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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

Your prayer must have four constituent parts, says Basil the Great: adoration, thanksgiving, confession of sin and petition for salvation.

There is yet another reason that may cause our prayer to go unanswered: namely, that though we pray we yet continue in sin.

Only the benumbed soul doesn’t pray. Preserve in yourselves the feeling of need, and you will always have stimulation for prayer.

Prayer attunes us for converse with God and, through long practice, leads us to friendship with Him.

When you are praying, don’t rack your brains to find words. On many occasions the simple, monotonous stammering of children has satisfied their Father who is in heaven. Don’t bother to be loquacious lest the mind is bewildered in the search for words. The tax-collector gained the Lord’s forgiveness with a single sentence, and a single word charged with faith was the salvation of the robber. Loquacity in prayer often fills the head with foolish fancies and provokes distractions. Brevity on the other hand - sometimes only one word is enough - in general favors recollection.

If you want to pray properly, do not let yourself be upset or you will run in vain.

The best form of prayer is one that implants the clearest idea of God in the soul and thus makes space for the presence of God within us.

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

We must always pray, so that the Lord will tell us what we must do, and the Lord will not leave us in confusion.

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.

We must always pray to the Lord to tell us what to do, and the Lord will not let us go astray. Adam was not wise enough to ask the Lord about the fruit which Eve gave him, and so he lost paradise. David did not ask the Lord whether it would be a good thing if he took Beth-sheba to wife, and so he fell into the sins of murder and adultery. So with all the saints who sinned: they sinned because they had not called upon God to enlighten and help them. St. Seraphim of Sarov said, ‘When I spoke of myself I was often in error.’

Whether you pray with brethren or alone, try to pray not simply as a routine, but with conscious awareness of your prayer. Conscious awareness of prayer is concentration accompanied by reverence, compunction and distress of soul as it confesses its sin with inward sorrow.

A great effort and much toil are needed in prayer before we can reach a state in which our mind is no longer troubled, and so attain the inward heaven of the heart where Christ dwells. As St. Paul says, 'Do you not realize that Christ dwells within you, unless you are worthless?' (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5).

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

Pray and sigh, pleading with God Himself to grant you zeal and inclination: for without Him we are good for no task whatsoever.

What air is for the life of the body, the Holy Spirit is for the life of the soul. By means of prayer, the soul breathes this holy, mysterious air.

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

'If you do not feel like praying, you have to force yourself,' the Elder said. 'The Holy Fathers say that prayer with force is higher than prayer unforced. You do not want to, but force yourself. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force.'

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)