Prayer to the Lord and Jesus Christ for the coming sleep
Our Father and Jesus Christ, grant me (name) your mercy, do not separate from me on the path of life.
I kneel and pray for help in tomorrow, save my sleep and sanctify my life.
May your salvation and your love descend upon me on my bed.
Forgive my sins for the day and guide me along the path of repentance and light.
Let all adversity pass as the day passed.
My God and Your Son Jesus, I humbly believe in Your strength and power over evil.
Protect Your servant (name).
May your kingdom on earth be eternal.
Prayer (+VIDEO)
What is the universal spiritual meaning of a person’s prayer to God? How do we begin and end our prayers? What feelings should we not have before God?
Hello, dear brothers and sisters. The late Serbian Patriarch Paul, of blessed memory, spoke these simple words: “A bird is a bird because it flies. And a flower is a flower because it smells and blooms. And a man is a man because he prays.” Prayer is a birthmark of a person. In all other respects, man is similar to animals: he is a mammal, viviparous, bipedal, without feathers - this is how he could be defined in a biology course.
Prayer is a sign of a person. A man is a man because he prays
We give birth to living offspring, such as a cat and a dog, a dolphin or an elephant. Our mothers feed their young with milk, just as a cow feeds her calf, just as a mother elephant feeds her calf. And we worry about our children, we flock into the human herd, into society, we take care of the family, like, say, swans or the same dolphins, or monkeys, or wolves. We have a signaling system through which we communicate with people like us. And in all other respects, we are actually the same animals. How are we truly different from the animal world? For me, there is only one thing: the fact that we pray. Prayer is a sign of a person. A bird is a bird because it flies; a flower is a flower because it grows and smells, and a man is a man because he prays.
Let's talk briefly about prayer. This is great art, this is the science of sciences and the art of arts. You need to learn prayer all your life. Sometimes a person spends many decades trying to learn to call on the name of the Lord carefully and with fear and reverence. Sometimes the heart is drilled by God’s drill, and a fountain of prayer flows from there, as was the case, for example, with the drowning Peter, when there was no time and opportunity to pick up a book, kneel down, light a lamp - a man is drowning, and he shouts: “Save me, I’m dying!” This is the prayer of a dying man. So the thief on the cross prayed: “Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom!” Or the publican in the temple beating his chest: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” These are all short prayers that burst out of a person like protuberances, like a geyser, like hot boiling water gushing from the depths of the human soul. This is a request to God.
But it is better not to wait for trouble so that trouble will force us to pray. In general, the best teacher of prayer is trouble. When trouble comes, when illness comes, prayer for healing begins. Fear comes - prayer for salvation begins. Trouble comes with children - prayer for children begins. Some other need comes - prayer begins for such and such. But I would not praise this type of prayer, because you still need to pray until illness, until need, until trouble, until death, until danger, until the separation of the soul from the body. That is, you need to pray to God, because He exists, and you need to communicate with Him.
Saint Basil the Great defines several types of prayer, and the first he considers is the prayer of praise. God must be praised. You need to come to churches to praise God. “Praise the Lord from heaven, praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all your angels; praise Him, all your might. Praise Him, the heavens of the heavens and the waters that are above the heavens” (Ps. 149: 1–4). The Psalter ends with psalms of praise: 148, 149, 150 - we read them at Matins. The Psalter begins with a revelation about how to live: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked... but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he learns day and night. And it will be like a tree planted by the rising waters, which will yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall away” (Ps. 1: 1-3). This is the beginning of the Psalter. And at the end of the Psalter, what does it come to? To the fact that “if you praise the Lord, praise Him, serpents, fires, abysses, hail, snow, bareness, storms - all praise the Lord.” A man expands his soul so much that he wants the entire universe to turn into a temple, and he, a man, becomes a priest in this temple. This, in fact, is the purpose of human creation. The world is a temple, and man is a priest in it. And the first thing to do in relation to the Lord God is to praise Him. “We praise, we bless, we give thanks, we worship the Lord, singing and exalting Him forever.” So praise the Lord more than you ask for anything.
This is very important: you must always pray as a sinner. You cannot pray like a righteous person, because our righteousness is false, imaginary, full of holes. We must pray to God as a sinner: praise God, but do not forget that you are a sinner. Ask Him for forgiveness of your sins. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy.” And then ask God, ask what you want: for your daughter - a husband; to a married daughter - children and faithful living with her husband, so that they don’t get divorced, don’t fight, don’t swear; for my son to return safe and sound from the army; “help me pay off my mortgage, Lord,” “help me get well.” Ask God - we need to ask God, because He has everything we need: the words “wealth” and “God” have the same root, that is, God is rich in everything, He has everything, He does not feel sorry for anything. Only He gives in doses to those who need it, and on time.
And finally, when you receive what you ask for, you should give thanks. Who would you be if you ask God for help, God gives it to you, and then you don’t thank Him? You need to thank.
So, praise, repent, ask and give thanks after receiving what you asked - these are the four types of prayer that, if my memory serves me, Saint Basil the Great defines.
Now another very important thing: when you start praising, end with repentance, and when you start to repent, end with praise. I will illustrate this with a simple, but, it seems to me, very important example. Here is a penitential psalm: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy” (Ps. 50:1). David wrote this after he was wounded twice - by two arrows: adultery and murder - he killed and slept with another man's wife. Then he understood everything - Nathan told him, and he tried these accusatory words on himself and began to repent: “I wet my bed with tears” - I began to wash my bed with tears. Here is a psalm born out of repentance: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your compassions, cleanse my iniquity.” He repents and repents, and then says: “I will teach the wicked in Your way, and the wicked will turn to You” (Ps. 51:15). Note: David, who killed and fornicated, says: “I will teach the wicked Your ways, and the wicked will turn to You.” I'm sorry, King David, who are you? Are you not the wicked one? You yourself are a murderer and an adulterer. Are you going to teach anyone else? Are you going to bring the wicked to God? What have you done yourself? It seems so. But in fact, great wisdom is revealed: David begins with repentance, and then gradually his heart flares up more and more, his heart reaches a fervent state, and he says: “I, Lord, will do everything for You.” What does the Lord need most? – Bring back sinners from sinful paths. “I will turn the wicked to You, I will teach the wicked Your ways” - he ends, in essence, with a promise to God to be a preacher and teacher of many. Do you understand?
So start with repentance and end differently - you will become a teacher. "Do you love me?" - "I love!" - “Feed My sheep.” So Peter hears three times from Christ in response to repentance the command to “feed My sheep” - this is very valuable for the Lord. King David begins with repentance, and ends with praise and already speaks about the “walls of Jerusalem”, “the sacrifice of righteousness: then they will lay bulls on Your altar” (Ps. 50: 20, 21).
This is the law: if you begin to repent, you will ascend to praise God; if you begin to praise the Lord, you will descend to repentance.
But in the Great Doxology, on the contrary, we first say: “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.” We praise, bless, thank You, Lord..." - we praise God. And then slowly - we sing, we sing - “Heal my soul, for those who have sinned against You.” Where is this from? It seems they started praising, and then - once again, they descended into repentance. Yes, this is the law: if you begin to repent, you will ascend to praise; if you begin to praise, you will descend to repentance.
If you attended Great Compline during Lent, you probably noticed that there are two songs that radically present these two positions to us. First: “God is with us - understand, O pagans, and submit, for God is with us. Hear to the last of the earth that God is with us. O ye that are mighty, submit, for God is with us.” God is with us, we are not afraid of anyone, “we will not be afraid of your fear, we will be confused, for God is with us,” “We will sanctify the Lord our God, and He will be our fear, for God is with us.” This is a song of the triumph of faith, that is, we are not afraid of anyone at all. Everything you are planning, scheming, sharpening your knives, collecting your weapons, cleaning them - it’s all nonsense - God is with us, hide, everyone. Then half of Compline passes and the song is sung: “Lord of hosts, be with us, for is there no other imam to help you in sorrow, Lord of hosts, have mercy on us” - this is a completely different tone: Lord, do not leave us. We just said: “God is with us! Well, that's it - chick! In the corners! We are the strongest, the Lord is with us!”, and then we say to God: “Please don’t leave us, just don’t leave us. Because if You leave us, we will all simply be destroyed. They don’t love us anyway, but here they will simply eat us alive: “If the Lord were not in us... they would have devoured us alive” (Ps. 123: 2) - this is how it is written in the psalms. And we are already praying: “Lord, do not leave us, wake up with us. Why don’t the imams help you in your sorrows?” This is how polar prayer is combined - repentance and praise. If you start with praise, you will end with repentance; if you start with repentance, you will rise to praise. Both are very necessary for a person.
Come to the temples of God to praise the Lord and be sure to repent of your sins. Come to the temples of God to repent of your sins and be sure to praise the Lord at the end.
You need to be extremely honest in prayer, not pretend to be anything before God, not put on a mask
And, perhaps, the last thing for today: a person, according to Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (May the Kingdom of Heaven be upon him!), often puts on a mask to pray, and it is not I who pray, but my mask. I make eyes at God, pretend to be something that I really am not. At the same time, I still imagine God in some way, which is also a mask of God, some kind of doll instead of the Lord. Instead of a living God, Who needs to be feared, I imagine someone - either a kind grandfather, or someone else. It turns out that my mask is praying to the mask of God, that is, there is no dialogue. But for prayer there must be two personalities: He and I. I pray to Him - not my mask, but I. And I pray not to His mask, but to Him. You need to be extremely honest in prayer, prayer is a terribly honest activity: you can’t hide anything, you can’t deceive anyone, your soul is wide open, and whatever is there is there. “Here, look at me, I’m showing you.” How the lion came to Gerasim, remember, with a thorn, with tears? Like, I can’t get it out. An animal does not have fingers like a human to pull a splinter out of its own paw. He came and showed Gerasim: there’s a thorn in my paw. Gerasim pulled it out, wound up this paw for him, the poor thing, and the lion became his friend forever. This is how a person shows his soul wide open, honestly shows: look, what’s inside me, it’s actually some kind of nightmare, “heal me, as those who have sinned with You,” “heal my soul, as those who have sinned with You.”
Praise and repentance are the two poles of the prayer life. I repeat: if you start with praise, end with repentance, and if you start with repentance, end with praise. Praise God and repent before Him - this is the whole of human life, because no one except people on earth, in fact, prays. But the whole world is looking at us, waiting for us to pray. Every bird looks at a person and thinks: “I wish I had your tongue, and your heart, and your brains - yes, I would pray from morning to evening! You don't pray. I pray - I sing to God every morning as best I can, but you don’t pray.” Each toad looks from the swamp at a person and says: “Why don’t you pray? I croak to the glory of God from morning to evening, but you don’t pray.” Every tree creaks, makes noise with its branches, looks at a person and thinks so to itself: “I would like your lungs, your tongue, your teeth, lips, this whole system, your entire speech apparatus and your heart - yes, I would pray to God from morning to evening . Why don't you pray? All nature asks people: “Why don’t you pray? You are created for this. We must give you wool, bread, warmth, protection, fire, light, etc…. We are for this, for you. And for God, you must pray.”
A man is a man because he prays to God. And a bird is a bird because it can fly and sing.
With God, goodbye.
Evening prayers for the coming sleep with interpretation - read, listen, watch online for free
Now life is quite busy, many events happen every day, a person is constantly traveling somewhere, solving a large number of problems and bearing the burden of various worries. At the same time, the quality of rest decreases, insomnia appears, nightmares occur, or simply sleep becomes disturbing. It is important to help yourself calm down after a hard day in every possible way. This is facilitated by reading the prayer text. Moreover, it is not universal. Morning texts with similar properties are read separately.
The Orthodox beginning of the day - what should it be like? How and how should the day end?
After waking up, you need to read the morning rule (a collection of prayer texts). You should turn to God with a request for blessings and words of gratitude. The prayer is also read in the evening, but it is different. This is also a prayer rule, only in the evening. Considering that it is recommended not to turn to God too late, after reading the sacred text you can spend the evening with loved ones.
you should remain alone with yourself, rushing to the Lord, praying.
Preparing for a prayer call
The prayer service requires that participants in the sacrament observe certain preparatory measures. Naturally, it is possible to simply agree on everything with all the details, eliminate any ambiguities that have arisen, and also take into account all the details and begin turning to the Savior.
However, for truly Orthodox Christians, the very purpose of prayer is important and therefore they will not do this, since first of all they should turn to the church to the clergyman and ask him for blessings in the difficult work ahead, which in turn will be the most correct option.
- Before praying, it is recommended to ask for a blessing, but best of all from a clergyman who knows you and your spiritual state well.
- The priest should tell you about the essence of the petition, state the current problem, and name the names of those people who will read the prayer appeal with you.
- After the clergyman gives his blessing words, the Almighty will certainly send his grace.
Evening prayers in Russian in large print (translation from Old Church Slavonic)
If a person has only recently joined the Orthodox faith, it may be difficult to pronounce texts in Church Slavonic. For this reason, translations into Russian are becoming increasingly popular. Beginning believers can also read only a few of the prayer texts, but it is better to coordinate this with the Holy Father.
Troparion – read and download for free
This is a repentant prayer text. Throughout the reading, you need to ask for forgiveness for sins committed during the day. This will allow us to hope in the future for God’s mercy.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us!
Finding no justification for ourselves, we, sinners, offer this prayer to You as to the Lord: “Have mercy on us!”
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God!
Have mercy on us, we trust in You.
Do not be very angry with us and do not remember our iniquities: but turn Your gaze on us even now, since You are merciful.
And deliver us from our enemies: after all, You are our God and we are Your people, we are all the creations of Your hands and we call on Your name.
And now and always and forever and ever.
Open to us, blessed Mother of God, the door to God’s mercy, so that we, who trust in You, do not perish, but through You we get rid of troubles: after all, You are the salvation of the Christian race.
Lord have mercy. (12 times)
Prayer 1, St. Macarius the Great, to God the Father - read online for free
We need to ask for forgiveness for our sins. Moreover, repentance is an integral part of most sacred texts of this group. If this condition is violated, God's mercy will not descend on the person praying. In addition, when reading this text, you need to ask the Heavenly Father to cleanse your soul from filth.
Eternal God and King of all creation, who has made me worthy to live until this hour, forgive me the sins that I committed on this day in deed, word and thought;
and cleanse, Lord, my humble soul from all carnal and spiritual impurity.
What is prayer by agreement
This kind of prayer is a kind of quick help for those people who happen to come face to face with a difficult life situation, and this method is able to resolve various problems that a person can no longer resolve on his own.
A prayer appeal can help a neighbor in the following situations:
- Everyday troubles;
- Serious illnesses;
- Troubles, sorrows, misfortune, etc.
How to read a prayer by agreement, features
The main characteristic feature of a prayer request by agreement is that for its implementation a special prayer team is organized, which can include either 2-3 people or 20-30 people. And even if these Orthodox believers are located at quite a considerable distance from each other, they begin to say a prayer service at the same, but pre-approved time.
The very reading of prayers by agreement is a whole prayer ritual that can be performed every day and not only once, but several times. In most cases, it is carried out based on the following plan:
- First of all, it is necessary to stipulate what the purpose of the collective appeal to the forces from Above will be, that is, what to ask for and for whom;
- And only after which the worshipers can begin to recite the Psalter together, that is, each of them must read one specific kathisma per day, but on the second day they recite the next kathisma after the one read;
- The last stage after pronouncing kathisma is considered to be reading the prayer request itself, which carries a good goal - an appeal to the Almighty to help one’s loved ones and relatives.
