Seeking in quest of what is most necessary for one praying to converse with God, in what way does prayer come, the Lady Theotokos finds the sacred stillness—‘stillness of the mind', the world standing still, all earthly things below forgotten and sharing the secrets above, laying aside conceptual images for ‘what is better'. She discovers that if the mind does not scatter over earthly matters, it could devote itself to a better and higher pursuit, that is—turn towards itself: the unique activity through which it could unite with God.
...Тhe Most Holy Virgin staying in the Temple, having been freed of any material tie and relationship, and having even raised Herself above sympathy for the body—in riddance of any material object and every pleasure, attached Her mind to turning towards itself, in both attention and unceasing prayer. And through it (the prayer), She came completely to Herself and overcame the multiform rubble of thoughts; She discerned a new and ineffable way to Heaven, which I would call ‘silence of the mind'. And fixing the attention of Her mind on this, She soared above all created things, and saw God's glory better than Moses and kept an eye on Divine grace, which is by no means subject to the power of sensations, but is a wonderful and sacred contemplation, characteristic of pure souls and minds. Since a partaker of this contemplation, the Most Pure, as sung in the church hymns, became a lightbearing cloud of the truly Living water, a dawn of the mystical day and a flaming chariot of the Logos.
…They who act in this manner, who by sacred stillness have purified their hearts and in an ineffable way have drawn near the One Who Is beyond any feeling and thought, within them as in a mirror see God. Hence stillness (hesychia) is a fast and direct guide, successful and uniting with God, especially for them who practice it in everything and entirely. And what shall we say about the Lady Theotokos, Who stayed in hesychia from childhood? Staying in stillness of prayer supernaturally, from the earliest years, She, exactly because of it—knowing not of a man—attained the grace to give birth to the Godman Christ.
Saint Gregory Palamas
