About prayer
It is natural for the poor to ask, and it is natural for a person impoverished by the Fall to pray. Prayer is the appeal of a fallen and repentant person to God. Prayer is the cry of a fallen and repentant person before God. Prayer is the outpouring of heartfelt desires, petitions, sighs of a fallen person killed by sin before God.
The first discovery, the first movement of repentance is the cry of the heart. This is the prayerful voice of the heart, preceding the prayer of the mind. And soon the mind, carried away by the prayer of the heart, begins to give birth to prayerful thoughts. God is the only source of all true blessings. Prayer is the mother and head of all virtues6, as a means and state of communication between a person and God. She borrows virtues from the source of blessings - God, and assimilates them to the person who, through prayer, tries to remain in communion with God. The path to God is prayer. The dimension of the journey taken is the various prayerful states into which the person praying correctly and constantly gradually enters. Learn to pray to God correctly. Having learned to pray correctly, pray constantly - and you will comfortably inherit salvation. Salvation appears from God in due time, with an indisputable heartfelt message about oneself, who prays correctly and constantly.
For prayer to be correct, it must be offered from a heart filled with poverty of spirit, from a contrite and humble heart. All other states of the heart, until it is renewed by the Holy Spirit, recognize - what exactly they are - are unusual for a repentant sinner begging God for the forgiveness of his sins and for liberation - both from prison and shackles - from enslavement to passions. The Mosaic Law ordered the Israelites to offer all their sacrifices in only one place, appointed by God. And the spiritual law has designated for Christians one spiritual place to offer all their sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of sacrifices - prayer. This place is humility 7. God does not need our prayers! He knows even before we ask what we need; He, the Most Merciful, pours out abundant bounties on those who do not ask Him. We need prayer: it assimilates a person to God. Without it, a person is a stranger to God, and the more he practices prayer, the closer he gets to God. Prayer is the communion of life. Leaving her brings invisible death to the soul. What air is to the life of the body, the Holy Spirit is to the life of the soul. The soul, through prayer, breathes this holy, mysterious air. When you arise from sleep, let your first thought be about God; Bring the very beginning of your thoughts, not yet imprinted by any vain impression, to God. When you go to sleep, when you are preparing to plunge into this image of death, let your last thoughts be about eternity and about the God reigning in it. The angel revealed to a certain holy monk the following order of thoughts in prayer, pleasing to God: the beginning of prayer should consist of glorifying God, of thanking God for His countless benefits; then we must bring to God a sincere confession of our sins in contrition of spirit; in conclusion, we can offer, however with great humility, petitions to the Lord for our mental and physical needs, reverently leaving the fulfillment and non-fulfillment of these petitions to His will. mine to the merciful God, who was pleased to command me prayer and made a promise to listen to it.
Prayer, as a conversation with God, is in itself a high good, often much greater than what a person asks for, and the merciful God, not fulfilling the request, leaves the petitioner with his prayer, so that he does not lose it, does not abandon this highest good when will receive the requested benefit, much less.
God does not satisfy requests the fulfillment of which is associated with harmful consequences; He does not satisfy those requests that are contrary to His holy will, contrary to His wise, incomprehensible destinies.
Bring quiet and humble prayers to God, not ardent and fiery ones. When you become a mysterious priest of prayer, then you will ascend into God’s tabernacle and from there fill the prayer censer with sacred fire. Unclean fire—blind, material heating of the blood—is forbidden to be brought before the All-Holy God.
The sacred fire of prayer, borrowed from the tabernacle of God, is the holy love poured out into true Christians by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). He who tries to combine prayer with the fire of blood thinks, in his self-delusion, deceived by his opinion of himself, to serve God, but in reality he angers Him.
Do not look for pleasures in prayer: they are by no means characteristic of a sinner. The desire of a sinner to feel pleasure is already self-delusion. Seek for your dead, petrified heart to come to life, so that it opens up to the feeling of its sinfulness, its fall, its insignificance, so that it sees them, confesses to them with selflessness. Then the true fruit of prayer will appear in you - true repentance. You will groan before God and cry out to Him in prayer from the disastrous state of your soul that has suddenly been revealed to you; You will cry out as from a prison, as from a tomb, as from hell.
Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
PRAYER RULE
What is a prayer rule? These are prayers that a person reads regularly, daily. Everyone's prayer rules are different. For some, the morning or evening rule takes several hours, for others - a few minutes. Everything depends on a person’s spiritual make-up, the degree to which he is rooted in prayer and the time he has at his disposal.
It is very important that a person follows 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 when constantly reading the same prayers, their words become discolored, lose their freshness, and a person, getting used to them, stops focusing on them. This danger must be avoided at all costs.
I remember when I took monastic vows (I was twenty years old at the time), I turned to an experienced confessor for advice and asked him what prayer rule I should have. He said: “You must read morning and evening prayers, three canons and one akathist every day. No matter what happens, even if you are very tired, you must read them. And even if you read them hastily and inattentively, it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that the rule is read.” I tried. Things didn't work out. Daily reading of the same prayers led to the fact that these texts quickly became boring. In addition, every day I spent many hours in church at services that spiritually nourished me, nourished me, and inspired me. And reading the three canons and the akathist turned into some kind of unnecessary “appendage”. I started looking for other advice that was 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 for half an hour in the morning and evening, but this half hour must be completely given to God. And it is not so important whether during these minutes we read all the prayers or just one, or perhaps we devote one evening entirely to reading the Psalter, the Gospel or prayer in our own words. The main thing is that we are 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 the advice I received from my confessor would be more suitable for others. Here a lot depends on the individual 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 said with attention and feeling, is enough to be a real Christian. It is only important that the thought always corresponds to the words, the heart responds to the words of prayer, and the whole life corresponds to the prayer.
Try, following the advice of St. Theophan the Recluse, to set aside some time for prayer during the day and for daily fulfillment of the prayer rule. And you will see that it will bear fruit very soon.
PRAYER FOR YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
We must pray not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors. Every morning and every evening, as well as while 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 the other 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 Sea on a ship. Suddenly a strong 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 prayer he saw his mother, who at that time was on the shore, but, as it turned out later, she sensed 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 his mother’s prayers.
Someone might say: “Well, another story from the lives of the ancient saints. Why don’t similar things happen today?” I can assure you that this is still happening today. I know many people who, through the prayers of loved ones, were saved from death or great danger. And there have been many cases in my life when I escaped danger through the prayers of my mother or other people, for example, my parishioners.
Once I was in 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 four 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 man who was driving were saved from trouble.
We should pray for our neighbors, not because God does not know how to save them, but because He wants us to participate in saving each other. Of course, He Himself knows what every person needs - both us and our neighbors. When we pray for our neighbors, this does not mean that we want to be more merciful than God. But this means that we want to participate in their salvation. And in prayer we must not forget about the people with whom life has brought us together, and that they pray 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 connection between us and our neighbors, and let us always remember each other in prayer.
PRAYER FOR THE DECEASED
We must pray not only for those of our neighbors who are alive, but also for those who have already passed on to another world.
Prayer for the deceased is necessary first of all for us, because when a loved one passes away, we have a natural feeling of loss, and from this we suffer deeply. But that person continues to live, only he lives in another dimension, because he has moved to another world. So that the connection between us and the person who left us does not break, we must pray for him. Then we will feel his presence, feel that he has not left us, that our living connection with him remains.
But prayer for the deceased, of course, is also necessary for him, because when a person dies, he moves on to another life in order to meet God there and answer for everything he has done 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 remain 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 he owned in life, all that he acquired, remains here. Only the soul goes to another 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 punishment for it. But we, the survivors, can ask God to ease the fate of this person. And the Church believes that the posthumous fate of the deceased is made easier through the prayers of those who pray for him here on earth.
The hero of Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov,” Elder Zosima (whose prototype was St. Tikhon of Zadonsk) says this about prayer for the departed: “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 life on this earth, and their souls stand before the Lord - and how many of them parted with the earth in isolation, unknown to anyone, in sadness and longing, 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 was for his soul, standing in fear of the Lord, to feel at that moment that there was a prayer book for him, that there was a human being left on earth and one who loved him. And God will look more mercifully on both of you, for if you have already pitied him so much, then how much more will He, who is infinitely more merciful... And forgive him for your sake.”
PRAYER FOR ENEMIES
The need to pray for enemies follows 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 good to us, and to treat with hostility, or even hatred, towards 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). During His earthly life, Christ Himself repeatedly set an example of both love for enemies and prayer for enemies. When the Lord was on the cross and the soldiers were nailing 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 was thinking at that moment not about Himself, not about the fact that these soldiers were causing Him pain, but about their salvation, for by committing evil, they first of all harmed themselves.
We must remember that people who do us harm or treat us with hostility are not bad in themselves. The sin with which they are infected is bad. One must hate sin, and not its carrier, man. As Saint John Chrysostom said, “when you see that someone is doing you evil, hate not him, but the devil who stands behind him.”
We must learn to separate a person from the sin he commits. The 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 beginnings of goodness that exist in every person, that we must look closely.
Why is it necessary to pray for enemies? This is necessary not only for them, but also for us. We must find the strength to make peace with people. Archimandrite Sophrony in his book about 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 hearts, we are unable to approach God. And as long as this feeling remains in us, the path to God is blocked for us. This is why it is necessary to pray for enemies.
Every time we approach the Living God, we must be absolutely reconciled with everyone 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 make peace with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23) . And another word of the Lord: “Make peace with your adversary quickly, while you are still on the way with him” (Matthew 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 we will go into the future life unreconciled. And there it will be impossible to make up for what was lost here.
FAMILY PRAYER
So far we have talked mainly about the personal, individual prayer of a person. Now I would like to say a few words about prayer within the family.
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, and only preschoolers and pensioners remain at home. It is very important that there be some moments in the daily routine when everyone can gather together for prayer. If the family is going to dinner, why not pray together a few minutes before? You can also read prayers and a passage from the Gospel after dinner.
Joint prayer strengthens a family, because its life is truly fulfilling 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 family member, in particular, it greatly helps children.
In Soviet times, it was forbidden to raise children in a 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 non-religious path. There is a profound lie in this argument. Because before a person has the opportunity to choose, he must be taught something. And the best age for learning is, of course, childhood. It can be very difficult for someone who has been accustomed to living without prayer since childhood to accustom himself to pray. And a person, raised from childhood in a prayerful, grace-filled 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 he later left the Church, from God, still retained some in the depths, in the recesses of the soul, the prayer skills acquired in childhood, the charge of religiosity. And it often happens that people who have left the Church return to God at some stage in their lives precisely because in childhood they were accustomed to prayer.
One more thing. Today, many families have older relatives, grandparents, who were raised in a non-religious environment. Even twenty or thirty years ago one could say that church is a place for “grandmothers.” Now it is grandmothers who represent the most irreligious generation, brought up in the 30s and 40s, in the era of “militant atheism.” It is very important that older people find their way to the temple. It is not too late for anyone to turn to God, but those young people who have already found this path must tactfully, gradually, but with great constancy involve their older relatives into the orbit of spiritual life. And through daily family prayer this can be done especially successfully.
PRAYER TO THE SAINTS
The tradition of venerating saints in the Christian Church is very ancient; it has existed since the very moment the Church appeared, from the first years of its existence. Christian churches in ancient times were built on the tombs of martyrs. And it was the blood of the martyrs, according to one ancient church writer, that was the “seed of Christianity,” that is, Christianity spread thanks to the feat of the martyrs.
Martyrs are people who, by the example of their own life and death, showed that the feat of Christ can be repeated by man, that earthly man, with all his weakness and infirmity, can also sacrifice himself for the sake of people and for the sake of God, as Jesus Christ did. A person who sacrificed himself became a spiritual hero in the eyes of other people, especially in the eyes of those who knew him personally. The veneration of this saint began immediately after his death. There is still a tradition that an Orthodox church should contain at least a small particle of the relics of some saint. The Divine Liturgy is not supposed to be celebrated on a simple table: it is celebrated on a throne or on a special plate in which a particle of the relics of a saint is sewn. The reason for this is that martyrs and saints are the foundation on which the Christian Church is built. We pray to the saints because these people, although they were the same as us, thanks to the feat of their lives, achieved deification and became like Christ. We pray to them because they have walked the path that we are just trying to follow. And the experience of many Christians testifies: saints hear prayers and answer them.
I would like to speak very briefly about one negative phenomenon that is associated with the veneration of saints. The fact is that some perceive saints approximately the same way the pagans perceived their gods - according to the principle “which saint helps with what.” Such people come into church and ask: “Which saint should I light a candle to get an apartment?”, “Which saint should I pray for a toothache?” etc. We must remember that saints are not some kind of gods from whom you can get something, and from each their own. Saints are not experts in issuing apartments, stopping toothaches, or other similar things. There are, of course, saints who were doctors during their lifetime, and we turn to them with a request for healing, for example, the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon. Indeed, through the prayers of such saints, many healings occur. But in no case should saints be perceived as some kind of fetish; We cannot replace a prayer to a saint as a person who has achieved spiritual perfection and can help us in some way with a prayer to a saint as some kind of idol who is needed only because we can get specific help from him.
Saints are, first of all, our heavenly friends who can help us in our progress on the path to salvation, on the path to God. And only secondarily, saints are those who help us with specific everyday things.
God symbol
The symbol of God is sacred to a believer. In religions, he is endowed with the qualities of a perfect, supreme being. For some, he represents the creator of the entire World.
It is believed that the highest Deity is embodied in the simplest form. Each of the Planetary Gods is embodied in the form of a man, the Solar Deities - in the form of an angel, and the Cosmic Gods - in the form of an animal. They symbolize eternity, perfection, independence, as well as permanence, holiness, limitless power and justice.
The Lord hears the requests of sincerely praying people and does not leave them without due attention. He rewards people according to their merits. A believer who prays for support will receive it in difficult times. It is not uncommon for the Lord to help sinful people who have hope and faith in Divine grace. The goal is to strengthen the sinner’s faith.
But some people who believe in Jesus Christ, live without violating his Commandments, sometimes do not receive the desired support from a Higher Power. This happens so that Christians realize their mistakes and strengthen their spirit. The Lord makes it possible to come to the understanding that such a situation could have been avoided. Every test is sent with good intentions. In addition, they always take into account a person’s potential. That is, the test is always given according to a person’s strength. The strength that lives within allows you to overcome obstacles and difficulties. Everyone, one might say, thinks differently. Not everyone can correctly understand and accept the Divine will. Those who understand live calmly and measuredly.
