Conferences of St. John Cassian - Conference Nine On Prayer, Part III

Germanus, Cassian's traveling companion, begins this section by talking about the mind's inconstancy and seeming inability to hold on to holy thoughts.  He presses Abba Issac to move ahead with a discussion on how to pray without ceasing.  But Abba Issac knows that there is work that must first be done in understanding the various aspects of prayer as outlined by the Apostle Paul and to see an example of the forms of prayer expressed perfectly and in unison by Jesus in the Our Father.  No person's prayers are uniform and each is affected by their level of purity of heart. A rather lengthy discussion ensued about the struggle with secularism and worldliness that impedes the freedom and simplicity necessary to allow prayer to become the focus and center of one's life.