Foreword

The prayer rule of the layman consists of morning and evening prayers, which are performed daily. This rhythm is necessary, because otherwise the soul easily falls out of the prayer life, as if waking up only from time to time. In prayer, as in any big and difficult task, inspiration, mood and improvisation alone are not enough.

There is a complete prayer rule for monks and spiritually experienced laymen, which is printed in Orthodox prayer book.

However, for those who are just beginning to get used to prayer, it is difficult to immediately begin to read the entire rule set as a whole. Usually, confessors advise to start with several prayers, and then add one prayer to the rule every 7-10 days, so that the skill of reading the rule will develop gradually and naturally.

In addition, lay people sometimes have situations when there is little time for prayer, and in this case it is better to read with attention and reverence short rule rather than hastily and superficially, without a prayerful attitude, mechanically read out the complete rule.

Thus, cultivating a reasonable attitude to the prayer rule, Saint Theophan the Recluse writes to one family member:

“Bless, Lord, and continue to pray according to your rule. But do not ever tie yourself to a rule and do not think that there is anything of value in having such a rule or always doing it. The whole price is in the heart before God a fit. There the saints write that if someone does not depart from prayer as a condemned person worthy of all punishment from the Lord, then such a person leaves her as a Pharisee. Another said: "standing in prayer, stand as at the Last Judgment, when you are ready to leave God's decisive determination about you: go away or come."

Formality and mechanism in prayer should be avoided in every possible way. Let it always be a matter of a deliberate free decision, and make it with consciousness and feeling, and not somehow. In case you need to be able to shorten the rule. Is there a lot of accidents in family life? .. You can, for example, in the morning and in the evening, when there is no time, to read from memory only morning prayers and for the future sleep. You can even read them not all, but several. You can read nothing at all, but put a few bows, but with true heartfelt prayer. The rule must be handled with complete freedom. Be the mistress of the rule, not a slave. Only a servant of God, obliged to devote all the minutes of her life to pleasing Him. "

For such cases, there is an established short prayer rule designed for all believers.

In the morning it includes:

"Heavenly King", Trisagion, "Our Father", "Virgin Mary", "Rise from sleep", "Have mercy on me, God", "I believe", "God, cleanse", "To You, Master", "Holy Angel "," Most Holy Lady ", invocation of the saints, prayer for the living and the dead.

In the evening it includes:

"Heavenly King", Trisagion, "Our Father", "Have mercy on us, Lord", "Eternal God", "Blessed Tsar", "Angel of Christ", from "Chosen Governor" to "It is worthy".

Morning prayers

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Initial prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, prayers for the sake of Thy Most Pure Mother and all saints, have mercy on us. Amen.

Trisagion

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
(It is read three times, with the sign of the cross and bow in the waist.)

Lord's Prayer

Song of the Most Holy Theotokos

Virgin Mary, rejoice, Blessed Mary, the Lord is with you; blessed are you in women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, as you gave birth to our souls.

Prayer to the Most Holy Trinity

Standing up from sleep, I thank You, Holy Trinity, for for the sake of Your goodness and patience you were not angry with me, lazy and sinful, you have destroyed me below with my iniquities; but you usually loved mankind, and in the absence of a thought lying you raised me up, in a hedgehog to matinee and glorify Thy power. And now enlighten my mental eyes, open my mouth to learn from Thy word, and understand Thy commandments, and do Thy will, and pet Thee in confession from the heart, and chant Thy all holy name, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and ever. centuries. Amen.

Come, let us worship our Tsar God. (Bow)
Come, let us worship and fall down on Christ, our King God. (Bow)
Come, let us worship and fall down on Christ Himself, the Tsar and our God. (Bow)

Psalm 50

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy, and according to the multitude of Thy compassions, cleanse my iniquity. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin; for I know my iniquity, and I will take out my sin before me. You who have sinned, and evil in your sight, have I done, as if you were justified in your words, and conquer always judging you. Behold, in transgressions I am conceived, and in sins bore me my mother. Behold, you loved the truth; You have revealed your unknown and secret wisdom. Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be cleansed; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. To my hearing dasi joy and gladness; the bones of the humble will rejoice. Turn away Thy face from my sins, and cleanse all my iniquity. Build a pure heart in me, O God, and renew the spirit of rights in my womb. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of Thy salvation, and confirm me with the Spirit of the Lord. I will teach wickedness in Your way, and wickedness will turn to You. Deliver me from the blood, O God, God of my salvation; my tongue will rejoice in Thy righteousness. O Lord, open my mouth, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. As if you would have wanted sacrifices, you would have given them: do not favor burnt offerings. The sacrifice to God the spirit is broken; a contrite and humble heart God will not despise. Bless, O Lord, with Thy good pleasure Zion, and may the walls of Jerusalem be built. Then favor the sacrifice of righteousness, the offering and the burnt offering; then they will lay calves on your altar.

Symbol of faith

I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, God, true from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all. For us, for the sake of man and for our salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became human. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. And packs of the coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giving, Like the outgoing Father, Like the Father and the Son, we are worshiped and glorified, who spoke the prophets. In one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I tea the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the century to come. Amen.

First Prayer, Saint Macarius the Great

God, cleanse me, a sinner, for I have done nothing good before You; But deliver me from the evil one, and Thy will be in me, so that I will open my unworthy mouth without condemnation and praise Thy holy name, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever, Amen.

Prayer of the same saint

To Thee, Master of Humanity, I run to sleep from sleep, and I strive for Thy deeds by Thy mercy, and I pray to Thee: help me for all time, in every thing, and deliver me from all worldly evil things and devilish haste, and save me, and enter into your eternal kingdom. Thou art my Creator and the Provider and Giver to every good, but in Thee all my hope, and I give glory to Thee, now and ever and forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer to the Guardian Angel

Holy Angel, stand before my accursed soul and my passionate life, do not leave me a sinner, step back below me for my intemperance. Give no place to the wicked demon to possess me, the violence of this mortal body; Strengthen my poor and poor hand and guide me on the path of salvation. She, holy Angel of God, guardian and protector of my cursed soul and body, forgive me all, for those who have offended you in all the days of my life, and even if they sinned in this past night, cover me in the present day, and save me from every temptation of the opposite Yes, in no sin I will anger God, and pray for me to the Lord, may he establish me in His passion, and worthy to show me a servant of His goodness. Amen.

Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos

My Most Holy Lady Theotokos, by Thy saints and all-powerful entreaties from me, the humble and accursed Thy servant, despondency, oblivion, foolishness, negligence, and all the nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts from my cursed, darkened heart and from my darkened mind; and extinguish the flame of my passions, as I am poor and cursed. And save me from many and fierce memories and enterprises, and from all actions of evil freedoms. For you are blessed from all generations, and Your glorious name is glorified forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer invocation of the saint whose name you bear

Pray to God for me, holy servant of God (name), as I zealously run to you, an ambulance and prayer book for my soul.

Prayer for the Living

Save, Lord, and have mercy on my spiritual father (name), my parents (names), relatives (names), bosses, mentors, benefactors (their names) and all Orthodox Christians.

Prayer for the dead

Rest, Lord, the souls of the departed, Thy servant: my parents, relatives, benefactors (their names), and all Orthodox Christians, and forgive them all sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant them the Kingdom of Heaven.

End of prayers

It is worthy to be like truly blessed Theotokos, the Most Blessed and Most Immaculate and the Mother of our God. The most honest Cherubim and the most glorious without comparison Seraphim, who gave birth to God the Word without corruption, we magnify the Mother of God.

Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, prayers for the sake of Thy Most Pure Mother, venerable and God-bearing father of ours and all saints have mercy on us. Amen.

Prayers for future sleep

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfill everything, Treasure of the good and life to the Giver, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, Beloved, our souls.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (Three times)

Our Father, Who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also leave our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Tropari

Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us; every answer is bewildered, this Ti prayer as if to the Lord of sin we bring: have mercy on us.

Glory: Lord, have mercy on us, in You with hope; Do not be angry with us, remember our iniquities below, but look after us and now, as if you are well-to-do, and deliver us from our enemies; Thou art our God, and we are Thy people, all works Thy hand, and we call on Thy name.

And now: Open the doors of mercy to us, blessed Mother of God, hoping in Thee, let us not perish, but let us get rid of Thy troubles: Thou art the salvation of the Christian race.
Lord have mercy. (12 times)

Prayer 1, Saint Macarius the Great, to God the Father

Eternal God and the King of every creature, having made me worthy even at this hour of age, forgive my sins, I have also done this day in deed, word and thought, and cleanse, Lord, my humble soul from all defilement of flesh and spirit. And grant me, Lord, to this dream in the night, to pass in peace, but, standing up from the humble bed, I will delight in Thy holy name, all the days of my life, and I will overcome the fleshly and incorporeal enemies who fight me. And deliver me, O Lord, from vain thoughts that defile me, and the lusts of the wicked. As Thine is the kingdom, and the power and glory, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos

Good King Mother, Most Pure and Blessed Mother of God Mary, pour out the mercy of Thy Son and our God on my passionate soul and with Thy prayers guide me to good deeds, so that the rest of my life will pass without blemish and I will find Paradise by Thee, Virgin Mary, one Pure and the Blessed One.

Prayer to the Holy Guardian Angel

To the Angel of Christ, my saint guardian and protector of my soul and body, all forgive me, the tree of those who have sinned in this day, and save me from all cunning of the enemy, so that I will anger my God in no way; but pray for me a sinful and unworthy slave, as if you were worthy of me showing the goodness and mercy of the All-Holy Trinity and the Mother of my Lord Jesus Christ and all the saints. Amen.

Kontakion to the Mother of God

To the chosen Voevoda, victorious, as if we will get rid of the wicked, we will grateful to Ty Thy servant, the Mother of God, but as the one who has an invincible power, free us from all troubles, let us call Ty; Rejoice, Unmarried Bride.

Glorious Ever-ever, Mother of Christ God, bring our prayer to Thy Son and our God, that Thou mayst save our souls.

I place all my hope in You, Mother of God, keep me under Your roof.

Virgin Mary, do not despise me, a sinner, demanding Your help and Your intercession, my soul trusts in You, and have mercy on me.

Prayer of St. John

My hope is the Father, my refuge Son, my cover is the Holy Spirit: Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.

It is worthy to eat as truly blessed Thee, Mother of God, Ever-Blessed and Most Immaculate and Mother of our God. The most honest Cherubim and the most glorious without comparison Seraphim, who gave birth to God the Word without corruption, we magnify the Mother of God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, prayers for the sake of Thy Most Pure Mother, venerable and God-bearing father of ours and all saints, have mercy on us. Amen.

* From Easter to Ascension, instead of this prayer, the troparion is read:

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the grave." (Three times) From the Ascension to the Trinity, we begin the prayers with "Holy God ...", omitting all previous ones. This remark also applies to prayers for future sleep.

Throughout Bright Week, instead of this rule, the hours of Holy Easter are read.

** From Easter to Ascension, instead of this prayer, the chorus and irmos of the 9th canon of the Easter canon are read:

“The angel cries out more gracefully: Pure Virgin, rejoice! And pack the river: rejoice! Thy Son is risen three days from the grave and raised up dead; people, have fun! Shine, shine, the new Jerusalem, the glory of the Lord ascends upon you. Rejoice now and be merry, Zion. But you, Pure One, show off, the Mother of God, about the rise of Thy Nativity. "

These remarks also apply to prayers for future sleep.

Compiled using materials from the book:
How to learn to pray at home. Moscow, "Kovcheg", 2004. Trifonov Pechenga Monastery

All About Prayer: What Is Prayer? What is the right way to pray for another person at home and in church? We will try to answer these and other questions in the article!

Prayers for every day

1. PRAYER MEETING

Prayer is a meeting with the Living God. Christianity gives a person direct access to God, who hears a person, helps him, loves him. This is the fundamental difference between Christianity, for example, from Buddhism, where during meditation the praying person deals with some impersonal super-existence, into which he plunges and into which he dissolves, but he does not feel God as a living Personality. V Christian prayer man feels the presence of the Living God.

In Christianity, God is revealed to us, having become a Man. When we stand in front of the icon of Jesus Christ, we contemplate the Incarnate God. We know that it is impossible to imagine, describe, depict God on an icon or a painting. But you can portray God who became Man - such as He appeared to people. Through Jesus Christ as a Man, we reveal God to ourselves. This revelation occurs in prayer addressed to Christ.

Through prayer we learn that God is involved in everything that happens in our lives. Therefore, a conversation with God should not be the background of our life, but its main content. There are many barriers between man and God that can be overcome only with the help of prayer.

They often ask: why do we need to pray, ask God for anything, if God already knows what we need? To this I would answer like this. We do not pray in order to beg from God. Yes, in some cases we ask Him for specific help in certain everyday circumstances. But this is not the main content of prayer.

God cannot be just an “aid” in our earthly affairs. The main content of prayer should always remain the very presence of God, the very meeting with Him. You need to pray in order to be with God, to get in touch with God, to feel the presence of God.

However, meeting with God in prayer does not always happen. Indeed, even when meeting with a person, we are far from always able to overcome the barriers separating us, to descend into the depths, often our communication with people is limited only to the surface level. So it is in prayer. Sometimes we feel that between us and God is like a blank wall, that God does not hear us. But we must understand that this barrier was not set by God: we by our own sins we raise it up. According to one Western medieval theologian, God is always with us, but we are far from Him, God always hears us, but we do not hear Him, God is always within us, but we are outside, God is in us at home, but we are in Him strangers.

Let us remember this when we prepare for prayer. Let us remember that every time we stand up for prayer, we come into contact with the Living God.

2. PRAYER-DIALOGUE

Prayer is dialogue. It includes not only our appeal to God, but also the response of God Himself. As in any dialogue, in prayer it is important not only to speak up, to speak out, but also to hear the answer. The answer of God does not always come directly at the moments of prayer, sometimes it happens a little later. It happens, for example, that we ask God for immediate help, and it comes only after a few hours or days. But we understand that this happened precisely because we asked God for help in prayer.

Through prayer we can learn a lot about God. When praying, it is very important to be ready for the fact that God will reveal himself to us, but He may turn out to be different from what we imagined Him to be. We often make the mistake of approaching God with our own ideas about Him, and these ideas obscure from us the real image of the Living God, which God Himself can reveal to us. Often people in their minds create a kind of idol and pray to this idol. This dead, artificially created idol becomes an obstacle, a barrier between the Living God and us, people. “Create for yourself a false image of God and try to pray to him. Create for yourself the image of God as an unmerciful and cruel Judge - and try to pray to him with confidence, with love, ”the Metropolitan notes. Surozhsky Anthony... So, we must be prepared for the fact that God will be revealed to us not as we imagine Him. Therefore, starting to prayer, you need to renounce all the images that create our imagination, human fantasy.

God's answer can come in many ways, but prayer is never unanswered. If we do not hear the answer, it means that something is wrong in ourselves, it means that we have not yet tuned in enough to the way that is necessary to meet with God.

There is a device called a tuning fork, which is used by piano tuners; this device produces a clear “la” sound. And the piano strings must be taut so that the sound they make is exactly in line with the sound of the tuning fork. As long as the A string is not taut, no matter how much you strike the keys, the tuning fork will be silent. But the moment the string reaches the required degree of tension, the tuning fork, this lifeless metal object, suddenly begins to sound. Having tuned one string "A", the master then tunes and "A" in other octaves (in a grand piano, each key strikes several strings, this creates a special volumetric sound). Then he tunes “B,” “C,” etc., one octave after another, until finally the entire instrument is in tune with the tuning fork.

This should be the case with us in prayer. We must tune in to God, tune in to Him our whole life, all the strings of our soul. When we tune our life to God, learn to fulfill His commandments, when the Gospel becomes our moral and spiritual law and we begin to live in accordance with the commandments of God, then we begin to feel how our soul in prayer responds to the presence of God, like a tuning fork that responds to a precisely taut string.

3. WHEN SHOULD I PRAY?

When and for how long should you pray? The apostle Paul says, “Pray incessantly” (1 Thess. 5:17). Saint Gregory the Theologian writes: “One must remember God more often than breathe.” Ideally, a Christian's entire life should be permeated with prayer.

Many troubles, sorrows and misfortunes occur precisely because people forget about God. After all, there are also believers among criminals, but at the moment of committing a crime they do not think about God. It is difficult to imagine a person who would go to murder or theft with the thought of an all-seeing God, from whom no evil can be hidden. And every sin is committed by a person precisely when he does not remember God.

Most people are unable to pray all day long, so you need to find some time, even a short one, to remember God.

In the morning you wake up with the thought of what is to be done that day. Before you start your work and immerse yourself in the inevitable hustle and bustle, devote at least a few minutes to God. Stand before God and say: "Lord, you gave me this day, help me to spend it without sin, without blemish, save me from all evil and misfortune." And invoke the blessing of God on the day that begins.

Try to remember God more often throughout the day. If you feel bad, turn to Him with a prayer: "Lord, I feel bad, help me." If you feel good, tell God: "Lord, glory to You, I thank You for this joy." If you are worried about someone, tell God: "Lord, I am worried about him, I am in pain for him, help him." And so throughout the day - whatever happens to you, turn it into prayer.

When the day comes to an end and you are getting ready for bed, remember the past day, thank God for all the good things that have happened, and bring repentance for all those unworthy deeds and sins that you have committed that day. Ask God for help and blessings for the coming night. As you learn to pray this way every day, you will soon notice how much fuller your whole life will be.

Often people justify their unwillingness to pray by the fact that they are too busy, overloaded with things. Yes, many of us live in a rhythm in which the people of antiquity did not. Sometimes we have to do a lot of things during the day. But there are always some pauses in life. For example, we stand at a bus stop and wait for a tram - three to five minutes. We go to the subway - twenty to thirty minutes, dial the phone number and hear busy beeps - for a few more minutes. We use at least these pauses for prayer, let them not be wasted time.

4. BRIEF PRAYERS

People often ask: how should one pray, in what words, in what language? Some even say: “I don’t pray because I don’t know how, I don’t know prayers”. No special skill is required for prayer. You can just talk with God. At a service in Orthodox Church we use a special language - Church Slavonic. But in personal prayer, when we are alone with God, there is no need for any special language. We can pray to God in the language in which we speak with people, in which we think.

Prayer should be very simple. The Monk Isaac the Syrian said: “Let the whole fabric of your prayer be not complicated. One word of the publican saved him, and one word of the robber on the cross made him the heir of the Kingdom of Heaven. "

Let us recall the parable of the publican and the Pharisee: “Two people entered the temple to pray: one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee, having become, prayed to himself thus: “God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this tax collector; I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all that I get. " The tax collector, standing in the distance, did not even dare to raise his eyes to heaven; but, striking himself in the chest, he said: “God! be merciful to me, a sinner! ”” (Luke 18: 10-13). And this short prayer saved him. Let us also remember the thief who was crucified with Jesus and who said to Him: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). That alone was enough for him to enter paradise.

Prayer can be extremely short. If you are just starting out on your prayer path, start with very short prayers - ones that you can focus on. God doesn't need words - He needs a human heart. Words are secondary, but the feeling, the mood with which we approach God is of paramount importance. Coming to God without a sense of reverence or with absent-mindedness, when during prayer our mind wanders to the side, is much more dangerous than saying the wrong word in prayer. Absent-minded prayer has no meaning or value. A simple law is at work here: if the words of prayer have not reached our hearts, they will not reach God either. As it is sometimes said, such a prayer will not rise above the ceiling of the room in which we pray, and yet it must reach heaven. Therefore, it is very important that every word of prayer is deeply experienced by us. If we are unable to focus on long prayers, which are contained in the books of the Orthodox Church - prayer books, let us try our hand at short prayers: “Lord, have mercy”, “Lord, save”, “Lord, help me”, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”.

One ascetic said that if we could say only one prayer “Lord, have mercy” with all the strength of feeling, from the bottom of our hearts, with all our souls, this would be enough for salvation. But the problem is that, as a rule, we cannot say this from the bottom of our hearts, we cannot say this with our whole life. Therefore, in order to be heard by God, we are verbose.

Let us remember that God longs for our heart, not our words. And if we turn to Him from the bottom of our hearts, we will certainly receive an answer.

5. PRAYER AND LIFE

Prayer is associated not only with the joys and gains that come thanks to it, but also with painstaking daily work. Sometimes prayer brings great joy, refreshes a person, gives him new strength and new opportunities. But it often happens that a person is not disposed to prayer, he does not want to pray. So, prayer should not depend on our mood. Prayer is work. The Monk Silouan the Athonite said, "To pray is to shed blood." As in any work, on the part of a person, an effort is required, sometimes enormous, in order to force oneself to do so even in those moments when one does not want to pray. And such a feat will pay off a hundredfold.

But why do we sometimes not want to pray? I think the main reason here is that our life is not in line with prayer, not in tune with it. As a child, when I was engaged in music school, I had an excellent violin teacher: his lessons were sometimes very interesting, and sometimes very difficult, and it did not depend on his mood, but on how good or bad I am prepared for the lesson. If I studied a lot, taught some kind of play and came to the lesson fully armed, then the lesson took place in one breath, and the teacher was pleased, and me. If I was lazy all week and came unprepared, then the teacher was upset, and I was sick of the fact that the lesson was not going as I would like.

It is the same with prayer. If our life is not a preparation for prayer, then it can be very difficult for us to pray. Prayer is an indicator of our spiritual life, a kind of litmus test. We need to structure our lives in such a way that it is in line with prayer. When, saying the prayer “Our Father,” we say: “Lord, Thy will be done,” it means that we must always be ready to do the will of God, even if this will is contrary to our human will. When we say to God: “And forgive us our debts, as if we also leave our debtors,” we thereby undertake the obligation to forgive people, to leave their debts to them, because if we do not leave debts to our debtors, then, according to the logic of this prayer, and God will not leave us our debts.

So, one must correspond to the other: life - prayer and prayer - life. Without this correspondence, we will not be successful either in life or in prayer.

Let us not be embarrassed if it is difficult for us to pray. This means that God sets before us new tasks, and we must solve them both in prayer and in life. If we learn to live the gospel, we will learn to pray in the gospel. Then our life will become full, spiritual, truly Christian.

6. ORTHODOX PRAYER

You can pray in different ways, for example, in your own words. Such a prayer should constantly accompany a person. In the morning and in the evening, day and night, a person can turn to God with the simplest words coming from the depths of his heart.

But there are also prayers that were compiled by saints in antiquity, they need to be read in order to learn prayer. These prayers are contained in the Orthodox Prayer Book. There you will find church prayers, morning, evening, penitential, thanksgiving, you will find various canons, akathists and much more. Having bought the "Orthodox Prayer Book", do not be alarmed that there are so many prayers in it. You don't have to all read them.

If the morning prayers are read quickly, it will take about twenty minutes. But if you read them thoughtfully, attentively, responding with your heart to every word, then reading can take an entire hour. Therefore, if you do not have time, do not try to read all the morning prayers, it is better to read one or two, but so that their every word reaches your heart.

Before the section “Morning Prayers” it is said: “Before you start praying, wait a little until your feelings subside, and then say with attention and reverence:“ In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen". Wait a little longer and only then start praying. ” This pause, "a minute of silence" before the start church prayer, very important. Prayer must grow out of the silence of our heart. People who “read” the morning and evening prayers every day are constantly tempted to read the “rule” as soon as possible in order to get down to their daily activities. Often, with such reading, the main thing escapes - the content of the prayer. ...

In the prayer book there are many petitions addressed to God, which are repeated several times. For example, you might find a recommendation to read “Lord have mercy” twelve or forty times. Some take it as a formality and read this prayer at high speed. By the way, in Greek “Lord, have mercy” sounds like “Kyrie, eleison”. In the Russian language there is a verb “to play tricks”, which originated precisely from the fact that the psalmists in the kliros very quickly repeated many times: “Kirie, eleison”, that is, they did not pray, but “played tricks”. So, you don't need to play tricks in prayer. No matter how many times you read this prayer, it should be said with attention, reverence and love, with full dedication.

You don't have to try to read all the prayers. Better to devote twenty minutes to one prayer "Our Father", repeating it several times, pondering each word. It is not so easy for a person who is not used to praying for a long time to immediately read a large number of prayers, but you don't have to strive for that. It is important to be imbued with the spirit that the prayers of the Church Fathers breathe. This is the main benefit to be derived from the prayers contained in The Orthodox Prayer Book.

7. PRAYER RULE

What is a prayer rule? These are prayers that a person reads regularly, every day. The prayer rule is different for everyone. For some, the morning or evening rule takes several hours, for others, a few minutes. It all depends on the spiritual constitution of a person, on the degree of his rootedness in prayer and on what time he has.

It is very important that a person fulfills the prayer rule, even the shortest one, so that there is regularity and constancy in prayer. But the rule should not turn into a formality. The experience of many believers shows that with the constant reading of the same prayers, their words fade, lose their freshness, and a person, getting used to them, ceases to focus on them. This danger must be avoided by all means.

I remember when I took monastic tonsure (I was twenty years old then), I turned to an experienced confessor for advice and asked him what prayer rule I should have. He said: “You must read the morning and evening prayers daily, three canons and one akathist. Whatever happens, even if you are very tired, you must read them. And even if you read them hastily and inattentively, it does not matter, the main thing is that the rule should be read. " I tried. It didn't work out. The daily recitation of the same prayers led to the fact that these texts quickly became boring. In addition, every day I spent many hours in the church at the services that spiritually nourished me, nourished, inspired me. And the reading of the three canons and the akathist turned into some kind of unnecessary "appendage". I started looking for another piece of advice that was more suitable for me. And he found it in the works of St. Theophan the Recluse, a remarkable ascetic of the 19th century. He advised the prayer rule to count not by the number of prayers, but by the time that we are ready to devote to God. For example, we can make it a rule to pray in the morning and in the evening for half an hour, but this half hour must be completely devoted to God. And it is not so important whether we read all the prayers during these minutes, or just one, or maybe we will devote one evening entirely to reading the Psalter, the Gospel or prayer in our own words. The main thing is that we are focused on God, so that our attention does not slip away and that every word reaches our hearts. This advice worked for me. However, I do not exclude that the advice I received from a spiritual father would be more suitable for others. Much depends on the individual's personality.

It seems to me that for a person living in the world, not only fifteen, but even five minutes of morning and evening prayer, if, of course, it is pronounced with attention and feeling, is enough to be a real Christian. It is only important that the thought always corresponds to the words, the heart answers the words of the prayer, and the whole life corresponds to the prayer.

Try, following the advice of St. Theophan the Recluse, to set aside some time for prayer during the day and for the daily fulfillment of the prayer rule. And you will see that it will bear fruit very soon.

8. DANGER OF ADDICTION

Every believer faces the danger of getting used to the words of prayers and distraction during prayer. To prevent this from happening, a person must constantly struggle with himself or, as the Holy Fathers said, “stand guard over his mind,” learn to “enclose the mind in the words of prayer”.

How can this be achieved? First of all, you cannot allow yourself to utter words when both mind and heart do not respond to them. If you start to read a prayer, but in the middle of it your attention is diverted, return to the place where your attention was scattered, and repeat the prayer. If necessary, repeat it three times, five, ten times, but make sure that your whole being responds to it.

Once in church a woman turned to me: “Father, I have been reading prayers for many years - both in the morning and in the evening, but the more I read them, the less I like them, the less I feel like a believer in God. The words of these prayers have become so boring to me that I no longer respond to them. ” I told her: “And you don't read morning and evening prayers ”. She was surprised: "That is how?" I repeated, “Come on, don't read them. If your heart doesn't respond to them, you must find another way to pray. How long does your morning prayer take you? " - "Twenty minutes". “Are you ready to devote twenty minutes to God every morning?” - “Ready”. “Then take one morning prayer — your choice — and read it for twenty minutes. Read one of her phrases, be quiet, think about what it means, then read another phrase, be silent, think about its content, repeat it again, think if your life corresponds to it, are you ready to live so that this prayer becomes a reality in your life ... You say: "Lord, deprive me not of Thy heavenly goods." What does this mean? Or: "Lord, deliver me eternal torment." What is the danger of these eternal torment, are you really afraid of them, do you really hope to avoid them? " The woman began to pray in this way, and soon her prayers began to revive.

Prayer must be learned. You need to work on yourself, you cannot allow yourself, standing in front of the icon, to utter empty words.

The quality of prayer is also affected by what precedes it and what follows. It is impossible to pray with concentration in a state of irritation, if, for example, we quarreled with someone before starting a prayer, yelled at someone. This means that at the time that precedes prayer, we must internally prepare for it, freeing ourselves from what prevents us from praying, tuning in to a prayer mood. Then it will be easier for us to pray. But, of course, even after prayer, one should not immediately plunge into vanity. After finishing your prayer, give yourself some more time to hear the answer of God, so that something sounded in you, responded to the presence of God.

Prayer is only valuable when we feel that thanks to it, something changes in us, that we begin to live differently. Prayer must bear fruit, and the fruit must be felt.

9. POSITION OF THE BODY AT PRAYER

In the practice of prayer in the Ancient Church, various postures, gestures, and body positions were used. They prayed standing, on their knees, in the so-called position of the prophet Elijah, that is, kneeling with their head bowed to the ground, they prayed lying on the floor with outstretched hands, or standing with upraised hands. When praying, obeisances were used - earthly and in the waist, as well as the sign of the cross. Of all the variety of traditional body positions during prayer, a few remain in modern practice. This is, first of all, prayer standing and prayer on your knees, accompanied by the sign of the cross and bows.

Why is it important at all for the body to participate in prayer? Why can't you just pray in the spirit while lying in bed, sitting in a chair? In principle, you can pray both lying down and sitting: in special cases, in case of illness, for example, or while traveling, we do this. But under ordinary circumstances, it is necessary to use those positions of the body that have been preserved in the tradition of the Orthodox Church when praying. The fact is that the body and spirit in a person are inextricably linked, and the spirit cannot be completely autonomous from the body. It is no accident that the ancient Fathers said: "If the body does not work hard in prayer, then prayer will remain fruitless."

Go to Orthodox church to the Lent service and you will see how from time to time all the parishioners simultaneously fall on their knees, then rise, fall again and rise again. And so throughout the entire service. And you will feel that there is a special intensity in this service, that people do not just pray, they are working in prayer, they carry the feat of prayer. And go to a Protestant church. Throughout the service, worshipers sit: prayers are read, spiritual songs are sung, but people just sit, do not cross, do not bow, and at the end of the service they get up and leave. Compare these two ways of praying in church - Orthodox and Protestant - and you will feel the difference. This difference is in the intensity of the prayer. People pray to the same God, but they pray in different ways. And in many respects this difference is determined precisely by the position in which the body of the person praying is.

Bowing is very helpful in prayer. Those of you who have the opportunity to prayer rule in the morning and in the evening to do at least a few bows and bows, undoubtedly, will feel how useful it is in a spiritual sense. The body becomes more collected, and when the body is collected, the concentration of mind and attention is quite natural.

During prayer, we should from time to time cross ourselves with the sign of the cross, especially saying “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” as well as pronouncing the name of the Savior. This is necessary, since the cross is the instrument of our salvation. When we place the sign of the cross on ourselves, the power of God is tangibly present in us.

10. PRAYER BEFORE ICONS

In church prayer, the external should not replace the internal. The outside can help the inside, but it can also hinder. Traditional body positions during prayer undoubtedly contribute to the state of prayer, but in no way can they substitute for the main content of the prayer.

We must not forget that some body positions are not available to everyone. For example, many elderly people are simply unable to bow down. There are many people who cannot stand for long. I have heard from elderly people: “I don’t go to church services because I cannot stand,” or: “I don’t pray to God because my legs hurt”. God does not need legs, but a heart. You cannot pray while standing - pray while sitting; you cannot pray while sitting - pray lying down. As one ascetic said, “it is better to think about God while sitting than to think about your feet while standing”.

Aids are important, but they cannot replace content. One of the important aids in prayer is icons. Orthodox Christians, as a rule, pray in front of the icons of the Savior, Mother of God, saints, in front of the image of the Holy Cross. And Protestants pray without icons. And you can see the difference between Protestant and Orthodox prayer. In the Orthodox tradition, prayer is more specific. Contemplating the icon of Christ, we seem to be looking out the window that reveals to us another world, and behind this icon stands the One to whom we pray.

But it is very important that the icon does not replace the object of prayer, so that we do not turn to the icon in prayer and do not try to imagine the one who is depicted in the icon. The icon is only a reminder, only a symbol of the reality that stands behind it. As the Church Fathers said, "the honor given to the image goes back to the prototype." When we approach the icon of the Savior or the Mother of God and attach ourselves to it, that is, kiss it, we thereby express our love for the Savior or for the Mother of God.

The icon should not turn into an idol. And there should be no illusion that God is exactly what He is portrayed in the icon. There is, for example, the icon of the Holy Trinity, which is called the "New Testament Trinity": it is non-canonical, that is, it does not correspond church rules, but in some temples it can be seen. This icon depicts God the Father as a gray-haired old man, Jesus Christ as young man and the Holy Spirit is in the form of a dove. In no case should you succumb to the temptation to imagine that the Holy Trinity looks like this. The Holy Trinity is a God Whom the human imagination cannot imagine. And, turning to God - the Holy Trinity in prayer, we must renounce any kind of fantasy. Our imagination should be free from images, our minds should be crystal clear, and our hearts should be ready to contain the Living God.

The car fell into a cliff, overturning several times. Nothing remained of her, but the driver and I were safe and sound. It happened in the early morning, about five o'clock. When I returned to the church where I was serving in the evening of the same day, I found several parishioners there who woke up at half past five in the morning, feeling the danger, and began to pray for me. Their first question was: "Father, what happened to you?" I think that by their prayers, both I and the person who was driving were saved from trouble.

11. PRAYER FOR THE NEIGHBOR

We must pray not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors. Every morning and every evening, as well as being in church, we must remember our relatives, loved ones, friends, enemies and offer prayer to God for everyone. This is very important, because people are linked by inseparable bonds, and often the prayer of one person for another saves another from great danger.

In the life of St. Gregory the Theologian there was such a case. When he was still a young man, unbaptized, he crossed the Mediterranean by ship. Suddenly a strong storm began, which lasted for many days, and no one had any hope of salvation, the ship was almost sunk. Gregory prayed to God and during prayer saw his mother, who at that time was on the shore, but, as it turned out later, she felt danger and prayed intensely for her son. The ship, contrary to all expectations, safely reached the shore. Gregory always remembered that he owed his deliverance to his mother's prayers.

Someone might say, “Well, here's another story from the lives of ancient saints. Why doesn't this happen today? " I can assure you that it is still happening today. I know many people who, through the prayers of loved ones, were saved from death or great danger. And in my life there were many cases when I escaped danger through the prayers of my mother or other people, for example, my parishioners.

Once I got into a car accident and, one might say, miraculously survived, because the car fell into a cliff, overturning several times. Nothing remained of the car, but the driver and I were safe and sound. It happened in the early morning, about five o'clock. When I returned to the church where I was serving in the evening of the same day, I found several parishioners there who woke up at half past five in the morning, feeling the danger, and began to pray for me. Their first question was: "Father, what happened to you?" I think that by their prayers, both I and the person who was driving were saved from trouble.

We should pray for our neighbors, not because God does not know how to save them, but because He wants us to participate in saving one another. Of course, He Himself knows what each person needs - both us and our neighbors. When we pray for our neighbors, this does not mean that we want to be more merciful than God. But this means that we want to participate in their salvation. And we must not forget in prayer about the people with whom life has brought us, and that they are praying for us. Each of us in the evening, going to bed, can say to God: "Lord, through the prayers of all who love me, save me."

Let us remember the living connection between us and our neighbors, and we will always remember each other in prayer.

12. PRAYER FOR THE SOUL

We must pray not only for those of our neighbors who are alive, but also for those who have already passed away.

Prayer for the departed is necessary first of all for us, because when a loved one leaves, we have a natural feeling of loss, and from this we deeply suffer. But that person continues to live, only he lives in another dimension, because he has passed to another world. So that the connection between us and the person who has left us does not break, we must pray for him. Then we will feel his presence, feel that he has not left us, that our living connection with him remains.

But prayer for the deceased, of course, is also necessary for him, because when a person dies, he passes into another life in order to meet God there and answer for everything that he did in earthly life, good and bad. It is very important that a person on this path is accompanied by the prayers of his loved ones - those who have remained here on earth, who keep the memory of him. A person who leaves this world is deprived of everything that this world gave him, only his soul remains. All the wealth that he owned in life, everything that he acquired, remains here. Only the soul leaves the other world. And the soul is judged by God according to the law of mercy and justice. If a person has done something evil in life, he has to bear the punishment for this. But we, the survivors, can ask God to ease the lot of this man. And the Church believes that the posthumous lot of the deceased is alleviated through the prayers of those who pray for him here on earth.

The hero of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, Elder Zosima (whose prototype was St. Tikhon of Zadonsky), says about prayer for the dead: “For every day and when you can, say to yourself:“ Lord, have mercy on all those who have appeared before You today ”. For at every hour and every moment thousands of people leave their lives on this earth, and their souls stand before the Lord - and how many of them parted from the earth separately, unknown to anyone, in sadness and longing, and no one will regret them ... And now, perhaps, from the other end of the earth, your prayer will ascend to the Lord for his repose, even if you do not know him at all, but he - you. How touching it is for his soul, which has become in fear of the Lord, to feel at that moment that there is a prayer book for him, that a human being and his loving one are left on earth. Yes, and God will look more mercifully on both of you, for if you have already pity him so much, then He will pity him more, infinitely more merciful ... And he will forgive him for your sake. ”

13. PRAYER FOR ENEMIES

The need to pray for enemies stems from the very essence of the moral teaching of Jesus Christ.

In the pre-Christian era, there was a rule: “Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy” (Matt. 5:43). It is in accordance with this rule that most people still live. It is natural for us to love our neighbors, those who do us good, and treat with hostility, if not hatred, towards those from whom evil comes. But Christ says that the attitude should be completely different: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who offend and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Christ Himself during His earthly life repeatedly set an example of love for enemies and prayers for enemies. When the Lord was on the cross and the soldiers nailed Him, He experienced terrible agony, incredible pain, but He prayed: “Father! forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing ”(Luke 23:34). At that moment, he was not thinking about Himself, not about the fact that these soldiers were hurting Him, but about their salvation, for in doing evil, they primarily harmed themselves.

We must remember that people who harm us or treat us with dislike are not bad in themselves. The sin with which they are infected is bad. One must hate sin, not its bearer, man. As St. John Chrysostom said, "when you see that someone is doing you evil, hate not him, but the devil who is behind him."

You need to learn to separate a person from the sin that he commits. A priest very often observes during confession how sin is really separated from a person when he repents of it. We must be able to abandon the sinful image of man and remember that all people, including our enemies and those who hate us, are created in the image of God, and it is in this image of God, in those beginnings of good that are in every person, we must peer.

Why is it necessary to pray for enemies? It is necessary not only for them, but also for us. We must find the strength to be reconciled with people. Archimandrite Sophrony in his book about the Monk Silouan the Athonite says: "Those who hate and reject their brother are flawed in their existence, they cannot find the way to God, who loves everyone." This is true. When hatred for a person settles in our hearts, we are unable to approach God. And as long as this feeling persists in us, the path to God is barred to us. This is why it is imperative to pray for your enemies.

Each time we approach the Living God, we must be absolutely reconciled with everyone whom we perceive as our enemies. Let us remember what the Lord says: “If you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you ... go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23) ... And another word of the Lord: “Make peace with your adversary quickly, while you are still on the way with him” (Matt. 5:25). “On the way with him” means “in this earthly life”. For if we do not have time to make peace here with those who hate and offend us, with our enemies, then we will go into the future life uncompromising. And there it will be impossible to make up for what has been missed here.

14. FAMILY PRAYER

So far, we have talked mainly about a person's personal, individual prayer. Now I would like to say a few words about prayer with the family.

Most of our contemporaries live in such a way that family members get together quite rarely, at best twice a day - in the morning for breakfast and in the evening for dinner. During the day, parents are at work, children are at school, only preschoolers and retirees stay at home. It is very important that there are some moments in the daily routine when everyone can come together for prayer. If the family is going to dinner, why not pray together a few minutes before? You can also read prayers and a passage from the Gospel after dinner.

Joint prayer strengthens the family, because its life is truly fulfilling and happy only when its members are united not only by family ties, but also by spiritual kinship, common understanding and worldview. Joint prayer, in addition, has a beneficial effect on every member of the family, in particular, it is very helpful for children.

In Soviet times, it was forbidden to bring up children in a religious spirit. This was motivated by the fact that children must first grow up, and only then independently choose whether to follow a religious or a non-religious path. There is a deep lie in this argument. Because, before a person has the opportunity to choose, he must be taught something. And the best age for learning is, of course, childhood. It is very difficult for someone who from childhood to live without prayer, it is very difficult to accustom himself to pray. And a person, brought up from childhood in a prayerful, grace-filled spirit, from the first years of his life knew about the existence of God and that one can always turn to God, even if later he left the Church, from God, nevertheless kept in some the depths, in the spiritual recesses, the skills of prayer acquired in childhood, the charge of religiosity. And it often happens that people who have departed from the Church return to God at some stage in their lives precisely because in childhood they were accustomed to prayer.

One more point. Today, many families have relatives of the older generation, grandparents, who were brought up in a non-religious environment. Even twenty or thirty years ago, one could say that the church is a place for “grandmothers”. Now it is the grandmothers who represent the most irreligious generation, brought up in the 30s and 40s, in the era of “militant atheism”. It is very important that older people find their way to the temple. It is not too late for anyone to turn to God, but those of the young who have already found this path should tactfully, gradually, but with great constancy involve their older relatives in the orbit of the spiritual life. And through the daily family prayer this can be done with particular success.

15. CHURCH PRAYER

As the famous theologian of the 20th century, Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, said, a Christian never prays alone: ​​even if he turns to God in his room, closing the door behind him, he still prays as a member of the church community. We are not isolated individuals, we are members of the Church, members of one body. And we are not saved alone, but together with others - with our brothers and sisters. And therefore it is very important that each person has the experience of not only individual prayer, but also church prayer, together with other people.

Church prayer has a very special meaning and special meaning. Many of us know from our own experience how difficult it is sometimes for a person to plunge into the element of prayer alone. But when you come to the temple, you dive into common prayer many people, and this prayer takes you to some depths, and your prayer merges with the prayer of others.

Human life is like swimming across the sea or ocean. There are, of course, daredevils who, alone, overcoming storms and storms, cross the sea on a yacht. But, as a rule, people, in order to cross the ocean, get together and move on a ship from one coast to another. The church is a ship in which Christians move together on the path to salvation. And joint prayer is one of the most powerful means for moving forward on this path.

In the church, much contributes to church prayer, and above all worship. The liturgical texts that are used in the Orthodox Church are unusually rich in content; great wisdom is hidden in them. But there is an obstacle that many who come to the Church face - this is the Church Slavonic language. Now there is a lot of debate about whether to preserve the Slavic language in divine services or switch to Russian. It seems to me that if our divine service were entirely translated into Russian, a lot of it would be lost. The Church Slavonic language has great spiritual strength, and experience shows that it is not so difficult, not that much different from Russian. You just need to make some effort, just as we, if necessary, make an effort to master the language of a particular science, for example, mathematics or physics.

So, in order to learn how to pray in church, you need to make some effort, go to church more often, maybe buy basic service books and study them in your free time. And then all the richness of the liturgical language and liturgical texts will open before you, and you will see that worship is a whole school that teaches you not only church prayer, but also spiritual life.

16. WHY DO YOU NEED TO GO TO CHURCH?

Many people who occasionally visit the church develop some kind of consumer attitude towards the church. They come to the temple, for example, before a long journey - to light a candle just in case, so that nothing happens on the road. They come in for two or three minutes, hastily cross themselves several times and, after putting up a candle, leave. Some, entering the church, say: “I want to pay money so that the priest would pray about this and that,” they pay the money and leave. The priest must pray, but these people themselves do not participate in prayer.

This is a wrong attitude. The church is not an automatic machine for buying "sneakers": you put down a coin and a piece of candy falls out. The church is the place where you have to come to live and study there. If you are experiencing any difficulties or someone from your neighbors is sick, do not limit yourself to stopping by and lighting a candle. Come to church for worship, immerse yourself in the element of prayer and, together with the priest and the community, offer your prayer about what worries you.

It is very important that church attendance is regular. It is good to attend the temple every Sunday. The Sunday Divine Liturgy, as well as the Liturgy of Great Feasts, is the time when we can, having detached ourselves from our earthly affairs for two hours, plunge into the element of prayer. It is good to come to church with the whole family to confess and receive communion.

If a person learns to live from resurrection to resurrection, in the rhythm of church services, in the rhythm Divine Liturgy, then his whole life will change dramatically. First of all, it disciplines. The believer knows that next Sunday he will have to give an answer to God, and he lives in a different way, does not allow many sins that he could have committed if he did not attend church. In addition, the Divine Liturgy itself is an opportunity to receive Holy Communion, that is, to unite with God not only spiritually, but also bodily. And, finally, the Divine Liturgy is an all-encompassing service, when the whole church community and each of its members can pray for everything that worries, worries, or pleases. During the Liturgy, a believer can pray for himself, and for his neighbors, and for his future, bring repentance for sins and ask for God's blessing for further service. It is very important to learn to participate fully in the Liturgy. There are other services in the Church, for example, the all-night vigil, a preparatory service for the sacrament. You can order a prayer service to some saint or a prayer service for the health of this or that person. But no so-called “private” services, that is, those ordered by a person to pray for some of his specific needs, can replace participation in the Divine Liturgy, because it is the Liturgy that is the center of church prayer, and it is she who should become the center of the spiritual life of everyone Christian and every Christian family.

17. Tenderness and tears

I would like to say a few words about the spiritual and emotional state that people experience in prayer. Let us recall the famous poem by Lermontov:

In a difficult moment of life,
Is sadness squeezed in the heart:
One wonderful prayer
I repeat it by heart.
There is a blessed power
In consonance with the words of the living,
And the incomprehensible breathes
Holy charm in them.
From the soul as a burden will roll,
Doubt is far away -
And I believe and cry,
And so easy, easy ...

In these beautiful simple words great poet described what very often happens to people during prayer. A person repeats the words of prayers, perhaps familiar from childhood, and suddenly feels some kind of enlightenment, relief, tears appear. In church language, this state is called affection. This is the state that is sometimes given to a person during prayer, when he feels the presence of God more sharply and stronger than usual. This is a spiritual state when the grace of God directly touches our hearts.

Let us recall an excerpt from Ivan Bunin's autobiographical book The Life of Arseniev, where Bunin describes his youth and how, while still a high school student, he attended services in the parish church of the Exaltation of the Lord. He describes the beginning of the all-night vigil, in the twilight of the church, when there are still very few people: “How all this excites me. I'm still a boy, a teenager, but I was born with the feeling of all this. So many times I have listened to these exclamations and the next “Amen”, without fail, that all this has become, as it were, a part of my soul, and now she, already guessing every word of service in advance, responds to everything with an especially kindred readiness. “Come, let us bow ... Bless my soul the Lord,” I hear, and my eyes are covered with tears, for I already firmly know now that there is nothing more beautiful and higher than all this and cannot be anything on earth. And the holy mystery flows, flows, the Royal Doors are closed and opened, the vaults of the church are illuminated brighter and warmer with many candles. ” And then Bunin writes that he had to visit many Western churches, where the organ sounded, to visit Gothic cathedrals, beautiful in their architecture, “but nowhere and never,” he says, “I did not cry like in the Church of the Exaltation in these dark and dull evenings ”.

Not only great poets and writers respond to the blessed influence with which church attendance is inevitably associated. Every person can experience this. It is very important that our soul is open to these feelings, so that when we come to church we are ready to accept the grace of God to the extent that it will be given to us. If the state of grace is not given to us and tenderness does not come, there is no need to be embarrassed by this. This means that our soul has not matured to tenderness. But moments of such enlightenment are a sign that our prayer is not fruitless. They testify that God responds to our prayer and the grace of God touches our hearts.

18. FIGHTING WITHOUT THOUGHTS

One of the main obstacles to attentive prayer is the appearance of extraneous thoughts. Saint John of Kronstadt, the great ascetic late XIX- the beginning of the XX century, describes in his diaries how, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, at the most responsible and sacred moments, an apple pie or some order that could be awarded to him suddenly appeared in his mind's eye. And he speaks with bitterness and regret about how such extraneous images and thoughts can destroy the state of prayer. If this happened to the saints, then there is nothing surprising in the fact that it happens to us. To protect ourselves from these thoughts and extraneous images, we must learn, as the ancient Church Fathers said, “to stand guard over our minds”.

The ascetic writers of the Ancient Church had a detailed teaching on how an extraneous thought gradually penetrates into a person. The first stage of this process is called “admission,” that is, the sudden appearance of a thought. This thought is still completely alien to man, it appeared somewhere on the horizon, but its penetration inside begins when a person stops his attention on it, enters into a conversation with him, examines and analyzes it. Then comes what the Fathers of the Church called "combination" - when a person's mind is already, as it were, coaxing, merging with thought. Finally, the thought turns into passion and embraces the whole person, and then both prayer and spiritual life are forgotten.

To prevent this from happening, it is very important to cut off extraneous thoughts at their first appearance, not to allow them to penetrate into the depths of the soul, heart and mind. And to learn this, you need to work hard on yourself. A person cannot but experience absent-mindedness in prayer if he does not learn to fight with extraneous thoughts.

One of the diseases of modern man is that he does not know how to control the work of his brain. His brain is autonomous, and thoughts come and go involuntarily. Modern man usually does not follow what is going on in his mind at all. But in order to learn real prayer, you need to be able to keep track of your thoughts and mercilessly cut off those that do not correspond to the prayer mood. Overcoming absent-mindedness and cutting off extraneous thoughts help short prayers, - - “Lord, have mercy”, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” and others, - which do not require special concentration on words, but dispose to the birth of feelings and the movement of the heart. Through such prayers, one can learn to focus and focus on prayer.

19. JESUS ​​PRAYER

The apostle Paul says, “Pray incessantly” (1 Thess. 5:17). It is often asked: how can one pray incessantly if we work, read, talk, eat, sleep, etc., that is, do what seems to be incompatible with prayer? The answer to this question in the Orthodox tradition is the Jesus Prayer. Believers who practice the Jesus Prayer achieve unceasing prayer, that is, unceasing standing before God. How does this happen?

The Jesus Prayer sounds like this: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." There is also a shorter form: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." But it is possible to reduce the prayer to two words: "Lord, have mercy." A person who performs the Jesus Prayer repeats it not only during worship or at home prayer, but also on the way, while eating and going to sleep. Even if a person speaks to someone or listens to another, then, without losing the intensity of perception, he nevertheless continues to repeat this prayer somewhere in the depths of his heart.

The meaning of the Jesus Prayer is, of course, not in its mechanical repetition, but in always feeling the living presence of Christ. This presence is felt by us primarily because, while pronouncing the Jesus Prayer, we are pronouncing the name of the Savior.

The name is the symbol of its bearer; in the name, as it were, there is the one to whom it belongs. When a young man is in love with a girl and thinks about her, he constantly repeats her name, because she seems to be present in his name. And since love fills his entire being, he feels the need to repeat this name over and over again. Likewise, the Christian who loves the Lord repeats the name of Jesus Christ because his whole heart and being is turned to Christ.

It is very important when performing the Jesus Prayer not to try to imagine Christ, imagining Him as a person in any life situation or, for example, hanging on a cross. The Jesus Prayer should not be associated with images that may arise in our fantasy, because then the real is replaced by the imaginary. The Jesus Prayer should be accompanied only by an inner feeling of the presence of Christ and a feeling of standing before the Living God. No external images are appropriate here.

20. WHAT IS GOOD IN JESUS'S PRAYER?

The Jesus Prayer has several special properties. First of all, it is the presence of the name of God in it.

We very often remember the name of God as if out of habit, thoughtlessly. We say: “Lord, how tired I am,” “God is with him, let him come another time,” without thinking at all about the power that the name of God possesses. Meanwhile, already in the Old Testament there was a commandment: “Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Ex. 20: 7). And the ancient Jews treated the name of God with extreme reverence. In the era after the release from Babylonian captivity, it was generally forbidden to pronounce the name of God. This right was only with the high priest, once a year, when he entered the Holy of Holies, the main sanctuary of the temple. When we turn with the Jesus Prayer to Christ, then pronouncing the name of Christ and confessing Him as the Son of God has a very special meaning. This name should be pronounced with the greatest reverence.

Another property of the Jesus Prayer is its simplicity and accessibility. To perform the Jesus Prayer, you do not need any special books, or a specially designated place or time. This is her huge advantage before many other prayers.

Finally, there is one more property that distinguishes this prayer - in it we confess our sinfulness: "Have mercy on me, sinner." This point is very important, because many modern people absolutely do not feel their sinfulness. Even in confession one can often hear: “I don’t know what to repent of, I live like everyone else, I don’t kill, I don’t steal,” and so on. Meanwhile, it is our sins that are, as a rule, the causes of our major troubles and sorrows. A person does not notice his sins because he is far from God, just as in dark room we see no dust or dirt, but as soon as we open the window, it turns out that the room needs cleaning for a long time.

The soul of a person far from God is like a dark room. But the closer a person is to God, the more light becomes in his soul, the more acutely he feels his own sinfulness. And this happens not because he compares himself with other people, but because he stands before God. When we say: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,” we, as it were, put ourselves before the face of Christ, compare our life with His life. And then we really feel like sinners and can bring repentance from the depths of our hearts.

21. PRACTICE OF PRAYER BY JESUS

Let's talk about the practical aspects of the Jesus Prayer. Some people set themselves the task of saying the Jesus Prayer during the day, say, one hundred, five hundred, or a thousand times. To count how many times the prayer is recited, a rosary is used, on which there may be fifty, one hundred or more balls. Saying a prayer in the mind, the person touches the rosary. But if you are just starting the feat of the Jesus Prayer, then you should pay attention first of all to quality, not quantity. It seems to me that one should begin with very slow reciting aloud the words of the Jesus Prayer, making sure that the heart participates in the prayer. You say: "Lord ... Jesus ... Christ ..." - and your heart should, like a tuning fork, respond to every word. And do not strive to immediately read the Jesus Prayer many times. Let you say it only ten times, but if your heart responds to the words of the prayer, this will be enough.

A person has two spiritual centers - the mind and the heart. Intellectual activity, imagination, thoughts are connected with the mind, and emotions, feelings, experiences are connected with the heart. When reciting the Jesus Prayer, the heart should be the center. That is why, while praying, do not try to imagine something in your mind, for example, Jesus Christ, but try to keep attention in your heart.

The ancient church ascetic writers developed the technique of “bringing the mind into the heart”, in which the Jesus prayer was combined with the breath, and on the inhale it was pronounced: “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God” - and on the exhale: “have mercy on me, sinner”. A person's attention naturally switched from head to heart. I do not think that everyone should practice the Jesus Prayer in this way; it is enough to say the words of the prayer with great attention and reverence.

Start your morning with the Jesus Prayer. If you have a free minute in the afternoon, read the prayer a few more times; in the evening, before going to bed, repeat it until you fall asleep. Learning to wake up and fall asleep with the Jesus Prayer will give you tremendous spiritual support. Gradually, as your heart becomes more and more responsive to the words of this prayer, you can come to the point that it will become unceasing, and the main content of the prayer will not be the uttering of words, but the constant feeling of the presence of God in your heart. And if you started by saying the prayer out loud, then gradually you will come to the fact that only the heart will say it, without the participation of the tongue or lips. You will see how prayer will transform your whole human nature, your whole life. This is the special power of the Jesus Prayer.

22. BOOKS ABOUT THE PRAYER OF JESUS. HOW IS IT CORRECT TO PRAY?

“Whatever you do, whatever you do at all times - day and night, pronounce with the lips of these Divine verbs:“ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner ”. It is not difficult: while traveling, on the road, and during work - whether you chop wood or carry water, or dig earth, or cook food. After all, one body is working in all this, and the mind is idle, so give it something that is proper and decent to its immaterial nature - to pronounce the name of God. ” This is an excerpt from the book "On the Caucasus Mountains", which was first published at the beginning of the 20th century and dedicated to prayer Jesus.

I would like to emphasize that this prayer should be learned, and preferably with the help of a spiritual guide. In the Orthodox Church there are teachers of prayer - among monastics, pastors and even laity: these are people who themselves, through experience, have learned the power of prayer. But if you do not find such a mentor - and many complain that it is difficult to find a mentor in prayer now - then you can turn to such books as "On the Caucasus Mountains" or "Frank Stories of a Wanderer to His Spiritual Father." The latter, which came out in the 19th century and was reprinted many times, speaks of a man who decided to learn to pray incessantly. He was a wanderer, went from city to city with a bag over his shoulder and with a staff, and learned to pray. He repeated the Jesus Prayer several thousand times a day.

There is also a classic five-volume collection of works of the Holy Fathers from the 4th to the 14th century - "Philosophy". This is the richest treasury of spiritual experience, it contains many instructions about the Jesus Prayer and about sobriety - the attention of the mind. Anyone who wants to learn how to pray truly should be familiar with these books.

I also cited an excerpt from the book “On the Caucasus Mountains” because many years ago, when I was a teenager, I happened to travel to Georgia, to the Caucasus Mountains, not far from Sukhumi. There I met with hermits. They lived there even in Soviet times, far from the bustle of the world, in caves, gorges and abysses, and no one knew about their existence. They lived by prayer and passed on from generation to generation the treasure of prayer experience. These were people, as it were, from another world, who had reached great spiritual heights, deep inner peace. And all this thanks to the Jesus Prayer.

May God let us learn through experienced mentors and through the books of the Holy Fathers this treasure - the unceasing performance of the Jesus Prayer.

23. "OUR FATHER, IS IN HEAVEN."

The Lord's Prayer has a special significance because it was given to us by Jesus Christ Himself. It begins with the words: "Our Father, Who art in heaven," or in Russian: "Our Father, who art in heaven." , and for the salvation of the soul. The Lord gave it to us so that we know what to pray for, what to ask God for.

The first words of this prayer: "Our Father, Who art in heaven" - reveal to us that God is not some distant abstract being, not some abstract good principle, but our Father. Today, very many people, when asked whether they believe in God, answer in the affirmative, but if you ask them how they think about God, what they think about Him, they answer something like this: “Well, God is good, this is something bright, it’s some kind of positive energy ”. That is, they treat God as a kind of abstraction, as something impersonal.

When we begin our prayer with the words “Our Father,” we immediately turn to the personal, living God, to God as Father - the Father about whom Christ spoke in the parable of the prodigal son. Many people remember the plot of this parable from the Gospel of Luke. The son decided to leave his father without waiting for his death. He received the inheritance due to him, went to a distant country, squandered this inheritance there, and when he had already reached the last limit of poverty and exhaustion, he decided to return to his father. He said to himself: “I will go to my father and say to him: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you and am no longer worthy to be called your son, but accept me among your mercenaries ”(Luke 15: 18-19). And when he was still far away, his father ran out to meet him, threw himself on his neck. The son did not even have time to say the prepared words, because the father immediately gave him a ring, a sign of filial dignity, put on his old clothes, that is, completely restored him to the dignity of a son. This is how God treats us. We are not mercenaries, but sons of God, and the Lord treats us as His children. Therefore, our relationship to God should be characterized by devotion and noble filial love.

When we say: "Our Father" it means that we do not pray in isolation, as individuals, each of whom has his own Father, but as members of the one human family, the one Church, the one Body of Christ. In other words, when we call God Father, we mean that all other people are our brothers. Moreover, when Christ teaches us to turn to God “Our Father” in prayer, He puts Himself, as it were, on the same level with us. The Monk Simeon the New Theologian said that through faith in Christ we become brothers of Christ, because we have a common Father with Him - our Heavenly Father.

As for the words “Like you are in heaven,” they do not indicate the physical sky, but that God lives in a completely different dimension than we do, that He is absolutely transcendental to us. But through prayer, through the Church, we have the opportunity to join this heaven, that is, to the other world.

24. "LET THY NAME BE HOLY"

What do the words “Hallowed be thy name” mean? The name of God is holy in itself, it carries a charge of holiness, spiritual power and the presence of God. Why is it necessary to pray with these words? Doesn't the name of God remain holy even if we don't say, “Hallowed be thy name”?

When we say: “Hallowed be thy name,” we first of all mean that the name of God must be sanctified, that is, be revealed as holy through us Christians, through our spiritual life. The Apostle Paul, addressing unworthy Christians of his time, said: “For your sake the name of God is blasphemed by the Gentiles” (Rom. 2:24). These are very important words. They talk about our inconsistency with the spiritual and moral standard that is contained in the Gospel and according to which we, Christians, are obliged to live. And this discrepancy, perhaps, is one of the main tragedies both for us as Christians and for the entire Christian Church.

The Church possesses holiness because it is built on the name of God, which is holy in itself. Members of the Church are far from meeting the standards that the Church puts forward. Often one hears reproaches, and absolutely fair ones, against Christians: “How can you prove the existence of God if you yourself live no better, and sometimes even worse than pagans and atheists? How is faith in God combined with unworthy deeds? " So, each of us should ask ourselves the question every day: “Do I, as a Christian, live up to the gospel ideal? Is the name of God sanctified through me or blasphemed? Am I an example of true Christianity, which is love, humility, meekness and mercy, or am I an example opposite to these virtues? "

Often people turn to the priest with the question: “What should I do to bring my son (daughter, husband, mother, father) to church? I tell them about God, but they don’t want to listen ”. The problem is that just isn't enough talk about God. When a person, having become a believer, tries to convert others to his faith, especially his loved ones, with the help of words, persuasion, and sometimes through coercion, insisting that they pray or go to church, this often gives the opposite result - his loved ones have rejection of everything ecclesiastical and spiritual. We will be able to bring people closer to the Church only when we ourselves become real Christians, when they, looking at us, say: “Yes, now I understand what the Christian faith can do to a person, how it can transform him, change him; I begin to believe in God because I see how Christians differ from non-Christians. "

25. "LET YOUR KINGDOM COME"

What do these words mean? After all, the Kingdom of God will inevitably come, there will be the end of the world, and humanity will pass into another dimension. Obviously, we are not praying for the end of the world, but for the Kingdom of God to come. to us, that is, to make it a reality our life so that our today's - everyday, gray, and sometimes dark, tragic - earthly life was permeated with the presence of the Kingdom of God.

What is the Kingdom of God? To answer this question, you need to turn to the Gospel and remember that the preaching of Jesus Christ began with the words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Then Christ spoke to people about His Kingdom many times, He did not mind when He was called King - for example, when He entered Jerusalem and He was greeted as the King of the Jews. Even standing at the trial, reviled, slandered, slandered, to Pilate's question, asked, apparently with irony: “Are you the King of the Jews?”, The Lord replied: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18: 33-36) ... These words of the Savior contain the answer to the question of what the Kingdom of God is. And when we turn to God, “Thy kingdom come,” we ask that this non-worldly, spiritual, Christ's Kingdom become a reality of our life, so that in our life that spiritual dimension appears, which is much talked about, but which so few know by experience.

When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to his disciples about what awaits Him in Jerusalem - torment, suffering and a godmother - the mother of two of them said to Him: Your kingdom ”(Matthew 20:21). He talked about the fact that He must suffer and die, and she imagined a Man on the royal throne and wanted her sons to be next to Him. But, as we remember, the Kingdom of God was first manifested on the cross - Christ was crucified, bleeding, and a sign hung over Him: "King of the Jews." And only then the Kingdom of God was revealed in the glorious and salvific Resurrection of Christ. It is this Kingdom that is promised to us - the Kingdom that is given by great efforts and tribulations. The path to the Kingdom of God lies through Gethsemane and Golgotha ​​- through those trials, temptations, sorrows and sufferings that fall to the lot of each of us. We must remember this when we say in prayer: "Thy kingdom come."

26. "LET THERE BE YOUR WILL, AS IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH"

We pronounce these words so easily! And very rarely do we realize that our will may not coincide with the will of God. Indeed, sometimes God sends us suffering, but we find ourselves unable to accept them as sent by God, we grumble, we are indignant. How often do people, coming to a priest, say: "I cannot agree with this and that, I understand that this is the will of God, but I cannot humble myself." What can you say to such a person? Do not tell him that, apparently, in the Lord's prayer he needs to replace the words “Thy will be done” with “My will be done”!

Each of us needs to fight to ensure that our will coincides with the good will of God. We say: "Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth." That is, the will of God, which is already being done in heaven, in the spiritual world, must be done here, on earth, and above all in our life. And we must be ready to follow the voice of God in everything. You need to find the strength to give up your own will for the sake of fulfilling the will of God. Often, when we pray, we ask God for something, but we do not receive it. And then it seems to us that the prayer was not answered. We need to find the strength to accept this “refusal” on the part of God as His will.

Let us remember Christ, who, on the eve of His death, prayed to His Father and said: "My Father, if possible, may this cup pass from Me." But this cup did not pass him, which means that the answer to prayer was different: Jesus Christ had to drink the cup of suffering, sorrow and death. Knowing this, He said to the Father: “But not as I want, but as You” (Matt. 26: 39-42).

This should also be our attitude to God's will. If we feel that some kind of sorrow is approaching us, that we are about to drink a cup for which we may not have enough strength, we can say: “Lord, if possible, may this cup of sorrow pass me by, carry it pass me by". But, like Christ, we must end the prayer with the words: "But not my will, but Thine be done."

God must be trusted. Often children ask their parents for something, but they do not give, because they consider it harmful. Years will pass, and the person will understand how right the parents were. This is the case with us. Some time passes, and we suddenly realize how much more wholesome was what the Lord sent us than what we would like to receive of our own free will.

27. "OUR BREAD, GIVE US A DAY"

We can turn to God with a variety of petitions. We can ask Him not only for something sublime and spiritual, but also for what we need on the material level. “Daily bread” is what we live by, our daily food. Moreover, in prayer we say: “Give us our daily bread today ”, that is, today. In other words, we are not asking God to provide us with everything we need for all the next days of our life. We ask Him for daily food, knowing that if He nourishes us today, He will nourish us tomorrow. By pronouncing these words, we express our trust in God: we trust Him with our lives today, as we will trust it tomorrow.

The words "daily bread" indicate what is necessary for life, and not some excesses. A person can embark on the path of acquisitiveness and, having what is necessary - a roof over his head, a piece of bread, minimal material wealth - begins to engage in hoarding, to live luxuriously. This path leads to a dead end, because what more people accumulates, the more money he has, the more he feels the emptiness of life, feeling that there are some other needs that cannot be satisfied with material goods. So, “daily bread” is what is needed. These are not limousines, not luxurious palaces, not millions of dollars, but this is something that neither we, nor our children, nor our relatives can live without.

Some people understand the words "daily bread" in a more sublime sense - as "supra-essential" or "super-essential". In particular, the Greek Church Fathers wrote that “the super-essential bread” is the bread that comes down from heaven, in other words, it is Christ Himself, whom Christians receive in the sacrament of Holy Communion. This understanding is also justified, because, in addition to material bread, a person also needs spiritual bread.

Everyone puts their own content into the concept of "daily bread". During the war, one boy, while praying, said: “Give us this day our dried bread,” because the main food was rusks. What the boy and his family needed to sustain life was dried bread. It may seem funny or sad, but it shows that every person - both old and young - asks God for exactly what he needs most, without which he cannot live a single day.

Home prayer is not much different from prayer in the temple. The only exception is that it is allowed to commemorate all, without exception, people, regardless of their religious affiliation. It is customary in the church to pray for “our own” and only mentally, so as not to disturb others. At home, you can pray aloud, provided that it does not irritate relatives. One should become fully clothed for prayer. It is advisable for women to have a headscarf on their heads and be in a dress or skirt.

Why pray at home?
A conversation with the Lord can be conducted both in your own words and in ready-made "formulas" developed long before us by many generations of believers. Classical prayers are contained in the "Prayer Book" ("Canon"). You can buy it at any religious literature store. "Prayer books" can be short (containing the minimum required prayers), full (intended for priests) and ... ordinary (which has everything that is needed for a true believer).

If you want to truly pray, make sure that your Prayer Book contains:

• morning and evening (for future sleep) prayers;
  
• daytime (before the beginning and end of any business, before eating and eating food, etc.);
  
• canons by days of the week and "The Canon of Repentance to Our Lord Jesus Christ";
  
• akathists ("To our sweetest Lord Jesus Christ", "The Most Holy Theotokos", etc.);
  
• "Follow-up to Holy Communion ..." and the prayers read after it.
  

Modern Prayer Books are published in Church Slavonic and Russian, reproducing Church Slavonic words in the letters we are accustomed to. And in that, and in the other version, words are stressed. For people unfamiliar with the Church Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic) language, it is better to pray according to the "Russian" "Prayer Book". Once the basic prayers are mastered and perhaps even learned, you can acquire a more "ancient" book. This is worth doing at least for the sake of the grace that comes from Church Slavonic words. It's hard to explain, so just take my word for it.

In addition to the "Prayer Book" for home prayer you can purchase the "Psalter". In Orthodox practice, one hundred and fifty psalms must be read in a week. It is customary to read the Psalter post twice. On "Glory ..." there is a commemoration of the living and the dead. An Orthodox Christian can read the Psalter at the grave of the deceased.

Reading the Psalter is a serious and responsible thing. Before you go to it, you should get permission from the priest.

Prayer Rule
Each of us is at his own point on the long path to the Lord. Each of us has his own temporal and physical abilities for prayer. Accordingly, there is no single prayer rule for everyone. Each person should pray as much as he can. How much exactly? This must be determined by the priest.

Ideally, each of us should be sure to read morning and evening prayers. They are necessary to protect the soul during the day (morning) and night (evening) from evil forces and people. Those who start their working day very early or, conversely, finish it too late and do not have either the time or the energy to read the entire morning or evening rule, can limit themselves to basic prayers: for example, in the morning read Our Father, Have mercy on me God .. "(the fiftieth psalm) and" The Symbol of Faith ", in the evening - the prayer of St. John Chrysostom," May God rise ... "and" Confession of sins everyday. "

If you have free time and desire, you can read the corresponding canons every day: for example, on Monday pray to your Guardian Angel, Archangels and Angels, on Tuesday - John the Baptist, on Wednesday - the Most Holy Theotokos, etc. Reading the Psalter also depends on your capabilities, desires and time.

Prayer before and after meals is a must.

How to pray before the sacrament?
The answer to this question is usually found in the Prayer Book. We just recall: all prayers performed before Communion are read at home, on the eve of the sacrament. On the eve of Communion, you must visit evening worship, after which you can begin to pray with peace of mind. Before Communion, you must read:

• "Follow-up to Holy Communion ...";
  
• three canons: penitential, to the Guardian Angel and the Most Holy Theotokos;
  
• one of the akathists;
  
• full evening prayers.
  

Home prayer is performed in front of the icons, standing, with the sign of the cross and bows in the waist. If you wish, you can do prostrations or pray on your knees.

During prayer, it is advisable not to be distracted by extraneous matters - phone calls, a whistling kettle, flirting of pets.

With severe fatigue and a great desire for prayer, it is allowed to pray while sitting. The Psalter, with the exception of Glory ... and the prayers that close kathisma, are also read while sitting.

Although prayer requires a certain amount of concentration and attention, it is helpful to pray through force as well. Our brain may not perceive what we have read, but the soul will surely hear everything and receive its portion of divine grace.

Why is there mental fatigue? Can a soul be empty?

Why can't it? If there is no prayer, it will be both empty and tired. The Holy Fathers do the following. The man is tired, he has no strength to pray, he says to himself: "Maybe your fatigue from demons", gets up and prays. And a person has strength. So the Lord arranged it. In order for the soul to be not empty and to have strength, one must accustom oneself to the Jesus prayer - "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (or a sinner)."

How to spend a day in God?

In the morning, when we are still resting, they are already standing near our bed - with right side An angel, and a demon on the left. They are waiting for whom we will begin to serve on this day. And you need to start the day like this. Waking up, immediately shield yourself with the sign of the cross and jump out of bed so that laziness remains under the covers, and we find ourselves in the holy corner. Then make three bows to the ground and turn to the Lord with these words: "Lord, I thank You for the last night, bless me for the day ahead, bless me and bless this day, and help to spend it in prayer, in good deeds, and save me from all enemies visible and invisible. " And immediately we begin to read the Jesus Prayer. After washing and dressing, we will stand in the holy corner, collect our thoughts, concentrate so that nothing distracts us and begin our morning prayers. Having finished them, let's read the chapter from the Gospel. And right there, let's figure out what a good deed we can do today to our neighbor ... It's time to go to work. Here you also need to pray: before leaving the door, say the following words of St. John Chrysostom: "I deny you, Satan, your pride and service to you, and I am combined with You, Christ, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen." Autumn yourself with the sign of the cross, and leaving the house, imperceptibly cross the road. On the way to work, and for any business, we must read the Jesus prayer and "Virgin Mary, rejoice ..." let's light it from the lamp. Then food will not harm us, but benefit, in strengthening not only bodily, but also mental strength, especially if we cook, constantly reading the Jesus Prayer.

There is not always a sense of grace after morning or evening prayers. Sometimes drowsiness interferes with prayer. How can you avoid this?

Demons do not like prayer, as soon as a person begins to pray, drowsiness and absent-mindedness also attack. You must try to delve into the words of the prayer, and then you will feel it. But the Lord does not always comfort the soul. The most valuable prayer is when a person does not want to pray, but he forces himself ... A small child cannot stand and walk yet. But his parents take him, put him on his feet, support him, and he feels help, stands firmly. And when the parents let go, he immediately falls down and cries. Likewise, when the Lord - our Heavenly Father - supports us with His grace, we can do everything, are ready to move mountains and pray well and easily. But as soon as grace departs from us, we immediately fall - we just can't walk spiritually. And here you have to reconcile and say: "Lord, I am nothing without You." And when a person understands this, the mercy of God will help him. And we often rely only on ourselves: I am strong, I can stand, I can and walk ... Behold, the Lord takes away grace, therefore we fall, suffer and suffer - from our pride, we rely a lot on ourselves.

How can you become attentive in prayer?

In order for prayer to pass through our attention, there is no need to rattle, do proofreading; rattled - and calmed down, postponed the Prayer Book. At first they delve into every word; without haste, calmly, evenly, one must tune oneself to prayer. We begin to gradually enter it, there you can read quickly, all the same, every word will enter the soul. It is necessary for the prayer so that it does not pass by. And then we will fill the air with sound, but the heart remains empty.

The Jesus Prayer does not work for me. What do you recommend?

If the prayer does not go, then sins interfere. As we repent, we must try to read this prayer as often as possible: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! (Or a sinner)." last word... In order to constantly recite this prayer, you need to lead a special spiritual life, and most importantly, to find humility. We must consider ourselves worse than everyone, worse than any creature, endure vilifications, insults, not grumble and not blame anyone. Then the prayer will go. You need to start praying in the morning. How is the mill? That in the morning he fell asleep, then he will pray all day. As soon as we woke up, immediately: "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Lord, I thank You for the last night, bless me for today. Mother of God, I thank You for the last night, bless me for today. Lord, strengthen me in me. faith, send me the grace of the Holy Spirit! Give me a Christian end, not shameful and kind answer on the day of the Last Judgment. Guardian Angel, thank you for the last night, bless me for today, save me from all enemies visible and invisible. Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! " Just like that, read it and read it right away. We dress with prayer and wash. We read the morning prayers, again 500 times the Jesus Prayer. This is a charge for the whole day. He gives a person energy, strength, expels darkness and emptiness from the soul. A person will no longer walk and be indignant at something, make noise, be annoyed. When a person constantly reads the Jesus Prayer, the Lord will reward for his labors, this prayer begins to be created in the mind. A person concentrates all his attention in the words of prayer. But you can only pray with a feeling of repentance. As soon as the thought comes: "I am a saint," you should know that this is a pernicious path, this thought is from the devil.

The confessor said "to begin with, read at least 500 Jesus prayers." It’s like at a mill - that they fell asleep in the morning, it grinds all day. But if the confessor said “only 500 prayers,” then more than 500 should not be read. Why? Because everything is given according to one's strength, according to the spiritual level of each person. Otherwise, you can easily fall into delusion, and then you will not approach such a "saint". In the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, one elder had a novice. This elder lived in the monastery for 50 years, and the novice just came from the world. And he decided to strive. Without the blessing of the elder, the early Liturgy would be defended, and the late one, he appointed a great rule for himself and read everything, he was constantly in prayer. After 2 years, he achieved great "perfection". The "angels" began to appear to him (they covered only their horns and tails). He was deceived by this, came to the elder and said: "You lived here for 50 years and did not learn to pray, but in two years I reached heights - the Angels are already to me. I am all in grace .. There is no place on earth like you. I'll strangle you. " Well, the elder managed to knock on the neighboring cell; another monk came, this "saint" was tied up. And the next morning they sent them to the cowshed, and were allowed only once a month to attend the liturgy: but they forbade praying (until they put up with it) ... In Russia, we are very fond of prayer books, ascetics, but true ascetics will never show themselves off. Holiness is measured not by prayers, not by deeds, but by humility, obedience. Only he has achieved something who considers himself the most sinful of all, worse than any cattle.

How can one learn to pray purely, undistractedly?

We must start in the morning. The Holy Fathers advise that it is good to pray before we eat. But as soon as the food has been tasted, it immediately becomes difficult to pray. If a person absentmindedly prays, it means that he prays little and infrequently. The one who constantly abides in prayer has a living, undistracted prayer.

Prayer loves a pure life, without sins burdening the soul. For example, we have a telephone in our apartment. The kids were naughty and cut the wire with scissors. No matter how many numbers we dial, we will not get through to anywhere. It is necessary to reconnect the wires, restore the interrupted connection. Likewise, if we want to turn to God and be heard, we must establish our connection with Him - to repent of our sins, to clear our consciences. Unrepentant sins are like a blank wall, through which prayer does not reach God.

I shared with a woman close to me, telling that you gave me the Theotokos rule. But I am not doing it. I do not always follow the private rule either. What should I do?

When you are given a separate rule, don't tell anyone about it. Demons will hear and will certainly steal your exploits. I know hundreds of people who had a prayer, from morning to evening read the Jesus Prayer, akathists, canons - the whole soul was blissful. As soon as they shared with someone, they boasted of a prayer, everything disappeared. And they have neither prayer nor bows.

I am often distracted during prayer or business. What to do - keep praying or pay attention to the newcomer?

Well, since we have in the first place the commandment of God to love one's neighbor, it means that we must put everything aside and pay attention to the guest. One holy elder was praying in his cell and saw through the window that his brother was coming to him. So the elder, so as not to show that he is a prayer book, went to bed and lies. He read a prayer near the door: "Through the prayers of the saints, our father, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us." And the old man gets out of bed and says: "Amen." His brother came to see him, he received him with love, treated him to tea - that is, he showed love for him. And this is the most important thing!

Often in our life it happens: we read evening prayers, and suddenly a call (by phone or at the door). How are we to be? Of course, we must immediately answer the call, leaving prayer behind. We found out everything with the person and again we continue the prayer from the place where we finished. True, we also have such visitors who come not to talk about God, not about the salvation of the soul, but to condemn and condemn someone. And we should already know such friends; when they come to us, invite them to read together the akathist prepared in advance for such an occasion, or the Gospel, or a holy book. Tell them: "My joy, let's pray, we honor the akathist." If they come to you with a sincere sense of friendship, they will read. And if not, then they will find a thousand reasons, immediately remember urgent matters and run away. If you agree to chat with them, then both the "poorly fed husband at home" and the "uncleaned apartment" are not a hindrance to your friend ... Once in Siberia I saw an interesting scene. One is coming from the pumping station, there are two buckets on the rocker, the second is from the store, in the hands of full bags. We met and had a conversation between them ... And I’m watching them. Their conversation is something like this: "Well, how is your daughter-in-law? And your son?" And gossip begins. Poor women! One shifts the rocker from shoulder to shoulder, the other hand pulls the bag. And all that was necessary was to spill over with a few words ... Moreover, the dirt - the bags cannot be put in ... And it costs not two, but ten, and twenty, and thirty minutes. And they don't think about gravity, the most important thing is that they learned the news, fed the soul, amused the evil spirit. And if they call to church, they say: "It's hard for us to stand, our legs hurt, our back hurts." And standing with buckets and bags doesn't hurt! The main thing is that the tongue does not hurt! I don’t want to pray, but to chat and I have strength, and my tongue is well hung: "We will test everyone, we will find out about everything."

The best thing is to wake up, wash up and start the day with morning prayers. After that, the Jesus Prayer must be read with attention. This is a huge charge for our soul. And with this "recharge" we will have this prayer in our thoughts throughout the day. Many say that when they stand up for prayer, they are absent-minded. You can believe it, because if you read a little in the morning and a little in the evening, nothing will be in your heart. We will always pray - and repentance will live in our hearts. After the morning - "Jesus" prayer as a continuation, and after the day - evening prayers as a continuation of the day. And so we will be constantly in prayer and will not be scattered. Do not think that it is very difficult, very difficult to pray. You need to make an effort, overpower yourself, ask the Lord, the Mother of God and grace will work in us. We will be given the desire to pray at all times.

And when prayer enters the soul, the heart, then these people try to move away from everyone, to hide in secluded places. They can even climb into the cellar, just to be with the Lord, in prayer. The soul melts into Divine Love.

In order to achieve such a state of mind, you have to work very hard on yourself, on your "I".

When should you pray in your own words, and when according to the Prayer Book?

When you wanted to pray, at this time and pray to the Lord; "out of the abundance of the heart, speak the mouth" (Matthew 12: 34).

Prayer is especially useful to the soul of a person when there is a need for it. Let's say a mother's daughter or son is lost. Or they took their son to jail. Here you will not pray according to the Prayer Book. A believing mother will immediately kneel down and speak to the Lord from the abundance of her heart. There is a prayer from the heart. So you can pray to God at any place; wherever we are, God hears our prayers. He knows the secrets of our heart. Even we ourselves do not know what is in our heart. And God is the Creator, He knows everything. So you can pray in transport, anywhere, in any society. So Christ says: "But when you pray, go into your room (i.e., inside yourself) and, having closed your door, pray to your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly" (Matt. 6.6). When we do good, when we give alms, then we must do so so that no one knows about it. Christ says: "When you do alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret" (Matthew 6: 3-4). That is, not literally, as grandmothers understand - they serve only with their right hand. And if a person does not right hand? And if both hands are missing? Good can be done without hands. The main thing is that no one should see it. Good must be done secretly. All the boastful, proud, self-loving for show do a good deed in order to get praise, earthly glory from this. They will say to her: "How good, how kind! Helps everyone, gives everyone."

I often wake up at night, always at the same time. Does this mean anything?

If we woke up at night, then there is an opportunity to pray. We prayed - go to bed again. But, if this happens often, you need to take a blessing from your confessor.

Once I talked with one person. He says:

Father Ambrose, tell me, have you ever seen demons with your own eyes?

Demons are spirits, they cannot be seen with simple eyes. But they can materialize, taking on the form of an old man, a boy, a girl, an animal; they can take any form. A non-church person cannot understand this. Even believers fall for his tricks. Do you want to see? Here, I have a woman I know in Sergiev Posad, her spiritual father gave her a rule - to read the Psalter per day. It is incessantly necessary to burn candles, without haste to read - it will take 8 hours. In addition, the canons, akathists, the Jesus Prayer must be read in the rule, and only lean food must be eaten once a day. When she began to pray (and this had to be done for 40 days) with the blessing of her confessor, he warned her: "If you pray - if there are any temptations, then do not pay attention, continue to pray." She accepted it. On the 20th day of strict fasting and almost incessant prayer (she had to sleep while sitting for 3-4 hours), she heard the locked door open and there were heavy footsteps - the floor was cracking. This is the 3rd floor. Someone approached her from behind and began to breathe near her ear; breathing so deeply! At this time, from head to toe she was bathed in cold and shivering. I wanted to turn around, but I remembered the warning and thought: "If I turn around, I won't stay alive." So she prayed to the end.

Then she looked - everything was in place: the door was locked, everything was fine. Further, on the 30th day, a new temptation. I was reading the Psalter and heard how from the back of the windows the cats began to meow, cross, and climb out the window. Scratching - that's all! And she survived it. Someone from the street threw a stone - glass to smithereens, stone and fragments on the floor. You can't turn around! The cold went through the window, but I read everything to the end. And when she finished reading, she looks - the window is intact, there is no stone. It is demonic forces that attack a person.

The Monk Silouan the Athonite, when he prayed, slept sitting for two hours. His spiritual eyes were opened and he began to see evil spirits. I saw them with my own eyes. They have horns, ugly faces, hooves on their feet, with tails ...

The person with whom I spoke is very obese - over 100 kg, loves to eat deliciously - and eats meat, and everything. I say: "Behold, you start fasting and praying, then you will see everything, hear everything, feel everything."

How to thank the Lord correctly - in your own words or is there some special prayer?

You must thank the Lord with your whole life. There is a prayer of thanksgiving in the prayer book, but it is very valuable to pray in your own words. The Monk Benjamin lived in one monastery. The Lord allowed him an illness - dropsy. He became huge, the little finger could only be grasped with two hands. A huge chair was made for him. When the brothers came to him, he showed his joy in every possible way, said: "Dear brothers, rejoice with me. The Lord has mercy on me, the Lord has forgiven me." The Lord gave him such an illness, but he did not grumble, did not despair, rejoiced over the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the soul, and thanked the Lord. No matter how many years we live, the main thing is to remain faithful to God in everything. For five years I carried on in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, difficult obedience - I confessed day and night. I had no strength left, I could not stand even for 10 minutes - my legs did not hold. And then the Lord granted polyarthritis - he lay for 6 months, with acute pain in the joints. As soon as the inflammation passed, I began to walk around the room with a stick. Then he began to go out into the street: 100 meters, 200, 500 ... More and more each time ... And then, in the evenings, when there were few people, he began to walk 5 kilometers; left the stick. In the spring the Lord gave - and stopped limping. The Lord preserves to this day. He knows who needs it. Therefore - thank the Lord for everything.

You need to pray everywhere and always: at home, at work, and in transport. If your legs are strong, it is better to pray while standing, and if you are sick, then, as the elders say, it is better to think about God during prayer than about sick legs.

Is it okay to cry while praying?

Can. Tears of repentance are not tears of evil and resentment, they wash our souls from sins. The more we cry, the better. It is very valuable to cry during prayer. When we pray - we read prayers - and at this time on some words our mind lingered (they penetrated into our soul), we do not need to skip them, speed up the prayer; return to these words, and read until the soul dissolves in feeling and begins to cry. The soul is praying at this time. When the soul is in prayer, and even with tears, next to her is the Guardian Angel; he prays next to us. Any sincerely believing person from practice knows that the Lord hears his prayer. We turn the words of prayer to God, and He, by grace, returns them to our hearts, and the heart of the believer feels that the Lord accepts his prayer.

When I read prayers, I often get distracted. Shouldn't I quit praying?

No. Read the prayer anyway. It is very useful, going out into the street, to walk and read the Jesus Prayer. It can be read in any position: standing, sitting, lying ... Prayer is a conversation with God. Now, we can tell our neighbor everything - both sorrows and joys. But the Lord is closer than any neighbor. He knows all our thoughts, the secrets of the heart. He hears all our prayers, but sometimes he hesitates to fulfill them, which means that what we ask is not for the benefit of our soul (or not for the benefit of our neighbor). Any prayer should be ended with the words: "Lord, Thy will be done. Not as I want, but as You are."

What is the daily prayer rule for an Orthodox layman?

There is a rule and it is obligatory for everyone. These are morning and evening prayers, one chapter from the Gospel, two chapters from the Epistles, one kathisma, three canons, akathist, 500 Jesus prayers, 50 bows (and with blessing you can do more).

Once I ask one person:

Do I have to have lunch and dinner every day?

It is necessary, - he replies, - but apart from that I can intercept something, drink some tea.

And pray? If our body requires food, isn't it even worse for the soul? We feed the body so that the soul is kept in the body and it is cleansed, sanctified, freed from sin, so that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. It is necessary that she be united with God here already. And the body is the clothing of the soul, which grows old, dies and crumbles into the dust of the earth. And we pay special attention to this temporary, perishable. We really care about him! We feed, and drink, and paint, and we dress in fashionable rags, and we give rest - we pay a lot of attention. And for the soul, sometimes our concern does not remain. Have you read the morning prayers?

This means that you cannot even have breakfast (i.e., have dinner, Christians never have breakfast). And if you are not going to read even the evening, then you cannot even have supper. And you can't drink tea.

I will starve to death!

So your soul is dying of hunger! Now, when a person makes this rule the norm of his life, then in his soul there is peace, peace and quiet. The Lord sends grace, and the Mother of God and the Angel of the Lord pray. In addition, Christians still pray to the saints, read other akathists, the soul eats like this, is content and happy, peaceful, a person is saved. But you don't have to read like some, do proofreading. They read it, rammed it off - through the air, but it didn't get into the soul. Just touch this - flared up! But he considers himself a great prayer book - he "prays" very well. The Apostle Paul says: "It is better to say five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than the darkness of words in an unfamiliar language" (1 Cor. 14:19) Better five words will pass into the soul than darkness of words past the soul.

You can read akathists at least every day. I knew one woman (her name was Pelagia), she read 15 akathists every day. The Lord gave her special grace. Some Orthodox Christians have collected many akathists - both 200 and 500. They usually read a certain akathist every holiday celebrated by the Church. For example, tomorrow is the feast of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. People who have an akathist for this holiday will read it.

Akathists read well for fresh memory, i.e. in the morning, when the mind is not burdened with everyday affairs. It is very good to pray in general from morning until lunchtime, as long as the body is not burdened with food. Then there is an opportunity to feel every word from akathists, canons.

All prayers and akathists are best read aloud. Why? Because words enter the soul through the ear and are better remembered. I constantly hear: "We cannot learn prayers ..." And they do not need to be taught - they just need to be read constantly, every day - in the morning and in the evening, and they are remembered by themselves. If "Our Father" is not remembered, then it is necessary to attach a piece of paper with this prayer where our dining table is.

Many refer to bad memory in old age, and when you start asking them, you ask different everyday questions, everyone remembers. They remember who was born when, in what year, everyone's birthdays are remembered. They know how much is now in the store and on the market - and after all, prices are constantly changing! They know how much bread, salt and butter cost. Everyone remembers perfectly. You ask: "What street do you live on?" - everyone will say. Very good memory. But they just can't remember the prayers. And this is because our flesh comes first. And we really care about the flesh, we all remember what it needs. And we don't care about our souls, that's why our memory is bad for all that is good. We are masters of bad things ...

The holy fathers say that those who daily read the canons to the Savior, the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel, the saints are especially protected by the Lord and from all demonic misfortunes and evil people.

If you come to any boss for an appointment, you will see on his door a sign "Reception hours from ... to ..." You can turn to God at any time. The night prayer is especially valuable. When a person prays at night, then, as the holy fathers say, this prayer is, as it were, paid for in gold. But in order to pray at night, you need to take the priest's blessing, because there is a danger: a person may become proud that he is praying at night and fall into delusion, or demons will especially attack him. Through the blessing, the Lord will protect this person.

Sitting or standing? If your legs do not hold, then you can kneel down and read. If your knees are tired, you can read while sitting. It is better to sit while thinking about God than while standing to think about your legs. And one more thing: prayer without bowing is a premature fruit. Admirers must be done.

Now many are talking about the benefits of reviving paganism in Russia. Maybe, really, paganism is not so bad?

V Ancient rome gladiator fights were held in circuses. One hundred thousand people gathered for this spectacle, filling the benches through the numerous entrances in ten minutes. And everyone was thirsty for blood! They craved a spectacle! The two gladiators fought. In the struggle, one of them could fall, and then the second put his foot on his chest, raised his sword over the defeated one and watched what sign the patricians would give him. If the fingers are raised up, it means that you can leave the opponent to live, if down, it was necessary to take his life. Most often they demanded death. And the people triumphed seeing the blood shed. Such was the pagan fun.

In our Russia, forty years ago, one acrobat walked on a cable high under a circus dome. She stumbled and fell. The net was stretched underneath. It did not crash, but something else is important. All the spectators stood up as one and hummed: "Is she alive? Faster than a doctor!" What does this mean? That they did not want death, but worried about the gymnast. The spirit of love was alive in the minds of people.

Otherwise, the younger generation is being brought up now. On the TV screen there are action films with murders, blood, pornography, horrors, space wars, aliens - demonic forces ... People from an early age get used to scenes of violence. What is left for the child? Having seen enough of these pictures, he gets a weapon and shoots his classmates, who, in turn, mocked him. There are so many such cases in America! God forbid, and this will begin with us.

Sometimes contract killings were committed in Moscow before. And now the scale of crime, mortality at the hands of killers has gone up sharply. Three to four people are killed a day. And the Lord said: "Thou shalt not kill!" (Ex. 20,13); "... those who do this will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:21) - they will all go into the fire of hell.

I often have to go to prisons, confess prisoners. I also confess the death row. They repent of the killings: some were ordered, and some killed in Afghanistan, Chechnya. They killed two hundred seventy, three hundred people. They calculated themselves. it terrible sins! War is one thing, and another is to order to deprive a person of the life that you did not give him.

When you confess about ten murderers and you get out of prison, then just wait: demons will surely arrange intrigues, there will be some troubles.

Every priest knows how evil spirits take revenge for helping people to free themselves from sins. One mother came to the Monk Seraphim of Sarov:

Father, pray: my son died without repentance. Out of modesty, at first he refused, humbled himself, and then yielded to the request, began to pray. And the woman saw that, praying, he rose above the floor. The elder said:

Mother, your son is saved. Go, pray yourself, thank God.

She left. And before his death, the Monk Seraphim showed his cell attendant the body, from where the demons pulled out a piece:

This is how the demons take revenge for every soul!

It is not so easy to pray for the salvation of people.

Orthodox Russia has accepted the Spirit of Christ, and the pagan West wants to finish it off for this, thirsts for blood.

The Orthodox faith is the most impartial for a person. It obliges you to live a strict life on earth. And the Catholics promise the soul a purgatory after death, where you can repent and be saved ...

There is no such concept of "purgatory" in the Orthodox Church. According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, if a person lived righteously and passed into other world, then he is rewarded with eternal joy, such a person can receive reward for his good deeds, living on earth, in the form of peace, joy, peace of mind.

If a person lived uncleanly, did not repent and went into the other world, then he falls into the clutches of demons. Before their death, such people are usually dull, desperate, graceless, joyless. Their souls after death, languishing in torment, await the prayers of their relatives, the prayers of the Church. When intense prayer goes for the departed, the Lord frees their souls from hellish torments.

Church prayer also helps the righteous, those who have not yet received the fullness of grace during their earthly life. The fullness of grace and joy is possible only after this soul is assigned to Paradise at the Last Judgment. It is impossible to feel their fullness on earth. Only the chosen saints merged here with the Lord so that they were raptured by the Spirit into the Kingdom of God.

Orthodoxy is often called the "religion of fear": "here will be the second coming, everyone will be punished, eternal torment ..." And the Protestants talk about something else. So will punishment for unrepentant sinners, or will the love of the Lord cover everything?

Atheists have long deceived us, talking about the emergence of religion. They said that people could not explain this or that phenomenon of nature and began to deify it, to enter into religious contact with it. It used to be thunder, people were hiding in the underground, in the basement, they were sitting there, afraid. They think that their pagan god was angry and now he will punish or a tornado will strike, or solar eclipse will begin...

This is a pagan fear. The Christian God is Love. And we should not fear God because He will punish us, we should be afraid to offend Him with our sins. And if we have departed from God and brought trouble upon ourselves, we do not hide underground from the wrath of God, do not wait for the wrath of God to pass by. On the contrary, we go to confession, turn to God with a prayer of repentance, ask God for mercy, pray. Christians do not hide from God, on the contrary, they themselves seek to Him for a solution from sins. And God gives the penitent a Helping Hand, covers it with His grace.

And the Church warns that there will be a Second Coming, the Last Judgment, not in order to intimidate. If you are walking along the road, there is a pit in front and they tell you: "Be careful, do not fall, do not stumble", are you intimidated? They warn you, help you avoid danger. So the Church says: "Do not sin, do not harm your neighbor, all this will turn against you."

It is not necessary to portray God as a villain because He does not accept sinners into Paradise. In Paradise, unrepentant souls cannot live, they cannot bear the light and purity that are there, as they cannot bear bright light sore eyes.

It all depends on ourselves, on our behavior and prayers.

The Lord can change everything through prayer. One woman came to us from Krasnodar. Her son was imprisoned. An investigation was underway. She came to one judge, he said to her: "Your son is shining for eight years." He was somehow very tempted. She came to me, cried, sobbed: "Father, pray, what to do? The judge asks for five thousand dollars, but I don't have that kind of money." I say: "You know, mother, you will pray, the Lord will not leave you! What is his name?" She said his name, we prayed. And in the morning she comes:

Father, I'm going there now. The question is being decided whether they will be imprisoned or released.

The Lord put it in my heart to tell her so:

You will pray, God will arrange everything.

I prayed all night. After lunch she returned, said:

The son was released. They acquitted him. We sorted it out and let it go. Everything is fine.

This mother had so much joy, so much faith that the Lord heard her. And the son was not to blame, he was simply framed in business.

The son completely got out of hand, does not speak, does not obey. He is seventeen. How can I pray for him?

It is necessary to recite the prayer "Mother of God, Virgin, rejoice" 150 times. The Monk Seraphim of Sarov said that whoever walks in Diveyevo along the groove of the Mother of God and reads "Theotokos, Virgin, rejoice" one hundred and fifty times, is under the special protection of the Mother of God. The Holy Fathers constantly talked about the veneration of the Mother of God, about the prayerful appeal to Her for help. The prayer of the Mother of God has great power... Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the grace of God will descend on both mother and child. Righteous John of Kronstadt says: "If all the angels, saints, all people living on earth come together and pray, the prayer of the Mother of God in power surpasses all their prayers.

I remember one family. It was while we were ministering in the ward. One mother, Natalia, had two girls - Liza and Katya. Liza is thirteen or fourteen years old, she was capricious, headstrong. And although she went to church with my mother, she remained very restless. I wondered at my mother’s patience. Every morning he gets up and says to his daughter:

Lisa, let's pray!

Everyone, mom, I read prayers!

Read fast, read slowly!

Mom did not pull her back, patiently fulfilled all her requests. At this time, the daughter was useless to beat and pound. Mother suffered. Time passed, my daughter grew up, became calmer. Prayer together did her good.

There is no need to be afraid of temptations. The Lord will keep this family. Prayer has never hurt anyone. It only benefits our soul. It hurts us to boast: "I have read the Psalter for the deceased." We boast, and that is sin.

It is customary to read the Psalter at the head of the deceased. Reading the Psalter is very useful for the soul of that person who constantly went to church and passed into that world with repentance. The holy fathers say: when we read the Psalter over the deceased, for example, for forty days, then sins fly away from deceased soul, how autumn leaves from the tree.

How to pray for the living or the departed, is it possible to represent a person at the same time?

The mind must be clean. When we pray, we should not represent God, the Mother of God, the saint: neither Their faces, nor their position. The mind must be free from images. Moreover, when we pray for a person, we just need to remember that such a person exists. And if you imagine images, you can damage your mind. The Holy Fathers forbid this.

I'm twenty-four years old. As a child, I laughed at my grandfather, who talked to himself. Now that he died, I began to talk to myself. An inner voice tells me that if I pray for him, then this vice will slowly leave me. Do I need to pray for him?

Everyone needs to know: if we condemn a person in some kind of vice, we will certainly fall into it ourselves. Therefore, it is said by the Lord: "Do not judge and you will not be judged. With what judgment you judge, so you will be judged."

It is imperative to pray for grandfather. Serve for mass, memorial notes for requiem, commemorate in the morning and evening in home prayers. It will be of great benefit to his soul and to us.

When praying at home, is it necessary to cover your head with a handkerchief?

“Every woman praying or prophesying with her head open shames her head, for it is the same as if she had been shaved,” says the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 11: 5). Orthodox Christians, not only in church, but also at home, cover their heads with a kerchief: "A wife should have on her head the sign of the Angels' authority over her" (1 Cor. 11:10).

Civilian authorities are organizing additional bus routes to the cemeteries for Easter. Is it correct? It seems to me that on this day the main thing is to be in the church and there to commemorate the dead.

For the departed there is a special day of remembrance - "Radonitsa". It happens on Tuesday, the second week after Easter. On this day, all Orthodox Christians go to congratulate their departed on the universal holiday of Easter, the Resurrection of Christ. And on the very day of Easter, believers should pray in the church.

City-run routes for people who don't go to church. Let them at least go there, at least remember about death and the finiteness of earthly existence.

Can I watch live broadcasts of services from the temples and pray? Often there is not enough health and strength to be present in the temple, but you want to touch the Divine with your soul ...

The Lord vouchsafed me to visit a holy place, at the Holy Sepulcher. We had a video camera with us, and we filmed Holy place... Then they showed the footage to a priest. He saw the frames of the Holy Sepulcher and says: "Stop this frame." He bowed to the ground and said: "I have never been at the Holy Sepulcher." And he kissed the image of the Holy Sepulcher directly.

Of course, the image on TV cannot be worshiped, we have icons. The case I have told is an exception to the rule. The priest did this in the simplicity of his heart, out of a sense of reverence for the depicted shrine.

On holidays, all Orthodox Christians should strive to be in church. And if there is no health, strength to move, watch the broadcast, stay with the Lord with your soul. Let our soul, together with the Lord, participate in His feast.

Can I wear the "Live Aid" belt?

One person came to me. I ask him:

What prayers do you know?

Of course, I even carry "Live Aid" with me.

I got the documents, and there he had the 90th psalm "Alive in Vyshnyago's help" rewritten. The man says: "Mother wrote to me, gave it to me, now I always carry it with me. Can I?" - "Of course, it's good that you wear this prayer, but if you don't read it, what's the point? It's the same as when you are hungry and carry bread and food with you, but don't eat. You are weakening, you can die. In the same way," Alive help "are written not so that you can wear them in your pocket or on your belt, but so that you can pull them out, read, pray to the Lord every day. If you do not pray, you can die ... That's when you, hungry, got bread , ate, strengthened your strength and you can calmly work in the sweat of your brow.

Over the past 3 weeks, 2 people have asked me to teach them how to pray. This surprised me a little (although it made me happy), because I do not have any clergy or religious education, so it’s strange that they asked such a question to me. But in fact, these people simply did not even know who they could ask such questions, and the soul's need for prayer was ripe.

I do not have a dignity and education, but I will share my experience with pleasure. My knowledge of the prayer rule is based on what my spiritual mentor recommended and on the lectures of the holy fathers that I listened to. I will try to tell everything as simply as possible. So, if you are interested in information of this kind, then welcome under cat. If you have any questions on the topic - welcome to kamenty; questions about "how I, a person with 2 higher educations, believe in the fairy tales of the aborigines", please do not send :)

What do I need?
Select a corner in your home where you will have icons. Icons cannot be nailed to the wall, it is better that they stand on something (shelf or stand). Be sure to purchase an icon of Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos, and the faces of other saints - if you wish. By the way, as a rule, very kind grandmothers work in church stalls, who will be happy to answer all your questions. Just come in the afternoon, when there is no service and few people, and ask you to tell more about the icons that you like.

What is the best way to pray?
It is best to pray while standing, in front of the icons, with your back straight. Fold your arms in a boat near your chest. During prayer, the eyes can be kept both closed and open. With open eyes, you will be able to see icons, in which, in fact, there is so much purity and light that sometimes it is simply impossible to take your eyes off. With your eyes closed, you plunge into a certain meditation, so it is more convenient to focus on prayer. So the choice is yours. If possible, read your prayers aloud. If not, in a whisper. Most likely, during prayer, your mind will constantly disappear and you will think of something else. It's okay, that's how it happens for everyone, especially at first. Just keep track of these moments and return your thoughts and hearts to prayer.

When is the best time to pray?
You need to read prayers in the morning and in the evening. Take a shower in the morning, brush your teeth, and only then start prayer. In the evening, prayers are best read before going to bed. Before reading the prayers, you need to say "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" three times and cross yourself three times. It is with these words (also three times) that the prayer rule must be completed.

What prayers to read
There are 2 options here. The first is complete and most correct. All prayers are recited 3 times. Perhaps at first glance, the list of prayers seems too long, and the prayers themselves too, but in fact, reading all the prayers three times takes 15 minutes. The second option is short, mainly for those who have little time or who are just starting to pray and the large number of prayers scares him a little. It takes about 1.5 minutes. So, how much time a day to devote to prayer - half an hour or 3 minutes, everyone decides for himself. God will accept both options :)) I highly recommend every time after prayers to turn to God and the saints in your own words. You can talk about your problems and experiences, about what weighs on your heart. You can talk about dreams and ask for mercy. But remember, you can ask for anything, and for anyone, just not material goods.

Option 1:

Prayer to the Holy Trinity

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Trisagion

Our Father

Virgin Mary, rejoice

Prayer to the Honest Cross of the Lord

Psalm 90 ("Alive in the help of the highest")

Prayer to the Guardian Angel

Prayer to the Mother of God

Prayer for the departed

Symbol of faith.

Option 2:

Our Father - 3 times

Virgin Mary, rejoice - 3 times

Creed - 1 time

Below I give the text of all the prayers. By the way, you can choose other prayers to the Guardian Angel, the Mother of God and for the departed, those that you like best. A lot of them. You can find it on the Internet or in the Prayer Book (You can buy the Prayer Book at any church).

Prayer to the Holy Trinity
Holy Trinity, have mercy on us; Lord, cleanse our sins; Master, forgive our iniquity; Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities, for Thy name's sake.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfill everything, Treasure of the good and life to the Giver, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, Beloved, our souls.

Trisagion
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (It is read three times, with the sign of the cross and bow in the waist).
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, both now and forever and forever and ever. Amen.

Our Father
Our Father, Who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also leave our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Virgin Mary, rejoice
Virgin Mary, rejoice, blessed Mary, the Lord is with you: blessed are you in women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, as if you gave birth to our souls.

Prayer to the Honest Cross of the Lord
(With this prayer, Father Anatoly in the film "The Island" expels the demon from the daughter of Admiral Tikhon. We watched it with my parents yesterday)
May God be resurrected, and scattered around him, and let those who hate Him flee from His presence. Yako smoke disappears, yes disappear; as if wax melts from the face of fire, so let demons perish from the face of those who love God, and who are marked by the sign of the cross, and in the joy of those who say: Rejoice, Most Pure and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, drive away demons by the power of the prophesied Lord Jesus Christ on you, descended into hell, and the devil stepped down the strength, and who gave us to you His Honest Cross to drive out every adversary. O Most Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord! Help me with the Holy Lady the Virgin Mary, and with all the saints forever. Amen.

Psalm 90 ("Alive in the help of the highest")
Living in the help of the Most High, he will settle in the roof of the Heavenly God. The Lord speaks: Thou art my protector and my refuge, my God, and I trust in Him. Yako Toy will deliver you from the hunter's net, and from the word of rebellion, His splash will overshadow you, and under His krill you hope: His truth will go around you with a weapon. Do not fear the fear of the night, from an arrow flying in days, from a thing in transitory darkness, from a crumbling, and a midday demon. Thousands of your country will fall, and tma at your right hand will not come close to you, look at both your eyes, and behold the reward of sinners. As Thou, Lord, my hope, the Most High, Thou hast laid thy refuge. Evil will not come to you, and the wound will not approach your body, as with His Angel the commandment about you, keep you in all your ways. They will take you in their arms, but not when you have stumbled your foot on a stone, step on an asp and a basilisk, and cross the lion and the serpent. For I will trust in Me, and I will deliver and: I will cover and, as My name is known. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him: I am with him in sorrow, I will scourge him, and I will glorify him, I will fulfill him with long days, and I will show him My salvation.

Prayer to the Guardian Angel
To the angel of God, my holy guardian, given to me from God in heaven to keep. I earnestly pray to you: you enlighten me this day, and save me from all evil, instruct me to a good deed and direct me to the path of salvation.

Prayer to the Mother of God
What to pray to You, what to ask of You? You see everything, you know it Yourself, look into my soul and give her what she needs. You, who have endured everything, who have experienced everything, will understand everything. You who twisted the Baby in the manger and accepted Him with Your hands from the Cross, You alone know the whole height of joy, all the oppression of grief. You, who have received the whole human race, look at me with maternal concern. From the snares of sin, lead me to Your Son. I see a tear that has sprinkled on Your face. You spilled it over me and let it wash away the traces of my sins. So I have come, I am standing, I am waiting for Your response, oh, Mother of God, oh, All-chanted, oh, Lady! I ask nothing, I just stand before You. Only my heart, poor human heart, exhausted in longing for righteousness, I throw at Thy pristine feet, Lady! Let all who call to You reach the eternal day by You and worship You face to face.

For the departed
For the sake of the precious blood of Jesus, save, Heavenly Father, our dear departed and let them return to the hearth through the holy Angels eternal love Yours. Mother of God, Comforter of poor souls, and you, Angels and Archangels, ask for them! Give them back. Lord, for I myself cannot, for the good they have done to me. In the name of Jesus - forgiveness and mercy

Symbol of faith
I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, God, true from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all. For us, for the sake of man and for our salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. And packs of the coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Lord, Who is from the Father who proceeds, Who is worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke the prophets. In one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I tea the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the century to come. Amen.