Each new day brings new difficulties, ups and downs. Without God's protection, disappointment, despondency, and troubles overtake us faster. Praying in the morning is very important in order to enlist the support of the Almighty at the very beginning of the day.
Our Father
This prayer is not just universal, but mandatory for any believing Christian. It is read not only before meals or in difficult moments of life, but also in the morning. After opening your eyes and waking up from a dream, take one minute to read this prayer to pay tribute to heaven, because they have awakened you and given you another day of life. The text of the prayer is familiar to everyone and everyone:
Our Father, Who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth. Give us our daily bread today; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Prayers for material well-being
Much has been said about prayers that have the power to make our lives better. But it is also important to go to meet God ourselves. After all, only with inner readiness and awareness true path the help of heaven comes.
If you are facing financial problems, you too can turn to Heaven for help. It is only important to do it right, not with greed in the soul, but by asking God for what is necessary. Learn about prayers for deliverance from poverty on the website of an Orthodox monastery.
Prayer to the Holy Trinity
To begin with, the text of the prayer itself is read:
Holy Trinity have mercy on us; Lord, cleanse our sins; Lord, forgive our iniquities; Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities, for Your name's sake.
Then you can repeat three times: "Lord have mercy", and complete morning prayer words “Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and forever and ever. Amen».
The Holy Trinity is the three incarnations of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of these components is our assistants in earthly affairs. Collectively, the Trinity is God, therefore, reading this prayer, you ask our Creator to give his mercy and forgive you all your sins - those that were committed intentionally, and those that you have not yet been able to cope with.
Publican's Prayer
"God, be merciful to me, a sinner", - this is the simplest of all protective prayers. It is good to read it not only in the morning, but also before any undertaking, before leaving the house and before a difficult task.
Do not underestimate these words and think that prayer is the better, the more difficult and longer. This is absolutely not true, because the most important thing is your spirituality and your faith, not your ability to remember.
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
“King of Heaven, Comforter, Soul of Truth, Who is everywhere and fills everything, Treasury of the good and Giver of life, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, O Blessed One, our souls.”
This simple prayer- quite rare, difficult to perceive, but very effective and ancient. It can be read before meals and in the morning.
Another simple prayer known to almost every Christian:
“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and forever and ever. Amen."
the first part to "...have mercy on us" it is better to read it three times - as it is read in the church according to the rules. This is a very light prayer text, and it is precisely this that most believers read in the morning and before bedtime.
Remember that attitude matters. Do not say prayers while in bad mood or if your mind is on something else. You need total concentration, because you are communicating with God. Even simple prayer words for help will be heard if they are spoken from a pure heart. Good luck and don't forget to press the buttons and
25.04.2016 00:20
Everyone wants to cleanse their house of negativity and protect themselves from illnesses and troubles in order to say with confidence: “my house is mine ...
HOW TO READ THE MORNING AND EVENING PRAYERS CORRECTLY The prayer rule is the daily morning and evening prayers performed by Christians. Their texts can be found in the prayer book. The rule can be general - obligatory for all or individual, selected for the believer by the confessor, taking into account his spiritual state, strength and employment. Consists of morning and evening prayers, which are performed daily. This vital rhythm is necessary, because otherwise the soul easily falls out of the life of prayer, as if waking up only from time to time. In prayer, as in any big and difficult task, "inspiration", "mood" and improvisation alone are not enough. Reading prayers connects a person with their creators: psalmists and ascetics. This helps to find a spiritual mood akin to their burning heart. In praying in other people's words, our example is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. His prayer exclamations during the suffering on the Cross are lines from psalms (Ps. 21:2; 30:6). There are three main prayer rules: 1) a complete prayer rule, designed for spiritually experienced laity, which is published in the "Orthodox Prayer Book"; 2) a short prayer rule; in the morning: “King of Heaven”, Trisagion, “Our Father”, “Virgin Mother of God”, “Rising from sleep”, “God have mercy on me”, “I believe”, “God, cleanse”, “To You, Master”, “Holy Angela”, “Most Holy Lady”, invocation of the saints, prayer for the living and the dead; in the evening: “King of Heaven”, Trisagion, “Our Father”, “Have mercy on us, Lord”, “Eternal God”, “Good King”, “Angel of Christ”, from “Choose Governor” to “It is worthy to eat”; 3) a short prayer rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov: three times “Our Father”, three times “Virgin Mother of God” and once “I believe” - for those days and circumstances when a person is extremely tired or very limited in time. It is undesirable to completely omit the prayer rule. Even if the prayer rule is read without due attention, the words of the prayers, penetrating into the soul, have their cleansing effect. The main prayers should be known by heart (with regular reading, they are gradually remembered by a person even with a very poor memory), so that they penetrate deeper into the heart and so that they can be repeated in any circumstances. It is advisable to study the text of the translation of prayers from Church Slavonic into Russian in order to understand the meaning of each word and not pronounce a single word meaninglessly or without accurate understanding. It is very important that the person approaching prayer banish resentment, irritation, and bitterness from the heart. Without efforts aimed at serving people, at fighting sin, at establishing control over the body and spiritual sphere, prayer cannot become inner core life. In the conditions of modern life, given the workload and accelerated pace, it is not easy for the laity to set aside a certain time for prayer. The enemy of morning prayer is haste, and evening prayer is fatigue. Morning prayers are best read before the start of any business (and before breakfast). In extreme cases, they are pronounced on the way from home. Late in the evening it is often difficult to concentrate due to fatigue, so it can be recommended to read the evening prayer rule in free minutes before dinner or even earlier. During prayer, it is recommended to retire, light a lamp or a candle and stand in front of the icon. Depending on the nature of intra-family relationships, one can recommend reading the prayer rule together, with the whole family, or for each family member separately. Common prayer is recommended before eating food, on solemn days, before a festive meal, and on other similar occasions. Family prayer is a kind of church, public prayer (family is a kind of " home church”) and therefore does not replace individual prayer, but only complements it. Before the beginning of prayer, one should make the sign of the cross and make several bows, half-length or earthly, and try to tune in to an inner conversation with God. The difficulty of prayer is often a sign of its true effectiveness. Prayer for other people is an integral part of prayer. Standing before God does not alienate a person from his neighbors, but binds him to them with even closer ties. We should not be limited only to prayer for those close and dear to us. Praying for those who have caused us grief brings peace to the soul, affects these people and makes our prayer sacrificial. It is good to end the prayer with thanksgiving to God for the gift of fellowship and contrition for one's inattention. Getting down to business, you must first think about what you have to say, do, see during the day and ask God for blessings and strength to follow His will. In the thick labor day you need to say a short prayer (see the Jesus Prayer), which will help you find the Lord in everyday affairs. Morning and evening rules are only necessary spiritual hygiene. We are commanded to pray without ceasing (see the Jesus Prayer). The holy fathers said: if you churn milk, you will get butter, and in prayer, it turns from quantity into quality. God bless you!
M hello to you, dear visitors of the Orthodox website "Family and Faith"!
TO What should be the daily prayer rule of an Orthodox Christian? Is it possible to read akathists according to personal spiritual desire, or are akathists read only with blessing and in certain days? How to read akathists correctly - aloud or silently, in a singsong voice, and in what order? How to read the canons at home? Sitting or standing?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Fontrier) answers these questions:
"P There is a rule and it is mandatory for everyone. These are morning and evening prayers, one chapter from the Gospel, (...) if possible, you can read the kathisma from the Psalter, as well as read the canon.
I once asked one person:
Should I have lunch and dinner every day?
- It is necessary, - he answers, - but besides this, I can also intercept something, drink some tea.
- What about praying? If our body requires food, is it not more than that - the soul? We feed the body so that the soul can be kept in the body and cleansed, sanctified, freed from sin, so that the Holy Spirit abides in us. She needs to be united with God already here. And the body is the clothes of the soul, which grows old, dies and crumbles into the dust of the earth. And we are on this temporary, perishable Special attention pay. We take care of him so much! And we feed, and give water, and paint, and dress in fashionable rags, and give peace - we pay a lot of attention. And for the soul, sometimes our care is not left. Have you read the morning prayers?
So you can't have breakfast. And if you're not going to read evening books, then you can't even have dinner. And you can't drink tea.
“I will die of hunger!”
So your soul is dying of hunger!
Now, when a person makes this rule the norm of his life, then he has peace, peace and quiet in his soul. The Lord sends grace, and the Mother of God and the Angel of the Lord pray. In addition, Christians still pray to the saints, read other akathists, the soul is fed like that, contented and glad, peaceful, a person is saved.
But it is not necessary to read like some, to do proofreading. They read it, rattled it - through the air, but it didn’t hit the soul. Just touch this - it flared up! But he considers himself a great prayer book - he “prays” very well. The Apostle Paul says: “It is better to say five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than the darkness of words in an unfamiliar language”(1 Cor.14:19) Better five words will pass into the soul, than the darkness of words bypass the soul.
- You can read akathists at least every day. I knew one woman (her name was Pelagia), she read 15 akathists every day. The Lord gave her special grace. Some Orthodox sometimes have many akathists collected - both 200 and 500. They usually read a certain akathist every holiday celebrated by the Church. For example, tomorrow is a holiday Vladimir icon Mother of God. People who have an akathist to this holiday will read it.
- Akathists are good to read with fresh memory, i.e. in the morning, when the mind is not burdened with worldly affairs. In general, it is very good to pray from morning to dinner, until the body is burdened with food. Then there is an opportunity to feel every word from akathists, canons.
All prayers and akathists are best read aloud. Why? Because words enter the soul through hearing and are better remembered. I constantly hear: “We cannot learn prayers ...” And they don’t need to be taught - they just need to be read constantly, every day - in the morning and in the evening, and they are remembered by themselves. If "Our Father" is not remembered, then it is necessary where our dinner table, attach a piece of paper with this prayer.
Many refer to a bad memory due to old age, and when you start asking them, different domestic issues ask, everyone remembers. They remember who was born when, in what year, everyone remembers birthdays. They know how much what is now in the store and on the market - and yet the prices are constantly changing! They know how much bread, salt, butter cost. Everyone remembers well. You ask: "What street do you live on?" - everyone will say. Very good memory. But they can't remember prayers. And this is because we have flesh in the first place. And we care so much about the flesh, we all remember what it needs. But we don’t care about the soul, that’s why our memory is bad for everything good. On the bad, we are masters ...
- The Holy Fathers say that those who daily read the canons to the Savior, the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel, the saints, are especially protected by the Lord and from all demonic misfortunes and evil people.
If you come to any boss for a reception, you will see a sign on his door “Reception hours from ... to ...” But you can turn to God at any time. Night prayer is especially valuable. When a person prays at night, then, as the holy fathers say, this prayer is, as it were, paid for with gold. But in order to pray at night, one must take a blessing from the priest, because there is a danger: a person may become proud that he prays at night and fall into delusion, or demons will especially attack him. Through the blessing, the Lord will protect this person.
Sitting or standing? If the legs do not hold, then you can kneel down and read. If your knees are tired, you can read while sitting. It is better to sit and think about God than to think about your feet while standing. And one more thing: prayer without prostrations is a premature fetus. Fans are a must.”
How to pray at home so that God hears? Sometimes in life there are moments of an irresistible need for prayer. Most often, this need arises when you realize that there is no one else to ask for help. When friends, family, doctors are powerless and can no longer help. When you realize that you are left alone with God. So it was with me.
But what if you don't know a single prayer if you've never prayed? It happened to me like this: I ran to the Temple, fell on my knees in front of the icon of the Mother of God and began to pray in my own words.
At that moment, I had a clear, inexplicable conviction that God would save me, although before my illness I considered myself an atheist and never went to the Temple. "Incurable", from the point of view of medicine, the disease receded. My zeal for prayer, which "breaks" out of the heart and rushes straight to heaven gradually cooled down.
Weekdays have come usual life. After the healing, I became a church-going, believing person, I walked along Sundays to the Temple. But I got the question is how to pray at home so that God hears? I understood that now my prayer would not be a cry of the soul, but a daily work.
I turned with the question of how to pray correctly to my spiritual father. Father's answer was simple:
"Read morning And evening prayers from the Prayer Book. If it's hard to read on your own - listen ( on that website You can download audio recordings of morning and evening prayers read by priests, deacons, monks). Listen until you get used to it or until you learn it by heart. When you get used to listening, start reading yourself.
But what to do when there is not enough time in the morning, and often in the evening, before going to bed? After all, we are all in a hurry to get to work in the morning. And in the evening, after work, there is a lot of work. I will say this: when we have problems and we ask God for something, then there is always time. And as soon as everything is good, then for some reason there is not enough time.
I noticed that if you still find time and read the morning prayers (immediately after sleep), then the day goes by in a completely different way - joyfully and easily. Although reading prayers takes only 5-7 minutes. Agree that you can get up just 7 minutes earlier and still have time to read your morning prayer rule. And in the evening, before going to bed, also “give” 7-10 minutes to God and listen or read the evening prayer rule yourself.
Other articles:When you read the prayers, you will notice how difficult it is to focus on their meaning. You will catch yourself thinking that your eyes are running along the lines, and your thoughts are about something completely different. Do not think that you are distracted. The early Christians knew about this problem. Here is how accurately and vividly John Chrysostom wrote about this in one of his prayers: from mental wolf I will be hunted».
Here is one of the answers to the question, how to pray correctly? Try to drive away thoughts during prayer, fight the mental wolf, ponder and delve into every word of prayer. If it’s hard to read all the morning prayers in full, it’s better to choose 1-2 you like. And when you get used to reading them, it will be easy to read the entire morning rule.
Prayer rule of Seraphim of Sarov for the laity
But if, nevertheless, circumstances develop in such a way that you do not have time, there is a lifesaver - the prayer rule of Seraphim of Sarov for the laity. It was established for us by the saint beloved by all Christians Reverend Seraphim Sarovskiy.
About two hundred years ago, He foresaw how fast our world would be and how little time the laity would have for prayer. Therefore, He established a short rule instead of reading the morning and evening prayers.
Here is the rule of Seraphim: “Our Father” (three times), “Our Lady, Virgin, rejoice” (three times), “Symbol of Faith” (1 time)
It is better to memorize these prayers, so that even without a prayer book, you can always and everywhere, under any circumstances, be able to read them aloud or mentally.
But do not abuse the reading of the short Prayer Rule. Try to read this Rule only when there is really no time. It is better to listen or read the evening and morning prayers from the prayer book in full. By the way, Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh (the theologian of our days) in his small book "Learn to Pray" gives practical advice how to read morning and evening prayers, how to learn how to pray correctly.
Myrtopolitan Anthony of Surozh "Learn to Pray"
I strongly advise you to read this small book (you can directly on this site). After reading it, your prayer will become not just a mechanical reading of texts, but will turn into a live conversation with God. Anthony of Surozh often calls prayer a meeting with God
He lived in our time and there are many videos of his conversations with spiritual children. I highly recommend watching and listening to them in order to get a "different" attitude to life, to people, to faith - bright, joyful, inspiring.
Jesus Prayer - how to pray?
You have probably heard many times about this wonderful prayer, that only a few saints were able to really achieve perfection by continuously repeating the Jesus Prayer.
The secret of uninterrupted prayer is to learn to repeat the Jesus Prayer at times when your mind is not busy with some kind of work, for example, when you are on your way to work or when you are doing some work with your hands (for example, the monks repeated the Jesus Prayer, when weaving baskets).
This one miraculous prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (sinner). Repeat it continuously and very soon you will begin to notice that you are repeating it, as it were, independently of your consciousness.
VIDEO: Anthony of Surozh on Prayer
I wish you all joy, faith, hope for salvation and love for all, without exception, people!
After all, in each of them there is a spark of God, they are all God's creation!
God loves everyone equally, we should love not only friends, but all people!
All About Prayer: What Is Prayer? What is the right way to pray for another person at home and in church? We will try to answer these and other questions in the article!
Prayers for every day
1. PRAYER-MEETING
Prayer is a meeting with the Living God. Christianity gives a person direct access to God, Who hears a person, helps him, loves him. This is the fundamental difference between Christianity, for example, and Buddhism, where during meditation the worshiper deals with a kind of impersonal superbeing, into which he sinks and dissolves, but he does not feel God as a living Person. In Christian prayer, a person feels the presence of the Living God.
In Christianity God is revealed to us, who has become Man. When we stand before the icon of Jesus Christ, we contemplate God Incarnate. We know that God cannot be imagined, described, depicted in an icon or a picture. But it is possible to depict God who has become Man, such as He appeared to people. Through Jesus Christ as a Man, we discover God for ourselves. This revelation takes place in prayer addressed to Christ.
Through prayer, we learn that God is involved in everything that happens in our lives. Therefore, a conversation with God should not be the background of our life, but its main content. Between man and God there are many barriers that can only be overcome with the help of prayer.
People often ask: why do we need to pray, ask God for anything, if God already knows what we need? To this I would answer like this. We do not pray to ask God for something. Yes, in some cases we ask Him for specific help in certain everyday circumstances. But this should not be the main content of prayer.
God cannot be just an “auxiliary agent” in our earthly affairs. The main content of prayer should always remain standing before God, meeting Him. You need to pray in order to be with God, to get in touch with God, to feel the presence of God.
However, meeting God in prayer does not always happen. After all, even when meeting with a person, we are far from always able to overcome the barriers that separate us, go down to the depths, often our communication with people is limited to only a superficial level. So it is in prayer. Sometimes we feel that between us and God is like a blank wall, that God does not hear us. But we must understand that this barrier was not set by God: we we raise it up with our own sins. According to one Western medieval theologian, God is always near us, but we are far from Him, God always hears us, but we do not hear Him, God is always inside us, but we are outside, God is at home in us, but we are in Him strangers.
Let us keep this in mind as we prepare for prayer. Let us remember that every time we stand up for prayer, we come into contact with the Living God.
2. PRAYER-DIALOGUE
Prayer is a dialogue. It includes not only our appeal to God, but also the response of God Himself. As in any dialogue, in prayer it is important not only to speak out, to speak out, but also to hear the answer. God's answer does not always come directly in the moments of prayer, sometimes it happens a little later. It happens, for example, that we ask God for immediate help, but it comes only after a few hours or days. But we understand that this happened precisely because we asked God for help in prayer.
Through prayer we can learn a lot about God. When praying, it is very important to be prepared for the fact that God will be revealed to us, but He may turn out to be different from what we imagined Him to be. Often we make the mistake of approaching God with our own ideas about Him, and these ideas obscure us. real image the Living God, which God Himself can reveal to us. Often people in their minds create some kind of idol and pray to this idol. This dead, artificially created idol becomes an obstacle, a barrier between the Living God and us humans. “Create yourself a false image of God and try to pray to him. Create for yourself the image of God, the merciless and cruel Judge - and try to pray to him with trust, with love, ”the Metropolitan notes Sourozhsky Anthony. So, we must be prepared for the fact that God will not be revealed to us in the way we imagine Him to be. Therefore, when approaching prayer, one must renounce all the images that our imagination, human fantasy, creates.
God's answer may come in various ways but prayer is never unanswered. If we do not hear the answer, it means that something is not right in ourselves, it means that we have not yet tuned in enough to the way that is necessary to meet with God.
There is a device called a tuning fork, which is used by piano tuners; this instrument produces a clear "la" sound. And the strings of the piano must be stretched so that the sound they make is exactly in line with the sound of the tuning fork. As long as the “A” string is not stretched properly, no matter how much you strike the keys, the tuning fork will be silent. But at the moment when the string reaches the required degree of tension, the tuning fork, this metal lifeless object, suddenly begins to sound. Having tuned one string “la”, the master then tunes “la” in other octaves (in the piano, each key strikes several strings, this creates a special volume of sound). Then he tunes B, C, and so on, one octave after another, until finally the whole instrument is tuned to match the tuning fork.
This is how it should be with us in prayer. We must tune in to God, tune in to Him all our lives, all the strings of our soul. When we tune our lives to God, learn to fulfill His commandments, when the Gospel becomes our moral and spiritual law and we begin to live in accordance with God's commandments, then we will begin to feel how our soul in prayer responds to the presence of God, like a tuning fork that responds to a finely stretched string.
3. WHEN SHOULD YOU PRAY?
When and how long should you pray? The apostle Paul says, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). St. Gregory the Theologian writes: “It is necessary to remember God more often than to breathe.” Ideally, the whole life of a Christian should be permeated with prayer.
Many misfortunes, sorrows and misfortunes occur precisely because people forget about God. After all, there are believers among criminals, but at the moment of committing a crime they do not think about God. It is difficult to imagine a person who would commit murder or theft with the thought of an all-seeing God, from Whom no evil can be hidden. And every sin is committed by a person precisely when he does not remember God.
Most people are unable to pray throughout the day, so you need to find some time, even a short one, to remember God.
You wake up in the morning with the thought of what you have to do that day. Before you get to work and plunge into the inevitable bustle, dedicate at least a few minutes to God. Stand before God and say: “Lord, You gave me this day, help me spend it without sin, without vice, save me from all evil and misfortune.” And call on the blessing of God on the day that begins.
Throughout the day, try to remember God more often. If you feel bad, turn to Him with a prayer: "Lord, I feel bad, help me." If you feel good, say to God: "Lord, glory to You, I thank You for this joy." If you're worried about someone, tell God, "Lord, I'm worried about him, I'm hurting for him, help him." And so throughout the day - whatever happens to you, turn it into a prayer.
When the day comes to an end and you are getting ready for bed, remember the past day, thank God for all the good things that happened, and repent for all those unworthy deeds and sins that you committed that day. Ask God for help and blessings for the coming night. If you learn to pray this way every day, you will soon notice how much more fulfilling your whole life will be.
Often people justify their unwillingness to pray by saying that they are too busy, overloaded with things. Yes, many of us live in a rhythm in which people of antiquity did not live. Sometimes we have to do a lot of things during the day. But there are always pauses in life. For example, we stand at the bus stop and wait for the tram - three to five minutes. We go to the subway - twenty to thirty minutes, dial telephone number and hear beeps “busy” - a few more minutes. Let us at least use these pauses for prayer, let them not be wasted time.
4. SHORT PRAYERS
People often ask: how should one pray, with what words, in what language? Some even say: “I don’t pray because I don’t know how, I don’t know prayers.” Prayer does not require any special skill. You can just talk to God. At divine services in the Orthodox Church we use a special language - Church Slavonic. But in private prayer, when we are alone with God, there is no need for any special language. We can pray to God in the language in which we speak with people, in which we think.
Prayer should be very simple. The Monk Isaac the Syrian said: “Let the whole fabric of your prayer be simple. One word of the publican saved him, and one word of the thief on the cross made him heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Let us recall the parable of the publican and the Pharisee: “Two men went into the temple to pray: one was a Pharisee and the other was a publican. The Pharisee, standing up, prayed in himself like this: “God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this publican; I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I get.” The publican, standing afar off, did not even dare to raise his eyes to heaven; but, striking his chest, he said: “God! be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:10-13). And this brief prayer saved him. Let us also remember the thief who was crucified with Jesus and who said to Him: “Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your Kingdom” (Luke 23:42). This alone was enough for him to enter heaven.
Prayer can be extremely short. If you are just starting out on your prayer journey, start with very short prayers - ones that you can focus on. God does not need words - He needs the heart of man. Words are secondary, but the feeling, the mood with which we approach God is of paramount importance. To approach God without a sense of reverence or absent-mindedly, when during prayer our mind wanders to the side, is much more dangerous than to say in prayer wrong word. Scattered prayer has neither meaning nor value. A simple law applies here: if the words of prayer do not reach our hearts, they will not reach God either. As is sometimes said, such a prayer will not rise above the ceiling of the room in which we pray, and yet it must reach heaven. Therefore, it is very important that every word of prayer be deeply experienced by us. If we are not able to concentrate on the long prayers that are contained in the books of the Orthodox Church - prayer books, we will try our hand at short prayers: “Lord, have mercy”, “Lord, save”, “Lord, help me”, “God, be merciful to me , a sinner."
One ascetic said that if we could, with all the force of feeling, from the bottom of our hearts, with all our souls, say only one prayer, “Lord, have mercy,” this would be enough for salvation. But the problem is that, as a rule, we cannot say this with our whole heart, we cannot say this with our whole life. Therefore, in order to be heard by God, we are verbose.
Let us remember that God wants our hearts, not our words. And if we turn to Him with all our heart, we will certainly receive an answer.
5. PRAYER AND LIFE
Prayer is associated not only with the joys and gains that occur thanks to it, but also with painstaking daily work. Sometimes prayer brings great joy, refreshes a person, gives him new strength and new opportunities. But very often it happens that a person is not disposed to prayer, he does not feel like praying. So, prayer should not depend on our mood. Prayer is work. Saint Silouan of Athos said, "To pray is to shed blood." As in any work, an effort is required on the part of a person, sometimes a huge one, in order to force himself to do so even in those moments when he does not feel like praying. And such a feat will pay off a hundredfold.
But why do we sometimes feel like praying? I think, main reason here lies in the fact that our life does not correspond to prayer, is not attuned to it. As a child, when I was engaged in music school, I had an excellent violin teacher: his lessons were sometimes very interesting, and sometimes very difficult, and it depended not on his mood, but on how good or bad I prepared for the lesson. If I studied a lot, studied some play and came to the lesson fully armed, then the lesson passed in one breath, and the teacher was pleased, and me. If I was lazy all week and came unprepared, then the teacher was upset, and I was sick of the fact that the lesson did not go as I would like.
It's the same with prayer. If our life is not a preparation for prayer, then it can be very difficult for us to pray. Prayer is an indicator of our spiritual life, a kind of litmus test. We must build our life in such a way that it corresponds to prayer. When, uttering the prayer “Our Father”, we say: “Lord, Thy will be done,” this means that we must always be ready to do the will of God, even if this will is contrary to our human will. When we say to God: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” we thereby undertake the obligation to forgive people, forgive them their debts, because if we do not forgive our debtors, then, according to the logic of this prayer, and God will not leave us our debts.
So, one must correspond to the other: life - prayer and prayer - life. Without this correspondence, we will not succeed either in life or in prayer.
Let's not be embarrassed if we find it difficult to pray. This means that God sets new tasks before us, and we must solve them both in prayer and in life. If we learn to live according to the gospel, then we will learn to pray like the gospel. Then our life will become full, spiritual, truly Christian.
6. ORTHODOX PRAYER WORD
You can pray in different ways, for example, in your own words. Such a prayer should constantly accompany a person. In the morning and evening, day and night, a person can turn to God with the simplest words coming from the depths of the heart.
But there are also prayer books that were composed by saints in ancient times, they need to be read in order to learn how to pray. These prayers are contained in the "Orthodox Prayer Book". There you will find church prayers morning, evening, repentance, thanksgiving, you will find various canons, akathists and much more. Having bought " Orthodox prayer book”, do not be afraid that there are so many prayers in it. You don't have to all read them.
If the morning prayers are read quickly, it will take about twenty minutes. But if you read them thoughtfully, attentively, responding with your heart to every word, then reading can take up to an hour. Therefore, if you do not have time, do not try to read all the morning prayers, it is better to read one or two, but so that each of their words reaches your heart.
Before the Morning Prayers section, it says: “Before you begin to pray, stand a little while until your feelings subside, and then say with attention and reverence: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen". Stay a little longer and only then start praying.” This pause, the “minute of silence” before the beginning of church prayer, is very important. Prayer must grow out of the silence of our heart. For people who daily “read” morning and evening prayers, there is a constant temptation to read the “rule” as soon as possible in order to begin daily affairs. Often, with such a reading, the main thing slips away - the content of the prayer. .
In the prayer book there are many petitions addressed to God, which are repeated several times. For example, you may come across a recommendation to read “Lord have mercy” twelve or forty times. Some perceive this as some kind of formality and proofread this prayer at high speed. By the way, in Greek “Lord, have mercy” sounds like “Kyrie, eleison”. In Russian there is a verb “to play tricks”, which came precisely from the fact that the psalm-readers on the kliros very quickly repeated many times: “Kyrie, eleison”, that is, they did not pray, but “played tricks”. So, there is no need to play tricks in prayer. No matter how many times you read this prayer, it must be said with attention, reverence and love, with full dedication.
No need to try to subtract all the prayers. It is better to devote twenty minutes to one prayer “Our Father”, repeating it several times, pondering each word. It is not so easy for a person who is not accustomed to praying for a long time to read a large number of prayers at once, but one should not strive for this. It is important to be imbued with the spirit that the prayers of the Fathers of the Church breathe. This is the main benefit that can be derived from the prayers contained in the "Orthodox Prayer Book".
7. PRAYER RULE
What is a prayer rule? These are prayers that a person reads regularly, daily. Everyone's prayer rule is different. Some have morning or evening rule takes a few hours, others - a few minutes. Everything depends on a person's spiritual disposition, on the degree of his rootedness in prayer, and on what time he has at his disposal.
It is very important that a person fulfill the prayer rule, even the shortest one, so that there is regularity and constancy in prayer. But the rule should not turn into a formality. The experience of many believers shows that with the constant reading of the same prayers, their words become discolored, lose their freshness, and a person, getting used to them, ceases to focus on them. This danger must be avoided by all means.
I remember when I took monastic vows (I was twenty years old then), I turned to an experienced confessor for advice and asked him what my prayer rule should be. He said: “You must read the morning and evening prayers daily, three canons and one akathist. Whatever happens, even if you are very tired, you must read them. And even if you subtract them hastily and inattentively, it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that the rule be subtracted. I tried. Things didn't work out. Daily reading of the same prayers led to the fact that these texts quickly got bored. In addition, every day I spent many hours in the temple at services that spiritually nourished me, nourished me, inspired me. And the reading of three canons and an akathist turned into some kind of unnecessary “appendage”. I started looking for other advice, more suitable for me. And I found it in the works of St. Theophan the Recluse, a remarkable ascetic of the 19th century. He advised the prayer rule to be calculated not by the number of prayers, but by the time that we are ready to devote to God. For example, we can make it a rule to pray in the morning and in the evening for half an hour, but this half hour must be completely given to God. And it is not so important whether we read all the prayers during these minutes or only one, or maybe we will devote one evening entirely to reading the Psalter, the Gospel or prayer in our own words. The main thing is that we should be focused on God, so that our attention does not slip away and that every word reaches our heart. This advice worked for me. However, I do not rule out that for others the advice of the confessor I received will be more suitable. Much here depends on the personality of the person.
It seems to me that for a person living in the world, not only fifteen, but even five minutes of morning and evening prayer, if, of course, it is pronounced with attention and with feeling, is enough to be a real Christian. It is only important that the thought always correspond to the words, the heart responds to the words of the prayer, and the whole life corresponds to the prayer.
Try, following the advice of St. Theophan the Recluse, to allocate some time for prayer during the day and for the daily fulfillment of the prayer rule. And you will see that it will bear fruit very soon.
8. HAZARDS OF ADDICTIVATION
Every believer faces the danger of becoming accustomed to the words of prayers and distraction during prayer. To prevent this from happening, a person must constantly fight with himself or, as the Holy Fathers said, “stand guard over his mind”, learn to “enclose the mind in the words of prayer.”
How to achieve this? First of all, you should not allow yourself to speak words when both the mind and the heart do not respond to them. If you started to read a prayer, but in the middle of it your attention deviated, return to the place where your attention scattered, and repeat the prayer. If necessary, repeat it three times, five times, ten times, but make sure that your whole being responds to it.
Once in the temple a woman addressed me: “Father, for many years I have been reading prayers, both in the morning and in the evening, but the more I read them, the less I like them, the less I feel like a believer in God. I am so tired of the words of these prayers that I no longer respond to them. I told her: "And you don't read morning and evening prayers. She was surprised: “So how?” I repeated: “Come on, don't read them. If your heart does not respond to them, you must find another way to pray. How long do morning prayers take you?” - "Twenty minutes". - “Are you ready to devote twenty minutes to God every morning?” - “Ready.” - “Then take one morning prayer - your choice - and read it for twenty minutes. Read one of her phrases, be silent, think about what it means, then read another phrase, be silent, think about its content, repeat it again, think about whether your life corresponds to it, are you ready to live in such a way that this prayer becomes a reality of your life . You say: "Lord, do not deprive me of Your heavenly blessings." What does this mean? Or: “Lord, deliver me eternal torment". What is the danger of these eternal torments, do you really fear them, do you really hope to avoid them?” The woman began to pray like this, and soon her prayers began to come to life.
Prayer must be learned. You need to work on yourself, you can’t allow yourself, standing in front of the icon, to utter empty words.
The quality of prayer is also affected by what precedes it and what follows it. It is impossible to pray with concentration in a state of irritation, if, for example, before the start of prayer we quarreled with someone, shouted at someone. This means that at the time that precedes prayer, we must internally prepare for it, freeing ourselves from what prevents us from praying, tuning in to a prayerful mood. Then it will be easier for us to pray. But, of course, even after prayer one should not immediately plunge into fuss. After finishing the prayer, give yourself some more time to hear the answer of God, so that something in you sounds, responds to the presence of God.
Prayer is valuable only when we feel that, thanks to it, something is changing in us, that we begin to live in a different way. Prayer must bear fruit, and the fruit must be tangible.
9. POSITION OF THE BODY DURING PRAYER
In the practice of prayer ancient church different postures, gestures, body positions were used. They prayed standing, on their knees, in the so-called pose of the prophet Elijah, that is, standing on their knees with their heads bowed to the ground, they prayed lying on the floor with their arms outstretched, or standing with their arms raised. When praying, bows were used - earthly and waist, as well as the sign of the cross. Of the variety of traditional body positions during prayer, only a few remain in modern practice. This is, first of all, standing prayer and kneeling prayer, accompanied by the sign of the cross and bows.
Why is it important at all for the body to participate in prayer? Why can't you just pray with the spirit while lying in bed, sitting in an armchair? In principle, you can pray both lying down and sitting: in special occasions, in case of illness, for example, or when traveling, we do just that. But under normal circumstances, it is necessary to use in prayer those body positions that have been preserved in the tradition of the Orthodox Church. The fact is that the body and spirit in a person are inextricably linked, and the spirit cannot be completely autonomous from the body. It is no coincidence that the ancient Fathers said: “If the body has not labored in prayer, then prayer will remain fruitless.”
Go to Orthodox church on the Lenten service and you will see how from time to time all the parishioners simultaneously fall to their knees, then rise, fall again and rise again. And so throughout the service. And you will feel that there is a special intensity in this service, that people do not just pray, they are toiling in prayer, carry the feat of prayer. And go to a Protestant church. During the entire service, the worshipers sit: prayers are read, spiritual songs are sung, but people just sit, do not cross themselves, do not bow, and at the end of the service they get up and leave. Compare these two ways of praying in church - Orthodox and Protestant - and you will feel the difference. The difference is in the intensity of the prayer. People pray to the same God, but they pray in different ways. And in many ways, this difference is determined precisely by the position in which the body of the worshiper is.
Bowing helps a lot in prayer. Those of you who have the opportunity to prayer rule in the morning and in the evening to make at least a few bows and earthly bows, undoubtedly, they will feel how useful it is spiritually. The body becomes more collected, and when the body is collected, the concentration of the mind and attention is quite natural.
During prayer, we should from time to time make the sign of the cross, especially saying “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and also saying the name of the Savior. This is necessary because the cross is the instrument of our salvation. When we place the sign of the cross upon ourselves, the power of God is tangibly present in us.
10. PRAYER BEFORE THE ICONS
In church prayer, the external should not replace the internal. The outer can help the inner, but it can also hinder. The traditional positions of the body during prayer undoubtedly contribute to the state of prayer, but in no way can they replace the main content of prayer.
We must not forget that some positions of the body are not accessible to everyone. For example, many older people are simply not able to do prostrations. There are many people who cannot stand for long. I have heard from older people: “I don’t go to church for services because I can’t stand,” or: “I don’t pray to God because my legs hurt.” God does not need legs, but a heart. You cannot pray standing up, pray sitting down; you cannot pray sitting down, pray lying down. As one ascetic said, “It is better to sit and think about God than to think about your feet while standing.”
Aids are important, but they cannot replace content. One of the important aids in prayer is icons. Orthodox Christians, as a rule, pray before the icons of the Savior, the Mother of God, saints, before the image of the Holy Cross. And Protestants pray without icons. And you can see the difference between Protestant and Orthodox prayer. IN Orthodox tradition prayer is more specific. Contemplating the icon of Christ, we seem to be looking through a window that reveals another world to us, and behind this icon stands the One to whom we pray.
But it is very important that the icon does not replace the object of prayer, that we do not turn to the icon in prayer and do not try to imagine who is depicted on the icon. An icon is only a reminder, only a certain symbol of the reality that stands behind it. As the Church Fathers said, “the honor given to an image goes back to the archetype.” When we approach the icon of the Savior or the Mother of God and kiss it, that is, we kiss it, we thereby express our love for the Savior or the Mother of God.
The icon should not turn into an idol. And there should be no illusion that God is exactly the way He is depicted on the icon. There is, for example, an icon of the Holy Trinity called the “New Testament Trinity”: it is non-canonical, that is, it does not comply with church rules, but you can see it in some churches. On this icon, God the Father is depicted as a gray-haired old man, Jesus Christ as young man, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. In no case should one be tempted to imagine that the Holy Trinity looks like this. The Holy Trinity is a God whom the human imagination cannot imagine. And, turning to God - the Holy Trinity in prayer, we must renounce any kind of fantasy. Our imagination must be free from images, our mind must be crystal clear, and our heart must be ready to contain the Living God.
The car fell into a cliff, overturning several times. There was nothing left of her, but the driver and I were safe and sound. It happened early in the morning, around five o'clock. When I returned to the church where I served in the evening of the same day, I found several parishioners there who woke up at half past five in the morning, sensing danger, and began to pray for me. Their first question was: “Father, what happened to you?” I think that through their prayers, both I and the person who was driving were saved from trouble.
11. PRAYER FOR NEIGHBORS
We must pray not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors. Every morning and every evening, as well as being in church, we must remember our relatives, loved ones, friends, enemies, and offer prayer to God for everyone. This is very important, because people are connected with each other by inextricable bonds, and often the prayer of one person for another saves another from great danger.
There was such a case in the life of Saint Gregory the Theologian. When he was still a young man, unbaptized, he crossed the Mediterranean by ship. Suddenly a severe storm began, which lasted for many days, and no one had any hope of salvation, the ship was almost flooded. Gregory prayed to God and during the prayer he saw his mother, who at that time was on the shore, but, as it turned out later, she felt danger and prayed intensely for her son. The ship, contrary to all expectations, safely reached the shore. Gregory always remembered that he owed his deliverance to the prayers of his mother.
Someone might say, “Well, here's another story from the lives of the ancient saints. Why doesn’t something like this happen today?” I can assure you that this is happening today. I know many people who, through the prayers of their loved ones, were saved from death or great danger. And in my life there were many cases when I escaped danger through the prayers of my mother or other people, for example, my parishioners.
Once I got into a car accident and, one might say, miraculously survived, because the car fell into a cliff, turning over several times. There was nothing left of the car, but the driver and I were safe and sound. It happened early in the morning, around five o'clock. When I returned to the church where I served in the evening of the same day, I found several parishioners there who woke up at half past five in the morning, sensing danger, and began to pray for me. Their first question was: “Father, what happened to you?” I think that through their prayers, both I and the person who was driving were saved from trouble.
We must pray for our neighbors, not because God does not know how to save them, but because He wants us to share in each other's salvation. Of course, He Himself knows what every person needs - both for us and for our neighbors. When we pray for our neighbors, this does not mean at all that we want to be more merciful than God. But this means that we want to participate in their salvation. And in prayer we should not forget about the people with whom life has brought us together, and that they are praying for us. Each of us in the evening, going to bed, can say to God: “Lord, through the prayers of all those who love me, save me.”
Let us remember the living bond between us and our neighbors, and let us always remember each other in prayer.
12. PRAYER FOR THE LOST
We must pray not only for those of our neighbors who are alive, but also for those who have already passed away.
First of all, we need prayer for the departed, because when a loved one leaves, we have a natural feeling of loss, and we suffer deeply from this. But that person continues to live, only he lives in another dimension, because he has passed into another world. So that the connection between us and the person who has left us is not broken, we must pray for him. Then we will feel his presence, feel that he has not left us, that our living connection with him is preserved.
But, of course, he also needs a prayer for the deceased, because when a person dies, he passes into another life in order to meet God there and answer for everything that he did in earthly life, good and bad. It is very important that a person on this path be accompanied by the prayers of loved ones - those who remained here on earth, who keep the memory of him. A person who leaves this world is deprived of everything that this world gave him, only his soul remains. All the wealth that he owned in life, all that he acquired, remains here. Only the soul leaves for the other world. And the soul is judged by God according to the law of mercy and justice. If a person has done something evil in life, he has to bear the punishment for it. But we, the survivors, can ask God to ease the lot of this person. And the Church believes that the posthumous fate of the deceased is alleviated through the prayers of those who pray for him here on earth.
The hero of Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, the elder Zosima (whose prototype was St. Tikhon of Zadonsk), says this about prayer for the dead: “Every day and whenever you can, repeat to yourself: “Lord, have mercy on all who stand before You today.” For at every hour and every moment, thousands of people leave their lives on this earth, and their souls stand before the Lord - and how many of them parted from the earth separately, unknown to anyone, in sadness and anguish, and no one will regret them ... And now, perhaps, from the other end of the earth, your prayer will ascend to the Lord for his repose, even if you did not know him at all, and he did not know you. How touching it is for his soul, which has become in fear of the Lord, to feel at that moment that there is a prayer book for him, that there is a human being left on earth and one who loves him. Yes, and God will look more mercifully on both of you, for if you have already had such pity on him, then how much more will He, who is infinitely more merciful ... And forgive him for your sake.
13. PRAYER FOR ENEMIES
The need to pray for enemies stems from the very essence of the moral teaching of Jesus Christ.
In the pre-Christian era, there was a rule: "Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy" (Matthew 5:43). It is in accordance with this rule that most people still live. It is natural for us to love our neighbors, those who do us good, and to treat with hostility, and even with hatred, those from whom evil comes. But Christ says that the attitude should be completely different: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Christ Himself during His earthly life repeatedly set an example of both love for enemies and prayer for enemies. When the Lord was on the cross and the soldiers nailed Him, He experienced terrible torment, incredible pain, but He prayed: “Father! forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He thought at that moment not about Himself, not about the fact that these soldiers hurt Him, but about them salvation, for in doing evil, they first of all harmed themselves.
We must remember that people who harm us or treat us with dislike are not bad in themselves. The sin with which they are infected is bad. It is necessary to hate sin, and not its bearer - man. As St. John Chrysostom said, “when you see that someone is doing you harm, hate not him, but the devil who is behind him.”
One must learn to separate a person from the sin that he commits. A priest very often observes during confession how sin is actually separated from a person when he repents of it. We must be able to renounce the sinful image of man and remember that all people, including our enemies and those who hate us, are created in the image of God, and it is in this image of God, in those rudiments of good that are in every person, that we should be looked at.
Why is it necessary to pray for enemies? It is necessary not only for them, but also for us. We must find the strength in ourselves to reconcile with people. Archimandrite Sofroniy, in his book on St. Silouan of Athos, says: “Those who hate and reject their brother are flawed in their being, they cannot find the way to God, who loves everyone.” This is true. When hatred for a person settles in our heart, we are not able to approach God. And as long as this feeling persists in us, the path to God is blocked for us. That is why it is necessary to pray for the enemies.
Each time, approaching the Living God, we must be absolutely reconciled with all whom we perceive as our enemies. Let us remember what the Lord says: “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you ... go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23) . And another word of the Lord: “Make peace with your rival quickly, while you are still on the way with him” (Matt. 5:25). “On the way with him” means “in this earthly life”. For if we do not have time to reconcile here with those who hate and offend us, with our enemies, then in future life Let's go unreconciled. And there it will be impossible to make up for what is lost here.
14. FAMILY PRAYER
So far, we have been talking mainly about the personal, individual prayer of a person. Now I would like to say a few words about family prayer.
Most of our contemporaries live in such a way that family members get together quite rarely, at best twice a day - in the morning for breakfast and in the evening for dinner. During the day, parents are at work, children are at school, only preschoolers and pensioners stay at home. It is very important that there are some moments in the daily routine when everyone can come together for prayer. If the family is going to dinner, why not pray together a few minutes before it? You can also read prayers and a passage from the Gospel after dinner.
Joint prayer strengthens the family, because its life is truly full and happy only when its members are united not only by family ties, but also by spiritual kinship, a common understanding and worldview. Joint prayer, in addition, has a beneficial effect on each member of the family, in particular, it helps children a lot.
In Soviet times, it was forbidden to raise children in religious spirit. This was motivated by the fact that children must first grow up, and only then independently choose whether to follow a religious or a non-religious path. There is a deep lie in this argument. Because before a person has the opportunity to choose, he must be taught something. BUT best age for learning is, of course, childhood. For someone who has been accustomed to living without prayer since childhood, it can be very difficult to accustom himself to pray. And a person who has been brought up from childhood in a prayerful, gracious spirit, who from the first years of his life knew about the existence of God and that one can always turn to God, even if later he departed from the Church, from God, still kept in some depths, in spiritual recesses, the skills of prayer acquired in childhood, the charge of religiosity. And it often happens that people who have departed from the Church return to God at some stage in their lives precisely because they were accustomed to prayer in childhood.
One more moment. Today, many families have relatives of the older generation, grandparents, who were brought up in a non-religious environment. Even twenty or thirty years ago, one could say that the church is a place for “grandmothers”. Now it is the grandmothers who represent the most non-religious generation, brought up in the 30s and 40s, in the era of “militant atheism”. It is very important that the elderly find their way to the temple. It is not too late for anyone to turn to God, but those of the young who have already found this path should tactfully, gradually, but with great constancy, involve their older relatives in the orbit of spiritual life. And through daily family prayer, this can be done especially successfully.
15. CHURCH PRAYER
As the famous theologian of the 20th century, Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, said, a Christian never prays alone: even if he turns to God in his room, closing the door behind him, he still prays as a member of the church community. We are not isolated individuals, we are members of the Church, members of one body. And we are not saved alone, but together with others - with our brothers and sisters. And therefore it is very important that each person has the experience of not only individual prayer, but also church prayer, together with other people.
Church prayer has a very special meaning and a special meaning. Many of us know from our own experience how difficult it is sometimes for a person to plunge into the element of prayer alone. But when you come to the temple, you are immersed in the common prayer of many people, and this prayer takes you to some depths, and your prayer merges with the prayer of others.
Human life is like swimming across the sea or ocean. There are, of course, brave souls who, alone, overcoming storms and storms, cross the sea on a yacht. But, as a rule, people, in order to cross the ocean, gather together and move by ship from one coast to another. The Church is the ship in which Christians move together on the path to salvation. And common prayer is one of the most strong means to advance along this path.
In the temple, many things contribute to church prayer, and above all worship. The liturgical texts used in the Orthodox Church are extraordinarily rich in content; great wisdom. But there is an obstacle that many who come to the Church face - this is the Church Slavonic language. Now there is a lot of debate about whether to keep the Slavic language in worship or switch to Russian. It seems to me that if our liturgy were entirely translated into Russian, a great deal would be lost in it. Church Slavonic has great spiritual power, and experience shows that it is not so difficult, not so much different from the Russian. You just need to make some effort, just as we, if necessary, make an effort to master the language of a particular science, for example, mathematics or physics.
So, in order to learn how to pray in church, you need to make some efforts, go to church more often, maybe buy basic liturgical books and free time study them. And then all the richness of the liturgical language and liturgical texts will open before you, and you will see that worship is a whole school that teaches you not only church prayer, but also spiritual life.
16. WHY DO YOU NEED TO GO TO CHURCH?
Many people who occasionally visit the temple develop some kind of consumer attitude to the church. They come to the temple, for example, before a long journey - put a candle just in case, so that nothing happens on the road. They come in for two or three minutes, hurriedly make the sign of the cross several times and, having put a candle, leave. Some, having entered the temple, say: “I want to pay money so that the priest prays about this and that,” they pay money and leave. The priest must pray, but these people themselves do not participate in prayer.
This is the wrong attitude. The church is not a machine for buying “Snickers”: you drop a coin and a candy falls out. The church is the place where you need to come to live and study there. If you are experiencing any difficulties or one of your loved ones is ill, do not limit yourself to walking in and lighting a candle. Come to church for worship, immerse yourself in the element of prayer and, together with the priest and the community, lift up your prayer about what worries you.
It is very important that church attendance be regular. It is good to visit the temple every Sunday. The Sunday Divine Liturgy, as well as the Liturgy of the Great Feasts, is the time when we can, having renounced our earthly affairs for two hours, plunge into the element of prayer. It is good to come to church with the whole family to confess and take communion.
If a person learns to live from resurrection to resurrection, in rhythm church services, in the rhythm of the Divine Liturgy, then his whole life will change dramatically. First of all, it is discipline. The believer knows that next Sunday he will have to give an answer to God, and he lives differently, does not allow many sins that he could have committed if he had not attended church. In addition, the Divine Liturgy itself is an opportunity to receive Holy Communion, that is, to unite with God not only spiritually, but also bodily. And, finally, the Divine Liturgy is a comprehensive service, when both the entire church community and each of its members can pray about everything that worries, worries or pleases. A believer during the Liturgy can pray for himself, for his neighbors, and for his future, to repent for sins and ask God's blessing for further service. It is very important to learn to fully participate in the Liturgy. There are other services in the Church, for example, an all-night vigil - a preparatory service for communion. You can order a prayer service to some saint or a prayer service for the health of a particular person. But no so-called “private” services, that is, ordered by a person to pray for some of his specific needs, can replace participation in the Divine Liturgy, because it is the Liturgy that is the center of church prayer, and it is she who should become the center of everyone’s spiritual life. Christian and every Christian family.
17. Tenderness and tears
I would like to say a few words about that spiritual and emotional state that people experience in prayer. Let us recall the famous poem by Lermontov:
In a difficult moment of life,
Does sadness linger in the heart:
One wonderful prayer
I repeat by heart.
There is a grace
In consonance with the words of the living,
And breathes incomprehensible,
Holy beauty in them.
From the soul as a burden rolls down,
Doubt is far away
And believe and cry
And it's so easy, so easy...
In these beautiful simple words great poet described what very often happens to people during prayer. A person repeats the words of prayers - perhaps familiar from childhood - and suddenly feels some kind of enlightenment, relief comes, tears appear. On the church language this state is called tenderness. This is the state that is sometimes granted to a person during prayer, when he feels the presence of God more sharply and stronger than usual. This is a spiritual state when the grace of God directly touches our heart.
Let us recall an excerpt from Ivan Bunin's autobiographical book "The Life of Arseniev", where Bunin describes his youth and how, while still a schoolboy, he attended services in the parish church of the Exaltation of the Lord. He describes the beginning of the vigil, in the twilight of the church, when there are still very few people: “How all this excites me. I'm still a boy, a teenager, but I was born with the feeling of all this. So many times have I listened to these exclamations and the next “amen” without fail after them, that all this has become, as it were, a part of my soul, and now, already guessing every word of the service in advance, it responds to everything with a purely kindred readiness. “Come, let us worship… Bless the Lord, my soul,” I hear, and my eyes are covered with tears, for I now firmly know that there is and cannot be anything on earth more beautiful and higher than all this. And the holy mystery flows, flows, the Royal Doors close and open, the vaults of the church are illuminated brighter and warmer by many candles. And then Bunin writes that he had to visit many Western churches where the organ sounded, to visit Gothic cathedrals, beautiful in their architecture, “but nowhere and never,” he says, “I did not cry like in the Church of the Exaltation in these dark and deaf evenings.
It is not only great poets and writers who respond to the beneficial influence that visits to church are inevitably associated with. This can be experienced by every person. It is very important that our soul be open to these feelings, so that when we come to church we are ready to accept the grace of God to the extent that it will be given to us. If the state of grace is not given to us and compunction does not come, there is no need to be embarrassed by this. This means that our soul has not matured to tenderness. But moments of such enlightenment are a sign that our prayer is not fruitless. They testify that God responds to our prayer and the grace of God touches our hearts.
18. FIGHTING WITH OTHER THOUGHTS
One of the main obstacles to attentive prayer is the appearance of extraneous thoughts. Saint John of Kronstadt, great ascetic late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, describes in his diaries how during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, at the most crucial and sacred moments, before his mind's eye suddenly appeared Apple pie or some order with which he can be awarded. And he speaks with bitterness and regret about how such extraneous images and thoughts can destroy a state of prayer. If this happened to the saints, then it is not surprising that it happens to us. In order to protect ourselves from these thoughts and extraneous images, we must learn, as the ancient Fathers of the Church said, "to stand guard over our mind."
The ascetic writers of the Ancient Church had a detailed teaching on how an extraneous thought gradually penetrates a person. The first stage of this process is called “addition”, that is, the sudden appearance of a thought. This thought is still completely alien to a person, it appeared somewhere on the horizon, but its penetration into the interior begins when a person stops his attention on it, enters into a conversation with it, examines and analyzes it. Then comes what the Fathers of the Church called "combination" - when the mind of a person already, as it were, shrinks, merges with the thought. Finally, the thought turns into passion and embraces the whole person, and then both prayer and spiritual life are already forgotten.
To prevent this from happening, it is very important to cut off extraneous thoughts at their first appearance, not to allow them to penetrate into the depths of the soul, heart and mind. And in order to learn this, you need to work hard on yourself. A person cannot but experience absent-mindedness in prayer if he does not learn to fight with extraneous thoughts.
One of the diseases of modern man is that he does not know how to control the work of his brain. His brain is autonomous, and thoughts come and go involuntarily. Modern man, as a rule, does not follow what is happening in his mind at all. But in order to learn true prayer, one must be able to watch one's thoughts and ruthlessly cut off those that do not correspond to the prayerful mood. Overcoming absent-mindedness and cutting off extraneous thoughts help short prayers, - - “Lord, have mercy”, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” and others - which do not require special concentration on words, but dispose to the birth of feelings and the movement of the heart. With the help of such prayers, one can learn attention and concentration on prayer.
19. JESUS PRAYER
The apostle Paul says, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). People often ask: how can we pray unceasingly if we work, read, talk, eat, sleep, etc., that is, we do what seems to be incompatible with prayer? The answer to this question in the Orthodox tradition is the Jesus Prayer. Believers who practice the Jesus Prayer achieve unceasing prayer, that is, unceasing standing before God. How does this happen?
The Jesus Prayer sounds like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There is also a shorter form: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." But prayer can be reduced to two words: "Lord, have mercy." A person who performs the Jesus Prayer repeats it not only during worship or on home prayer, but also on the road, while eating and going to bed. Even if a person speaks to someone or listens to another, then, without losing the intensity of perception, he, nevertheless, continues to repeat this prayer somewhere in the depths of his heart.
The meaning of the Jesus Prayer is, of course, not in its mechanical repetition, but in always feeling the living presence of Christ. This presence is felt by us, first of all, because when we say the Jesus Prayer, we say the name of the Savior.
The name is a symbol of its bearer, the name, as it were, contains the one to whom it belongs. When a young man is in love with a girl and thinks about her, he incessantly repeats her name, because she seems to be present in her name. And since love fills his whole being, he feels the need to repeat this name again and again. In the same way, a Christian who loves the Lord repeats the name of Jesus Christ because his whole heart and being is turned to Christ.
It is very important when performing the Jesus Prayer not to try to imagine Christ, imagining Him as a person in any life situation or, for example, hanging on a cross. The Jesus Prayer should not be associated with images that may arise in our imagination, because then the real is replaced by the imaginary. The Jesus Prayer should be accompanied only by an inner sense of the presence of Christ and a sense of standing before the Living God. No external images are relevant here.
20. WHAT IS JESUS' PRAYER GOOD?
The Jesus Prayer has several special properties. First of all, it is the presence in it of the name of God.
We very often remember the name of God, as if out of habit, thoughtlessly. We say: “Lord, how tired I am,” “God be with him, let him come another time,” completely without thinking about the power that the name of God possesses. Meanwhile, already in Old Testament there was a commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Ex. 20:7). And the ancient Jews treated the name of God with extreme reverence. In the era after the liberation from the Babylonian captivity, it was generally forbidden to pronounce the name of God. Only the high priest had this right, once a year, when he entered the Holy of Holies, the main sanctuary of the temple. When we address the Jesus Prayer to Christ, then pronouncing the name of Christ and confessing Him as the Son of God has a very special meaning. This name should be pronounced with the greatest reverence.
Another feature of the Jesus Prayer is its simplicity and accessibility. To perform the Jesus Prayer, neither special books nor a specially allotted place or time are needed. This is its great advantage over many other prayers.
Finally, there is one more property that distinguishes this prayer - in it we confess our sinfulness: "Have mercy on me, a sinner." This point is very important because many modern people absolutely do not feel their sinfulness. Even at confession, one can often hear: “I don’t know what to repent of, I live like everyone else, I don’t kill, I don’t steal,” etc. Meanwhile, it is our sins that, as a rule, are the causes of our major troubles and sorrows. A person does not notice his sins because he is far from God, just as in a dark room we see neither dust nor dirt, but as soon as we open the window, it turns out that the room needs to be cleaned for a long time.
The soul of a person who is far from God is like a dark room. But what closer man to God, the more light becomes in his soul, the more acutely he feels his own sinfulness. And this happens not because he compares himself with other people, but because he stands before God. When we say: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner," we, as it were, put ourselves before the face of Christ, we compare our life with His life. And then we really feel like sinners and can repent from the depths of our hearts.
21. PRACTICE OF THE JESUS PRAYER
Let's talk about the practical aspects of the Jesus Prayer. Some set themselves the task of saying the Jesus Prayer during the day, say, a hundred, five hundred or a thousand times. To count how many times a prayer is read, a rosary is used, which can have fifty, one hundred or more balls. Saying a prayer in the mind, a person goes through the rosary. But if you are just beginning the feat of the Jesus Prayer, then you should pay attention first of all to the quality, not to the quantity. It seems to me that one should start by saying the words of the Jesus Prayer very slowly, making sure that the heart participates in the prayer. You say: “Lord… Jesus… Christ…”, and your heart should, like a tuning fork, respond to every word. And do not try to immediately read the Jesus Prayer many times. Let you say it only ten times, but if your heart responds to the words of the prayer, that will be enough.
A person has two spiritual centers - the mind and the heart. Intellectual activity, imagination, thoughts are connected with the mind, and emotions, feelings, experiences are connected with the heart. When saying the Jesus Prayer, the center should be the heart. That is why, while praying, do not try to imagine something in your mind, for example, Jesus Christ, but try to keep your attention in your heart.
The ancient church ascetic writers developed the technique of “bringing the mind into the heart”, in which the Jesus Prayer was combined with the breath, and on the inhale it was said: “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God” - and on the exhale: “have mercy on me, a sinner.” The attention of a person, as it were, naturally switched from head to heart. I do not think that everyone should practice the Jesus Prayer in this way, it is enough to pronounce the words of the prayer with great attention and reverence.
Start your morning with the Jesus Prayer. If you have a free minute during the day, read the prayer a few more times; in the evening, before going to bed, repeat it until you fall asleep. Learning how to wake up and fall asleep with the Jesus Prayer will give you tremendous spiritual support. Gradually, as your heart becomes more and more responsive to the words of this prayer, you can come to the point that it will become unceasing, and the main content of the prayer will not be the utterance of words, but constant feeling the presence of God in the heart. And if you started by saying the prayer aloud, then gradually you will come to the point that only the heart will say it, without the participation of the tongue or lips. You will see how prayer will transform your whole human nature, your whole life. This is the special power of the Jesus Prayer.
22. BOOKS ABOUT THE PRAYER OF JESUS. HOW TO PRAY CORRECTLY?
“Whatever you do, whatever you do at all times, day and night, pronounce these Divine words with your lips: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It is not difficult: both while traveling, on the road, and while working - whether you chop wood or carry water, or you dig the earth, or you cook food. After all, one body works in all this, and the mind remains idle, so give it an occupation that is proper and appropriate for its immaterial nature - to pronounce the name of God. This is an excerpt from the book “On the Mountains of the Caucasus”, which was published for the first time at the beginning of the 20th century and is dedicated to the Jesus Prayer.
I would like to emphasize that this prayer needs to be learned, and preferably with the help of a spiritual guide. In the Orthodox Church there are teachers of prayer - among monastics, pastors and even laity: these are people who themselves, by experience, have known the power of prayer. But if you do not find such a mentor - and many complain that it is difficult to find a mentor in prayer now - then you can turn to books such as “On the Caucasus Mountains” or “ Candid stories a wanderer to his spiritual father.” The last one, published in the 19th century and reprinted many times, speaks of a man who decided to learn unceasing prayer. He was a wanderer, he went from city to city with a bag on his shoulders and with a staff, and he learned to pray. He repeated the Jesus Prayer several thousand times a day.
There is also a classic five-volume collection of works of the Holy Fathers from the 4th to the 14th centuries - “The Philokalia”. This is the richest treasure spiritual experience, it contains many instructions on the Jesus Prayer and on sobriety - the attention of the mind. Anyone who wants to learn how to really pray should be familiar with these books.
I quoted an excerpt from the book “In the Caucasus Mountains” also because many years ago, when I was a teenager, I happened to travel to Georgia, to the Caucasus Mountains, not far from Sukhumi. There I met with hermits. They even lived there Soviet time, away from the worldly bustle, in caves, gorges and abysses, and no one knew about their existence. They lived by prayer and passed on from generation to generation a treasure of prayer experience. They were people, as it were, from another world, who had reached great spiritual heights, deep inner peace. And it's all thanks to the Jesus Prayer.
May God grant us to learn through experienced mentors and through the books of the Holy Fathers this treasure - the unceasing fulfillment of the Jesus Prayer.
23. “OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN”
The Lord's Prayer has a special significance because it was given to us by Jesus Christ Himself. It begins with the words: “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” or in Russian: “Our Father, Who art in heaven.” This prayer is comprehensive in nature: it seems to concentrate everything that a person needs for earthly life. and for the salvation of the soul. The Lord gave it to us so that we would know what to pray for, what to ask God for.
The first words of this prayer, “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” reveal to us that God is not some distant abstract being, not some abstract good principle, but our Father. Today, many people, when asked if they believe in God, answer in the affirmative, but if you ask them how they think of God for themselves, what they think about Him, they answer something like this: “Well, God is good, it is something bright, it's some kind of positive energy." That is, God is treated as a kind of abstraction, as something impersonal.
When we begin our prayer with the words "Our Father", we immediately turn to the personal, living God, to God as the Father - the same Father about whom Christ spoke in the parable of the prodigal son. Many people remember the plot of this parable from the Gospel of Luke. The son decided to leave his father without waiting for his death. He received the inheritance due to him, went to a distant country, squandered this inheritance there, and when he had already reached the last limit of poverty and exhaustion, he decided to return to his father. He said to himself: “I will go to my father and say to him: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son, but accept me as one of your hired hands” (Luke 15:18-19). And when he was still far away, his father ran out to meet him, threw himself on his neck. The son did not even have time to say the prepared words, because the father immediately gave him a ring, a sign of filial dignity, dressed him in his former clothes, that is, completely restored him to the dignity of a son. This is exactly how God treats us. We are not hirelings, but sons of God, and the Lord treats us like His children. Therefore, our relationship to God must be characterized by devotion and noble filial love.
When we say: “Our Father” - this means that we do not pray in isolation, as individuals, each of whom has his own Father, but as members of the one human family, the one Church, the one Body of Christ. In other words, when we call God the Father, we imply that all other people are our brothers. Moreover, when Christ teaches us to turn to God “Our Father” in prayer, He puts Himself, as it were, on the same level with us. Reverend Simeon The New Theologian said that through faith in Christ we become brothers of Christ, because we have a common Father with Him - our Heavenly Father.
As for the words “Who art in heaven,” they do not point to the physical sky, but to the fact that God lives in a completely different dimension than we do, that He is absolutely transcendent to us. But through prayer, through the Church, we have the opportunity to commune with this heaven, that is, with another world.
24. “HOLY ALL YOUR NAME”
What does the words “Hallowed be Thy name” mean? The name of God is holy in itself, it carries within itself a charge of holiness, spiritual power and the presence of God. Why is it necessary to pray with these words? Won't the name of God remain holy even if we don't say "Hallowed be Thy name"?
When we say: “Hallowed be Thy name,” we first of all mean that the name of God must be hallowed, that is, to be revealed as holy through us Christians, through our spiritual life. The Apostle Paul, addressing the unworthy Christians of his time, said: “For your sake the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles” (Rom. 2:24). This is very important words. They speak of our inconsistency with the spiritual and moral norm that is contained in the Gospel and by which we, Christians, are obliged to live. And this discrepancy, perhaps, is one of the main tragedies both for us as Christians and for the entire Christian Church.
The Church is holy because it is built on the name of God, which is holy in itself. Members of the Church are far from meeting the standards that the Church puts forward. One often hears reproaches, and quite fair ones, against Christians: “How can you prove the existence of God if you yourself live no better, and sometimes even worse than pagans and atheists? How is faith in God combined with unworthy deeds?” So, each of us should ask ourselves daily the question: “Am I, as a Christian, living up to the gospel ideal? Is the name of God hallowed through me, or is it blasphemed? Am I an example true Christianity which consists in love, humility, meekness and mercy, or do I set an example opposite to these virtues?
Often people turn to the priest with the question: “What can I do to bring my son (daughter, husband, mother, father) to church? I tell them about God, but they don’t want to listen.” The problem is that it's not enough to simply talk about God. When a person, having become a believer, tries to convert others to his faith, especially his loved ones, with the help of words, persuasion, and sometimes through coercion, insisting that they pray or go to church, this often gives the opposite result - his relatives experience rejection of everything ecclesiastical and spiritual. We can bring people closer to the Church only when we ourselves become real Christians, when they, looking at us, say: “Yes, now I understand what the Christian faith can do with a person, how it can transform, change him; I begin to believe in God because I see how Christians differ from non-Christians.”
25. “THE KINGDOM COME”
What do these words mean? After all, the Kingdom of God will inevitably come, there will be an end to the world, and humanity will pass into another dimension. Obviously, we are not praying for the end of the world, but for the Kingdom of God to come. to us, that is, to become a reality our life, so that our today - everyday, gray, and sometimes dark, tragic - earthly life was permeated with the presence of the Kingdom of God.
What is the Kingdom of God? To answer this question, we need to turn to the Gospel and remember that the preaching of Jesus Christ began with the words: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Then Christ repeatedly spoke to people about His Kingdom, He did not mind when He was called the King - for example, when He entered Jerusalem and He was greeted as the King of the Jews. Even standing at the trial, scolded, slandered, slandered, to the question of Pilate, asked, apparently, with irony: “Are you the King of the Jews?”, the Lord answered: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:33-36) . These words of the Savior contain the answer to the question of what the Kingdom of God is. And when we turn to God, “Thy Kingdom come,” we ask that this eternal, spiritual, Christ’s Kingdom become a reality of our lives, that that spiritual dimension appear in our lives, which is talked about a lot, but which is known to so few. by experience.
When the Lord Jesus Christ told the disciples about what awaits Him in Jerusalem - torment, suffering and the cross, - the mother of two of them said to Him: “Tell these two my sons to sit with You one by one. right side and the other to the left in your kingdom” (Matthew 20:21). He talked about how He must suffer and die, and she imagined the Man on the royal throne and wanted her sons to be near Him. But, as we remember, the Kingdom of God was first manifested on the cross - Christ was crucified, bled, and a sign hung over Him: "King of the Jews." And only then was the Kingdom of God revealed in the glorious and saving Resurrection of Christ. It is this Kingdom that is promised to us - the Kingdom that comes with great effort and sorrow. The path to the Kingdom of God lies through Gethsemane and Calvary - through those trials, temptations, sorrows and sufferings that fall to the lot of each of us. We must remember this when we say in prayer: "Thy kingdom come."
26. “THIS WILL BE DONE, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH”
We pronounce these words with such ease! And very rarely do we realize that our will may not coincide with the will of God. After all, sometimes God sends us suffering, but we find ourselves unable to accept them as sent by God, we grumble, we are indignant. How often people, coming to a priest, say: “I cannot agree with this and that, I understand that this is the will of God, but I cannot reconcile myself.” What can you say to such a person? Do not tell him that, apparently, in the Lord's Prayer he needs to replace the words “Thy will be done” with “My will be done”!
Each of us must strive to make our will coincide with the good will of God. We say: "Thy will be done, as in heaven, and on earth." That is, the will of God, which is already being done in heaven, in the spiritual world, must be done here on earth, and above all in our lives. And we must be ready to follow the voice of God in everything. You need to find the strength in yourself to refuse your own will for the sake of fulfilling the will of God. Often, when we pray, we ask God for something, but we do not receive it. And then it seems to us that the prayer was not heard. You need to find the strength in yourself to accept this “refusal” from God as His will.
Let us remember Christ, Who, on the eve of His death, prayed to His Father and said: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” But after all, this cup of Him did not pass, which means that the answer to prayer was different: the cup of suffering, sorrow and death Jesus Christ had to drink. Knowing this, He said to the Father: “But not as I will, but as You” (Matthew 26:39-42).
This should be our attitude towards God's will. If we feel that some kind of sorrow is approaching us, that we have to drink a cup for which we may not have enough strength, we can say: “Lord, if it is possible, let this cup of sorrow pass me, carry it pass me by". But, like Christ, we must end the prayer with the words: "But not my will, but Yours, be done."
God must be trusted. Often children ask their parents for something, but they do not give it, because they consider it harmful. Years will pass, and a person will understand how right his parents were. This is what happens with us. Some time passes, and we suddenly realize how much more beneficial was what the Lord sent us than what we would like to receive of our own free will.
27. “OUR DAILY BREAD GIVE US DAY”
We can turn to God with a variety of petitions. We can ask Him not only for something sublime and spiritual, but also for what we need on a material level. “Daily bread” is what we live by, our daily sustenance. Moreover, in prayer we say: “Give us our daily bread today”, that is today. In other words, we do not ask God to provide us with everything we need for all the next days of our lives. We ask Him for our daily food, knowing that if He feeds us today, He will feed us tomorrow. By saying these words, we express our trust in God: we trust Him with our life today, as we will trust it tomorrow.
The words "daily bread" indicate what is necessary for life, and not some kind of excess. A person can embark on the path of acquisitiveness and, having what is necessary - a roof over his head, a piece of bread, minimal material benefits - begin to hoard, to become luxurious. This path leads to a dead end, because the more a person accumulates, the more money he has, the more he feels the emptiness of life, feeling that there are some other needs that cannot be satisfied. material goods. So, “daily bread” is what is needed. These are not limousines, no luxurious palaces, not millions of sums of money, but this is something that neither we, nor our children, nor our relatives can live without.
Some understand the words "daily bread" in a more sublime sense - as "supernatural bread" or "superessential bread". In particular, the Greek Fathers of the Church wrote that “superessential bread” is the bread that comes down from heaven, in other words, it is Christ Himself whom Christians receive in the sacrament of Holy Communion. Such an understanding is also justified, because, in addition to material bread, a person also needs spiritual bread.
Everyone puts his own content into the concept of “daily bread”. During the war, one boy, praying, said this: “Give us our dried bread today,” because the main food was crackers. What the boy and his family needed to sustain life was dried bread. This may seem funny or sad, but it shows that every person - both old and small - asks God for exactly what he needs most, without which he cannot live a single day.
