Daily Prayer

Prayer is the foundation of the Orthodox Faith and how Christ’s nature can manifest itself in us when prayer becomes our main concern. What is Prayer? It is dialogue between us and God. It unites our soul with God. Through prayer we unite with God and receive the gift of His grace to aid us in overcoming our passions to live a life based on love. Through prayer we also learn to control the distractions of our mind, allowing us to become more watchful and focused in our daily activities. Prayer is the key to entry into a life based on the virtues.

How do you pray? First you must establish a regular time and a private place. You begin praying by focusing your consciousness in your heart and forcibly gathering there all the powers of your soul and body. Before you start your prayers, take time to quiet yourself and to concentrate your energies in your heart. Christ says, “Enter into thy closet and ... shut thy door” (Mt 6:6). Remove all activities that could disrupt your inner descent. Set aside, to the best of your ability, all of your problems of the day and your worries for tomorrow. This is not a time for thinking or worrying. When you are preparing to pray, stand, sit our walk a few minutes and steady your mind to concentrate on God. Reflect on who it is that you will be addressing. Remember, it is God Himself, the Creator of All, who you are about to talk with. Try to hold in your heart a feeling of humility and reverent awe. Make some prostrations before you begin.

You should have a specific rule for both morning and evening. Don’t try and wing it. This is not a relaxation exercise, but a path to be in communion with your God. You will benefit by having a specific set of guidelines that you follow each time with no excuses for shortcutting them. In your rule, incorporate standing, prostrations, kneeling, making the sign of the cross, reading, and at times singing. Use prayer books and written prayers. The Orthodox prayer books are filled with prayers that have been well tested and used for hundreds of years. Prayer does not have to be a creative activity. Above all, you must be sincere. Keep your awareness in your heart and concentrate on the words of the prayer. Once you establish a rule, always keep it. Be sure to work with your spiritual Father on this.

As you begin to pray enter into every word of the prayer. Bring the meaning of the words down into your heart. Do not rush through the prayers like you are in a hurry to finish them. Let them slowly drop into the depths of your heart with humility and awe of God. It’s like in driving a car. When you are going 90 miles per hour down the highway the driver may feel powerful and in control. But, at high speeds things can go wrong fast. But when you slow down and drive at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, the car handles easy and if someone makes a dangerous maneuver you can easily avoid it. Well, the mind works the same way. You want to train it to slow down so it will not cause you an unneeded accident and you can open your heart to God’s presence. So, in prayer say the words slowly so you can gain the full meaning of them and allow them to penetrate your consciousness and to bring to your heart feelings of love and reverence for God. Beware of the tendency to rush to complete them hurriedly. When this happens you have turned your prayer into an obligation, another task to complete, and it is no longer true prayer. Don’t worry if you catch your self doing this. It is normal at first. Just stop and slow down and continue, asking God’s forgiveness and help. You will eventually find the right pace for yourself. Also, study the prayers before you use them so you know the meaning of each word. Eventually you will want to memorize them.

After you begin to recite your prayers, you will find that your mind will want to wander. This means you are still driving a high speed. Don’t be concerned about this as this is natural due to our over active minds which we must learn to harness. Work to learn to concentrate your attention on God and your prayer. When you mind wanders, be gentle with yourself. Think of God and how he loves you and go back to recite again what you said while your mind was elsewhere. Bring yourself to concentrate on God and the words of the prayer. Sometimes it helps to say them out loud for a while. The mind is quite skilled at being able to have you do more than one thing at a time. You need to bring yourself to a single focus on God. These wanderings of the mind show you the dimensions of your busy life where you need to find ways to make it quieter so you can be always mindful of God. Prayer it is not the time to focus on these worldly activities, because this will only further distract you from prayer. Work to concentrate your attention more and more each time you pray. Each day you will gain in your attentiveness during prayer.

When you finish your prayers, stand for a few moments. Consider to what your prayer life commits you. Try to hold in your heart what has been given to you. Treasure it for a few moments.

Remember to make your prayer life one that is a firm rule, a desired habit, and not something that is done occasionally, sporadically or casually. It must be done each and every morning and evening for fifteen minutes at a minimum. Even if you just sit in silence. You need to have specific payers that are part of your prayer rule. There are numerous Orthodox prayer books with appropriate prayers to use. You need to commit to doing your rule each and every day. Think about certain personal hygiene tasks such as brushing your teeth that you do each day out of habit. You don’t forget to do them each day. You need to make prayer a similar habit, one that you never forget. Just like brushing our teeth is essential for the health of our gums and teeth, prayer is essential for the health of our soul. Persistence and patience in prayer will yield desired results.