The soul of prayer is attention. Just as the body is dead without the soul, prayer without attention is dead. The spoken prayer turns into empty words without attention and the one who prays is counted amongst those who take the Lord’s name in vain. Pronounce the words of the prayer unhurriedly; do not allow
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Prayer, Community and Gimmicks
I am always beginning to pray, which is the title of my favorite book by Archbishop Anthony Bloom, who stressed that we remain beginners. Prayer is born in the agony of our own defeats. When we are brought low, when we are deflated, we are at a point where prayer can begin. No doubt prayer
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Salvation Requires Hard Work From You: Fourth Sunday of Pascha-Healing of the Paralytic.
———————————————- In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We have before us a man who is paralyzed, and who has friends that care for him and bring him to the Lord to be healed. Now, as in all scripture, we should be careful. Read the scriptures
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MIRACLE ON ATHOS: INCORRUPT BODY OF ASCETIC FOUND
A miracle has occurred on Mt. Athos—the body of a deceased monk has been found to be without any signs of corruption and not emitting any foul smell, a month and a half after his repose. The deceased monk Fr. Stephen labored in the skete of Kavsokalyvia for forty years. Fr. Stephen led an
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HOW TO SPEND THE TIME OF THE FAST ?
The rules of abstinence prescribed by the Church to follow during the Christmas Fast are similar to those prescribed during the Apostles’ Fast. It is clear that during the Fast we must abstain from meat and dairy products. Besides that, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of the Nativity Fast consumption of fish, oil and wine
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WHY FAST? BECAUSE THIS KIND GOES OUT ONLY BY FASTING AND PRAYER
Many Orthodox Christians, do not understand why we fast. This is why we as a people fast so poorly. So many Orthodox Christians barely follow the fast or follow the fasts when they’re convenient, forget to fast, things like this. We fast because of what the Scripture tells us today. We fast because of this
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SHOULD I PRAY TO SEE RESULTS ?
—Your Eminence, do you have a feeling that we live in abnormal times? I understand that I sound grumpy, as people always complain that in the past the sun was brighter, the grass was greener and the people were kinder. However, today many people, not only Christians, have a general feeling of anxiety and
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THE PRAYER THAT TERRIFIES DEMONS
When a man or woman or child falls into the life of sin they find themselves inching closer to the demons and further from the Master of Creation. This is the case no matter how small or insignificant the sins may seem to us at the time because sin is a rebellion against God our
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JESUS PRAYER IS A DIVINE COMMANDMENT – Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
The Jesus Prayer is a divine commandment. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It hasn’t been established through a prophet or an Apostle, not through an angel-but by God and the Son of God Himself. After the Last Supper, through other requests, final commandments and wills, Lord Jesus Christ
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Icons and the Seeds and the Good Soil
In any Orthodox Church, we are surrounded by icons of the saints. These saints are described in Christ’s parable of the sower as the “good soil” on which when the seed, the Word of God, “grew, it produced a hundredfold.” As Jesus teaches, the saints “are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold
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