prayer Archives - Page 11 of 14

Conversations with Abba Isaac: Kung Fu and the Way of the Ant

09/30/2015

By Father Micah Hirschy As was the case with many young men who grew up during the 80’s and 90’s, I went through a period of deep fascination with Kung-Fu movies. There was something intrinsically appealing about a story where a young man could spend a few days with a Kung-Fu master or read an ancient scroll and henceforth become invincible and able to battle evil! I also loved that the Kung-Fu Masters gave their Art really

Saint Isaac the Syrian: Work by Day

09/29/2015

Work by day After the morning Office, when he sat down to read the Bible he became like a man enraptured: with every verse he read he would fall many times on his face, and at many of the phrases he would raise his hands to heaven and glorify God many times over. He was about forty years old, his food was sparse, and in temperament he was dry and warm. Because he used to

The Desert Fathers and Mothers

08/24/2015

The men and women who fled to the desert emphasized lifestyle practice, an alternative to empire and its economy, psychologically astute methods of prayer, and a very simple (some would say naïve) spirituality of transformation into Christ. The desert communities grew out of informal gatherings of monastic monks, functioning much like families. A good number also became hermits to mine the deep mystery of their inner experience. This movement paralleled the monastic pattern in Hinduism

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part II)

08/21/2015

Every spiritual director knows that it is a difficult and subtle matter to determine just what is the borderline between interior idleness and the faint, unperceived beginnings of passive contemplation. But in practice, at the present time, there has been quite enough said about passive contemplation to give lazy people a chance to claim the privilege of “praying by doing nothing.” There is no such thing as a prayer in which “nothing is done” or

Saint Silouan the Athonite and His Relevance Today, Part VIII

07/01/2015

By Harry Boosalis Be assured that troubling and sinful thoughts will assail everyone making any sort of spiritual progress—especially if there is any progress in prayer—and this is even more true the further one advances. The important point is not to become dejected, and not to allow these troubling thoughts to destroy our inner peace, and thus hinder our pursuit of prayer. St. Silouan teaches, “Should an intrusive thought approach, there is no cause to

ON THE BODILY AND MENTAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF PRAYER

06/25/2015

IT is important, while practicing prayer in this way, not to give the body free rein. A prayer in which the body is not distressed and the heart grieved is like an incompletely developed foetus, says St. Isaac the Syrian, for such a prayer has no soul. And it carries within it the seed of self-sufficiency and pride that makes the heart consider itself not only among the called but even among the chosen few

ON PRAYER (Part IV)

06/18/2015

PRAYER does not stop when morning devotions are over. Now it is a matter of maintaining prayer the whole day through, no matter what the day’s complications. Bishop Theophanes advises the beginner to choose a suitable short sentence of prayer from the Psalter, for example, O Lord, make haste to help me, or Create in me a clean heart, O God, or Blessed art Thou, O Lord, or some other. The Psalter offers a wide

ON PRAYER (Part III)

06/12/2015

A PERSON who resolves to begin regular morning exercises usually does so not because he already has physical fitness but in order to get something he does not have. Once one has something he can be anxious to keep it; previous to that, he is anxious to get it. Therefore, begin your practice without expecting anything of yourself. If you are fortunate enough to sleep in a room by yourself, you can quite 1iterally and

ON PRAYER (Part II)

06/04/2015

FROM the foregoing we understand that by prayer the holy Fathers are not referring to occasional prayer, morning and evening devotions and grace at meals, but for them prayer is synonymous with unceasing prayer, the life of prayer. Pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5: 17) is to be taken as a literal command. Understood in this way, prayer is the science of scientists and the art of artists. The artist works in clay or colours,

The Seventh Thursday after Pascha: ON PRAYER (Part I)

05/28/2015

IT follows from this that prayer is your first and incomparably most important means of fighting. Learn to pray, and you vanquish all the evil powers that could imaginably assail you. Prayer is one wing, faith the other, that lifts us heavenward. With only one wing no one can fly: prayer without faith as meaningless as faith without prayer. But if your faith is very weak, you can profitably cry: Lord, give me faith! Such

Tags

Conversations with Abba Isaac: Kung Fu and the Way of the Ant

Saint Isaac the Syrian: Work by Day

The Desert Fathers and Mothers

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part II)

Saint Silouan the Athonite and His Relevance Today, Part VIII

ON THE BODILY AND MENTAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF PRAYER

ON PRAYER (Part IV)

ON PRAYER (Part III)

ON PRAYER (Part II)

The Seventh Thursday after Pascha: ON PRAYER (Part I)

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