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about the gift of unceasing prayer
Fr. Seraphim himself was experienced in the [[Jesus Prayer]]. He considered obedience to be absolutely necessary to practice the Prayer. He said that if a person in hard works achieve the skill to the Jesus Prayer, but without healing of the soul through the obedience, if he will not cut out own will, then the prayer, uttered out of habit, would not be that true inner unceasing prayer of which the ascetics wrote. The prayer will remain only as words, as a proud mind can not unite with the name of Jesus Christ - this incomprehensible Humility.
Fr. Seraphim knew from his own experince what the unceasing prayer of the heart is. A well-known elder John (Krestiankin), who was tonsured a monk by Fr. Seraphim in 1966 in Sukhumi, writes in one letter to some person about the way the Lord gives His gifts and takes them away: "My spiritual father was a young man when he received the gift of unceasing Jesus prayer and the fullness of joy in it, and then the Lord took this gift away, and all his life Fr. Seraphim looked for the lost piece of silver – he worked humbly and patiently – the gift was returned to him by the Lord a few days before his death - as a witness that the Lord had accepted his tears for the whole life".
On [[December 18]], 1975, during the vigil, Fr. Seraphim felt ill. He went to his bed. All the time the elder read aloud the [[Jesus Prayer]], and when tired, asked the others to continue to read it. During two weeks, he daily took the Holy [[Communion]]. Being fully conscious, the Elder was honored to see many of his brethren in the spirit, who, according to him, were singing the sticheron "Eternal council". And then the elder in a weak voice sang: "O taste and see that the Lord is good. Allelujah." After the vision, he said, "What I have prayed all my life and what I was searching for, it is opened now in my heart, my soul is filled with grace, so that I could not even hold it." And then said, "Now I'm going to die". On [[December 31]] he closed his eyes for the last time and the next day, on [[January 1]], 1976, the elder reposed.
*{{Ru icon}} [http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/39315.htm Pravoslavie.ru: Three newly-canonized Glinsk elders.]
*{{Ru icon}} [http://lib.eparhia-saratov.ru/books/16r/rafail/secret/33.html Archimandrite Raphael(Karelin). The Mystery of Salvation. Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim.]
*{{Ru icon}} Letters of elder John Krestiankin. 10-th edition. 2011.
