A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart, in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit.

To bear a grudge and pray, means to sow seed on the sea and expect a harvest.

Everything you do in revenge against a brother who has harmed you will come back to your mind at the time of prayer.

Prayers at home are an introduction, a preparation for prayers in Church. Thus he who is not accustomed to pray at home can seldom pray diligently in Church. Experience bears witness to this: anyone can observe it for himself.

Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it should, but rather as God pleases; then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

'If our prayer is not in harmony with our deeds, we labor in vain,' Abba Moses often told the young monks. 'How are we to accomplish such harmony?' they asked him one day. 'When we make that which we seek fitting to our prayer,' explained the saint. 'Only then can the soul be reconciled with its Creator and its prayer be acceptable, when it sets aside all of its own evil intentions.'

And when you pray, see that you ask not for what is alien to your life, and provoke the Lord. Ask not for money, not for human glory, nor power, nor for any of the things that pass away. But seek for the kingdom of God, and all that is needed for your body will be provided; as the Lord Himself has said: Seek ye the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

Prayer is a remedy against grief and depression.

The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavours to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him. If you are inconstant, you will fall away from life, and will cast yourself into sorrow and straitness.

Undistracted prayer is the highest doing of the mind.

A servant of the Lord is he who in body stands before men, but in mind knocks at Heaven with prayer.

The most important thing in any good effort and the height of all activities is to persevere in prayer, by means of which we can always acquire through supplication the other virtues from God as well.

When you pray fervently, watch, for there will be temptations. This happens to everyone.

Fire makes iron impossible to touch, and likewise frequent prayer renders the intellect more forceful in its warfare with the enemy. That is why the demons strive with all their strength to make us slothful in attentiveness to prayer, for they know that prayer is the intellect's invincible weapon against them.

Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.

When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected, and you are wearied and oppressed by your loneliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun; also all the angels, your own Guardian Angel, and all the Saints of God. Truly they do; for they are all one in God, and where God is, there are they also. Where the sun is, thither also are directed all its rays. Try to understand what this means.

How can one avoid distractions in prayer? If one abides in the presence of God. Indeed, when in the presence of one's judge and one's master, and speaking with him, one does not let one's eyes wander elsewhere. How much more should the one who approaches the Lord never turn away the eye of his heart, but fix it on Him who searches the reins and the heart.

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Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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