Pray for the people of Ukraine and for an end to war!

OrthodoxPhotos.com
HOME | PHOTOS:
Holy Fathers
Orthodox Elders
Athonite Hermits
Icons & Frescoes
Holy Land
Monasteries, Churches
Pascha Holy Light
Monasticism
Monastic Obedience
Various Photos
SEARCH:
THE ORTHODOX FAITH:
What's Orthodoxy?
Who started it?
Is it 2000 year old,
before catholicism
and protestantism?

BYZANTINE HYMNS:
Athos Monks[play]
Meteora[play]
Th. Vassilikos[play]

Conclusion.


So, the essence of the prayer consists in attentively addressing God and appealing to Him with a warm heartfelt feeling —whether you are expressing your gratitude, repentance or something else in your prayer. If there is no such feeling, then there is no real prayer.

In order to learn praying, pray more often and with more zeal and you will learn it: you would not need anything else. If you work hard and patiently, you will acquire the skill of unceasing prayer with time. Make it your goal — to seek and do seek. The Lord is close to you. Keep God always in your mind and always try to see the Lord before you and to venerate Him.

When interfering thoughts come to your mind during praying — drive them away, if they persist — banish them again...and be that way in everything. This is a deed of sobriety. Exert yourself to keep your heart in a religious spirit. When your heart is overcome with a feeling, vain thoughts do not bother it.

We began writing with the effort to write and the wish to do the work properly. In the same way we have to learn praying through effort and persistence. A prayer will not come by itself, you have to learn it like rubbing your soul would warm it up. When the warmth comes, your thoughts would calm down, and your prayer will become cleansed. Everything comes through God’s grace. That is why we have to pray to the Lord for Him to grant us the prayer.

As far as the praying rule is concerned, you can choose any of them as long as you are keeping your soul in reverence to God.

It would be good to get used to appeal to God with short prayers during the day. The main prayer out of all of them is the Jesus prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." Learn 24 prayers of John Chrysostom and pray to God with them. Using short prayers concentrates your attention and reviews all your spiritual needs.

Do not forget that the strength of the prayer is the "contrite spirit," that is the state when your heart is filled with repentance and humbleness. Commend yourselves into the hands of God and He would never leave you. While praying you should not try to visualize God or Theotokos, or the saints, or angels, or any other visions, but just pray being sure that God and the saints hear your prayer. How can they hear it? — What use in discussing that? They just hear it — that’s all. If you start creating various images in your mind, there appears the danger of praying to some fantasy. How can we visualize something that we have never seen? And also the state in which the saints find themselves in that other world is so different from anything familiar to us that all our visualizations are doomed to turn out fraudulent and false. That is why we should get accustomed to saying a prayer without creating any images in our minds.


Missionary Leaflet # E1b
Copyright © 2001 Holy Trinity Orthodox Mission
466 Foothill Blvd, Box 397, La Canada, Ca 91011
Editor: Bishop Alexander (Mileant)


Return to the first page





[ Orthodox Resources / Multimedia / Screen Savers ]
[ Bookmark OrthodoxPhotos.com / Homepage ]

Recommended books for: orthodox & non-orthodox people





                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Copyright © 2003 - 2022 OrthodoxPhotos.com All rights reserved.