When it is said
St Nil gives these prayers for the hours when a heavy gloom settles on a person and the thought comes that today is bad and the days ahead will be worse.
He tells the one who prays to keep praying as far as their strength allows, and to bow to the ground if they can.
A person might say either prayer on its own, at any hour.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
St Nil and his Rule
St Nil Sorsky lived from about 1433 to 1508. After journeys to Palestine, Constantinople and Mount Athos, he settled with his followers in a hermitage by the Sora River in Russia. For them he wrote a Rule, drawing on what the Fathers wrote about prayer and the inner life. These two prayers come from its section on despondency.
Nilus of Sora, Wikipedia; St Nil Sorsky, the Rule, in G. M. Prokhorov’s Russian translation, Azbyka.ru
Whose words are they?
Nil credits the first prayer to St Barsanuphius, an elder who answered questions through the abbot of a monastery in Gaza. In one of those answers Barsanuphius urges a monk whose inner battles were growing fiercer to cry out, “Lord Jesus Christ, You see my weakness and my affliction, help me.” Nil credits the second prayer to St Symeon the New Theologian, who lived from AD 949 to 1022.
The answers of Sts Barsanuphius and John, answer 540, in Russian, Azbyka.ru; St Nil Sorsky, the Rule, ed. M. S. Borovkova-Maikova (1912), Azbyka.ru; The Philokalia, vol. 4, tr. G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard and K. Ware (1995), introduction to St Symeon the New Theologian
What the words mean
“A way out”
The Slavonic word in the second prayer means a way out. Paul promises the same in 1 Corinthians 10:13, where God “will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” and “will also provide an escape.” St Nil quotes that promise a few lines before he gives the prayer.
St Nil Sorsky, the Rule, in G. M. Prokhorov’s Russian translation, Azbyka.ru
The Scripture in it
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide an escape, so that you can stand up under it.
But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Господи, виждь скорбь мою и помилуй мя!
Боже, помози ми грешному!
Не попусти на мя, Владыко, выше силы моея искушению или скорби, или болезни,
но даждь изводство и крепость, во еже мощи претерпети ми с благодарением.