Prayer as Life
“We are all familiar with that state when someone says: “I feel God, but very far from myself.” And each one of us very often feels God as somewhat distant from us. And yet how we would love to be closer to God, to draw closer to Christ the Savior, to be near Him. This happens because we pray little, pray incorrectly, or do not pray at all. If prayer—the thread connecting us to God—breaks, then our communication with the Creator of the universe ceases. And without prayer, as we know, nothing happens. There is no spiritual life, no Christianity, and no love for God and neighbor. Prayer gives grace, which nourishes you, just as underground waters nourish plants.” (Hieromonk Anatoly)
“We often look at prayer as a check list. I pray because I have to, right? I pray quickly for 3 minutes and I feel that I have done my duty. But what did you accomplish friends? Prayer is for you, not for God! Prayer is not a punishment but many of you treat it as if it is a sort of death sentence. How do I know? Because you run away from prayer. You don’t go to prayer with intention and feeling and zeal. You don’t run towards prayer. We fail to see that prayer is a special time to be alone with God and enter into a deep communion with Him. God desires time with you.” (Fr. James Guirguis)
“We imagine prayer to be some sort of mental force. Thus, when a matter seems desperate, we call on others to pray with us and for us, imagining that the more minds we can join in prayer, the more powerful the prayer becomes. This is simply secular nonsense. Of course, we properly desire communion with others in our prayers – to share our need and concern and to have their support. However, if you want powerful prayer, I would suggest that you do as the Fathers did, fast and give alms. Deny yourself, and give stuff away to the poor. Ask the poor who benefit from your generosity to pray for you. They will with glad hearts.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“There was the following case. A monk who was walking somewhere entered a village and saw a pillar of light above one of the houses. He marveled, “I have never seen that in our monastery! Who lives there?” He knocked on the door, and a woman opened. Seeing a traveler, she gave him something to eat and drink. The monk asked her, “How do you live? How do you pray?” She replied, “How do I live? I get up in the morning, but I only start reading the prayers when my cow begins mooing. I have to run to the cow. Besides, I have chickens and a vegetable garden to look after. So I read the morning prayers all day long. And the same with the evening prayers.” The monk said, “No, that’s wrong. You should get up earlier to read your morning prayers in front of the icons calmly. And only then do everything else. The same with the evening rule. Do you get it?” She replied, yes. After a while, the monk was coming back. He was walking happily: after all, he had instructed an ascetic on how to live properly! He reached the same village only to find that there was no more pillar of light above that house. He knocked, the woman opened, was delighted to see him and started feeding him. He asked her, “Well, how do you live?” She answered, “Oh, I live just as you told me. I read my morning prayers and go to do my housework. And the same with the evening prayers.” Before that, she had lived with the memory of God all day long, walking in the presence of God continually. But it’s hard work.” (Igumen Cyprian Parts)
“Unceasing prayer is the highest wisdom, which consists not in words, in reading aloud, in prostrations, in standing before icons, but requires only that we remember God everywhere and always, undertake everything with our thoughts on Him, and do everything to the glory of God; then our entire life will be continuous and unceasing prayer.” (St. Seraphim Chichagov)
“Man is not only a body but also a soul, and as the body needs food, so the soul needs God and must find spiritual food. The food of the soul is prayer...Because just as a man can’t live without air and food for the body, so he can’t live without Divine food for the soul. He must always be connected with God by unceasing prayer. God created him for a purpose…if we understand why God created him this way, then we learn how to lead a spiritual life. Not seeing the spiritual side, man has violated nature. He didn’t use it properly, he abused it with the rights he has over it, and now nature is taking its revenge. Not having the right understanding he overused it for the body alone; and as a result, all the mistakes wreak havoc on him.” (Protosinghel Petroniu Tănase)
“…for our life to become prayer…to encounter the true, living God, we have to meet our true self. We’re strangers to ourselves. Think about how many masks we put on every day…At work we’re in one role, at home another, with our wife a third,…and so on. We change and adapt to different roles depending on who we’re with. Therefore, authenticity is very important…In other words, we’re not ourselves, and so it’s hard to understand the meaning of prayer when we begin to pray if we constantly deceive, if we don’t know who we are, if we don’t live our own life but rather live someone else’s life. We live the life our father , mother, or someone else wanted, but we don’t live our own life and we aren’t ourselves. And how will we encounter God if we’re inauthentic and don’t know who we are?” (Fr. Charalampos Papadopoulos)
“It is through prayer that we begin to see ourselves. Silent prayer acts as a mirror in which we have opportunities to see aspects of ourselves that we would not normally see when rushing through our day. Prayer becomes the classroom through which God teaches us and reveals many things to us. Prayer needs to be more than just reading out loud prewritten prayers written by someone else—we need to open ourselves to God and face Him. In prayer, we communicate with God, we dialogue with Him, and we listen. We strive always to pray silently, without words, but in the beginning, we may need to use words. As we pray about various matters, God will reveal to us things we need to know. We will see aspects of ourselves that we need to change, and we will be granted understanding as to why we are struggling with certain issues.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“A merciful heart is acquired primarily through prayer. For a believer, prayer is the breath, the “oxygen” of his life. Without regular prayer your soul becomes hardened and insensitive to God and your neighbors, and faith turns into an ideology, even if you do not realize it. However, only prayer performed by the mind in the heart is true, authentic prayer that transforms the human heart and makes it like that of Christ.” (Metropolitan Seraphim Joanta)
“The spiritual path towards true existence is difficult and even tedious. It requires attention and repentance, the willingness to expose ourselves to God in the naked, honest truth. However, this is not a journey we make alone. St. Paul declares, “Christ within us, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27) If St. Silouan was correct in declaring, “My brother is my life,” then we must understand that Jesus has said as much of us: “You are my life.” We have no such declaration in the gospel, but we are told, “…that you may dwell in Me, and I in you.” We have been shaped far too deeply in our modern individualist world-view. We hear Jesus saying nothing more than, “I’ll help you from time to time,” and we pray in precisely that manner. We fail to see that the Life-of-Christ-in-me is also living and willing my life (Phil. 2:13). Learning to live in union with Him, in a communion of life and action, is the very heart of the life of grace.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
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