Prayers read during fasting are of great benefit in cleansing the soul and body. Prayers read during fasting are divided into many categories. These are morning and evening prayers, and prayers to various saints. The Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian is considered to be the most frequently said during Lent...
The role of prayer in Lent
Lent is considered the longest (7 weeks). At this time, we should fill the gaps in our spiritual life that appeared due to vanity, laziness, and life's adversities. During Lent you should read all four Gospels. In addition to food restrictions, you should avoid unnecessary meetings and entertainment. Rest is not canceled, but it should not disturb the peace of the soul. The strictest rules are observed in the last week, called Holy Week.
In order not to be tempted during this period, you need to study all the literature regarding fasting. It is important to understand that fasting is not a diet, but a time of approaching God, who will help control actions and defeat sin.
Before fasting, you should visit a priest who will give the necessary recommendations and help set the soul for purification. It is important to understand that man is a spirit that lives in the body and dominates the flesh. As a spiritual being, with God's grace, man can control his weaknesses and give up bad habits.
It is important to monitor what the mouth says, what thoughts are directed at, what emotions the soul experiences, and what actions a person performs as a result. By approaching God, a person receives the grace to be tolerant of other people, to forgive and not to harbor resentment in his heart, “most of all, keep your heart” from evil.
Before the beginning of fasting, prayers of different directions are offered. It is important not to follow tradition in this matter, but to make prayer requests in accordance with what is close in spirit.
It is recommended to say prayers of repentance. You should turn to the Almighty with a request for forgiveness of sins. A person examines his heart and cleanses it of all filth. It is important to ask the Lord to forgive all sins: both those that a person knows about and those that he does not know about. A prayer of confession is read before turning to repentance. You can turn to God in any form. In this prayer appeal, a person pours out his heart before God, speaking about his most secret things.
During fasting, mothers turn to the Almighty for the blessing of their children. Such appeals create a protective fence around the children. They help guide youth on the right path and protect them from all the unpleasant moments of life. They also turn to the Lord with a prayer for help to endure fasting and not succumb to temptation. This message is read daily. Every day an appeal is sent to heaven before starting a task. Believers ask the Lord to bless every work of his hands and give success to every undertaking.
A prayer appeal for humility is read daily. Believers ask to forgive every sin and grant humility. Prayer against gluttony will help you abstain from food during Lent.
The fast ends with appeals to heaven, full of thanksgiving. Thanks are given to the Lord because He forgives sins and cleanses the soul from filth.
We should thank Jesus Christ for the gift of eternal life, for His mercy and grace, for the forgiveness of sins.
At this time, you should attend liturgies on all Sundays, and also strengthen your prayer appeals for the needs of other people.
About prayer
The Savior’s commandment is to always pray. Prayer is the breath of spiritual life. And just as physical life stops when breathing stops, so spiritual life stops when prayer stops.
Prayer is a conversation with God, with the Most Holy Theotokos, and saints. God is our Heavenly Father, to whom we can always turn with our joys or sorrows. Therefore, at any time, not only at divine services and prayer services, but in any other place, we can turn to the Most Holy Theotokos and the saints and ask them to help us, to intercede for us before the Lord.
We must learn to turn to God as the Source of Life. The first words that should be spoken in the morning are “Glory to Thee, Lord, Glory to Thee!”
.
Gradually, short prayers are collected into rules
- prayers that must be read.
There are different rules - morning, afternoon, evening, etc. These prayers were compiled by holy people and imbued with the spirit of their ascetic life dedicated to Christ. The most perfect prayer is “Our Father...”, left to His disciples by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
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.
It is necessary to get used to bowing from the waist
and
earthly
. Bowing makes up for our absent-mindedness in prayer. You should also pay attention to your external demeanor when praying. You must stand straight, look straight at the icons, and remember that when you pray you appear before the Face of the Heavenly Father.
Life and prayer are completely inseparable. A life without prayer is a life that lacks its most important dimension; this is life “on a plane”, without depth, life in two dimensions of space and time; this is a life that is content with the visible, content with our neighbor, but the neighbor as a phenomenon on the physical plane, a neighbor in which we do not discover all the immensity and eternity of his fate. The meaning of prayer is to reveal and affirm through life itself the fact that everything has a measure of eternity and everything has a measure of immensity. The world in which we live is not a godless world: we ourselves profane it, but in its essence it came from the hands of God, it is loved by God. His price in the eyes of God is the life and death of His Only Begotten Son, and prayer testifies that we know this - we know that every person and every thing around us is sacred in the eyes of God: loved by Him, they become dear to us. Not to pray means to leave God outside of everything that exists, and not only Him, but also everything that He means for the world He created, the world in which we live.
How to Pray
Before the beginning
I, the Servant of God (my own name), know and understand that I am in the hands of Your, Almighty, great mercy. With this understanding, I entrust to You, my God, my soul and body, control my actions, feelings and words.
Only You can see my entire life, my outcome, only you understand the torment of my soul, you see what awaits me on the path of life, You see my death and the day of rest of my body and soul. Show your great mercy to me, Great Lover of Humanity. Forgive me for the malice that remains in the corners of my soul, cleanse my soul from unkind feelings and thoughts. I repent of all the bad things I have done and sincerely pray for forgiveness.
Help me, Lord, correct my life, guide me on the righteous path. Grant me every opportunity to live in accordance with the commandments of God, avoid temptations and distance myself from my enemies. I glorify Your Holy Name. Amen.
To endure fasting
Do not allow temptation to come to me, Lord of Heaven, Lord, do not allow sorrow to seize me, protect me from illness beyond my strength. Deliver me from destructive passions, grant me the strength to endure all the trials sent down by You with gratitude.
Every day
Prayer for humility and forgiveness of sins:
Lord God, All-Merciful and Almighty, You know that only You are the real Savior for me. Help me, do not let me sin before You. Do not let me perish in sins, for I am weak; do not let my enemies harm me. Grant me humility and forgive me, Lord, all my sins. You are my real strength and hope. Thanks to You is immeasurable forever and ever. Amen.
Prayer for gluttony:
Lord, All-Powerful and All-Merciful, hear the servant of God (proper name), help me cleanse myself from the filth of gluttony. Grant me, God, to know the sweetness of abstaining from food. Let me enjoy the prayers addressed to You. Amen.
Prayer for cleansing the soul and body:
Lord, I ask forgiveness from all those whom I have voluntarily or unwittingly offended. May this cleanse my soul and fill it with kindness and joy. Amen.
What words to end the post with?
I thank You, Almighty, that You do not reject me, a sinner and unworthy, for allowing me to partake of Your Holy Things. You, Great Lord, Lover of Mankind, died in agony for us, and then rose again to give hope for eternal life. I thank You for sanctifying my soul and body, for giving me strength of spirit, which allowed me to resist temptations. I ask You for Your mercy in the future. Amen.
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Video: Creed - Orthodox Prayer (with text)
Prayer of praise to the Lord God (small doxology)
Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee.
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth, Who is everywhere and fills everything, Receptacle of all goodness and Giver of life, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all impurity, and save, O Merciful One, our souls.
Prayers before EasterI believe, Lord, but You confirm my faith. I hope, Lord, but You strengthen my hope. I loved You, Lord, but You purify my love and ignite it. I am sorry, Lord, but do it so that I may increase my repentance. I honor You, my Creator, Lord, I sigh for You, I call upon You. Guide me with Your wisdom, protect and strengthen me. I commend to You, my God, my thoughts, may they come from You. Let my deeds be in Your name, and let my desires be in Your will. Illuminate my mind, strengthen my will, cleanse my body, sanctify my soul. May I see my sins, may I not be seduced by pride, help me overcome temptations. May I praise You all the days of the life that You have given me. Amen.
Prayers before Easter
God, my God! Give my heart ignorance of passions and lift my eye above the madness of the world, from now on make my life not to please them and grant me pity for those who persecute me. For Your joy in sorrows is known, my God, and a straight soul will receive it, but its fate comes from Your face and there is no diminishment of its bliss. Lord Jesus Christ, my God, make my ways straight on earth.
Why so many bows?
After each request of the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian, a prostration is made. For what? Man fell away from God soul and body; both soul and body must be restored to return to God. Salvation and repentance are not the contempt of the body, as is sometimes claimed, but its restoration. After all, we will be resurrected in a body, only a new one. Christian asceticism is a struggle not against the body, but for it. Therefore, the whole person - soul and body - repents. The body participates in the prayer of the soul in the same way that the soul prays not outside, but in its body.
About the post
The Church of Christ commands its children to lead a moderate lifestyle, especially highlighting days and periods of compulsory abstinence - fasting
. Fasting is days when we should think more about God, about our sins before God, pray more, repent, not get irritated, not offend anyone, but on the contrary, help everyone. To make it easier to accomplish this, you must, first of all, eat only “lenten” food, that is, plant foods: bread, vegetables, fruits, since nourishing food makes us want not to pray, but to sleep, or, conversely, to frolic . The Old Testament righteous fasted, and Christ Himself fasted.
Weekly fast days (with the exception of “solid” weeks) are Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday, fasting was established in memory of the betrayal of Christ by Judas, and on Friday - for the sake of the suffering on the cross and the death of the Savior. These days it is forbidden to eat fast food
meat and dairy foods, eggs, fish (according to the Charter, from the Resurrection of St. Thomas until the Feast of the Holy Trinity, fish and vegetable oil can be eaten), and during the period from the Week of All Saints (the first Sunday after the Feast of the Trinity) until the Nativity of Christ, on Wednesdays and Fridays one should abstain from fish and vegetable oil.
There are four multi-day fasts a year. The longest and strictest is Lent
, which lasts seven weeks before Easter. The strictest of them are the First and the Last, Passionate. This fast was established in memory of the Savior's forty-day fast in the desert.
Close in severity to the Great Assumption Fast
, but it is shorter - from August 14 to 27. With this fast, the Holy Church honors the Most Holy Theotokos, Who, standing before God, invariably prays for us. During these strict fasts, fish can be eaten only three times - on the feasts of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (April 7), the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem (a week before Easter) and the Transfiguration of the Lord (August 19).
Christmas post
lasts 40 days, from November 28 to January 6. During this fast, you are allowed to eat fish, except on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. After the feast of St. Nicholas (December 19), fish can only be eaten on Saturdays and Sundays, and the period from January 2 to January 6 must be strictly observed.
Fourth Lent - Holy Apostles
(Peter and Paul). It begins with the Sunday of All Saints and ends on the day of remembrance of the holy supreme apostles Peter and Paul - July 12. The regulations on nutrition during this Lent are the same as during the first period of Christmas.
The days of strict fasting are Epiphany Eve (January 18), the holidays of the Beheading of John the Baptist (September 11) and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 27).
Some relaxation in the severity of fasting is allowed for the sick, as well as those engaged in hard work, pregnant and lactating women. This is done so that fasting does not lead to a sharp loss of strength, and the Christian has the strength for the prayer rule and the necessary work.
But fasting should be not only physical, but also spiritual. “He who believes that fasting only means abstaining from food is mistaken. True fasting, teaches St. John Chrysostom, is withdrawal from evil, curbing the tongue, putting aside anger, taming lusts, stopping slander, lies and perjury.”
The body of the fasting person, without being burdened with food, becomes light and strengthens to receive gifts of grace. Fasting tames the desires of the flesh, softens the temper, suppresses anger, restrains the impulses of the heart, invigorates the mind, brings peace to the soul, and eliminates intemperance.
By fasting, as St. Basil the Great says, by fasting favorably, by moving away from every sin committed by all the senses, we fulfill the pious duty of an Orthodox Christian.
Ephraim the Syrian's prayer for Lent: when and how the repentance appeal is read at home
If this is the first time you hear about Ephraim the Syrian’s prayer for Lent, be sure to study when and how the repentant appeal is read at home. According to legend, it was written by the ascetic Ephraim the Syrian.
The text is small, but it very accurately reflects the meaning of abstinence itself. The person praying asks for deliverance from the vices that poison his existence (laziness, idleness, despondency, lust for power). Next comes a request to receive virtues (wisdom, patience, chastity, love).
Rules for reading the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian at home
The prayer of Ephraim the Syrian should be read weekly from Monday to Friday in the following sequence:
1. The text itself is pronounced, then a bow to the ground follows.
2. The phrase is read twelve times (to oneself): “God, cleanse me, a sinner.” Each repetition is accompanied by a bow from the waist.
3. The prayer is said out loud again. It ends with another bow to the ground.
Text of Ephraim the Syrian's prayer for Lent
Lord and Master of my life, do not give me the spirit of idleness, despondency, covetousness and idle talk. Grant the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Thy servant. To her, Lord, King, grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother, for blessed are you forever and ever. Amen.
