions for practices that can improve our prayer life based on his own experiences (something I’m learning is very Orthodox), and he grounds the whole book in the (also very Orthodox) idea that prayer is not just helpful but essential to a deepening relationship with God.

I’ll come back to this one again.

[Adam Barger · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for this brief yet deep exploration of personal prayer and connection with God. Bloom’s life is remarkable and by the time a reader gets through the intro, they are convinced Bloom speaks with authority derived from experience.

I found the first few chapters on the absence of God and knocking on the door to be most helpful.
Though the rest was interesting and new (for me), I thought the writing drifted a bit. This is not necessarily a how-to book, but there are a good amount of practical applications to go along with conceptual challenges.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. As a 40 year old person who has always felt prayer as an elusive thing, this book provided practical, beautiful insight the likes of which I’ve never read. It is beautifully written, conversational, accessible, deep and meaningful.

[Paul Hoehn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began reading this w my spiritual advisor and I have to say…. what an amazing recommendation. Anthony Bloom was a mystic with a rare gift for evangelism. This book is suffused with a rigorous—and challenging!—honesty that Bloom also insists should be the guiding force of prayer. I can’t say I disagree.

[Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, simple, sweet, and effective. I plan on rereading this book many times.

[Abi Emmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely changed my perspective on prayer. Highly recommend!