My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PRAYER
What Prayer Is
Prayer is a universal, spiritual phenomenon, the fundamental and inseparable element of every religion and every personal piety. As such, prayer has appeared in the history of mankind with an astonishing multiplicity of forms and expressions that range from the most crude and primitive to the most spiritually sublime. The tradition of the Holy Bible and of Orthodox Christianity provides an extraordinary perspective from which to see not only the nature and meaning of prayer but also its concrete expression in practice. The basic presupposition of any real and true spiritual prayer is the belief in the existence of the Living God. The believer not only believes that the Infinite and invisible God exists, but that He also reveals Himself to people. It is through this revelation of God that it becomes possible for man to have a personal communion with God. When, therefore, the believer prays, he or she speak directly to God and become aware of a communication with Him. Consequently, prayer presupposes faith in the reality and the presence of God, and means primarily that living relationship between man and God, which is nothing less than a direct and real spiritual contact and personal conversation between persons, between an "I" and a "You". The person who prays is the "I" and the God Who is addressed in prayer is the "You".
When therefore we say that we are praying, we mean that we are talking with and having a relationship with God, as a child speaks and relates to a father or a mother.
Types and Levels of Prayer
In the Orthodox spiritual tradition, prayer has a broad, comprehensive and profound meaning. To pray does not mean simply and only to petition and to beseech, that is, to ask for something from God. This is, of course, the familiar meaning of prayer, and certainly one of the types of prayer. It is important to note, however, that there are various types of prayer, as well as various levels of prayer, which are always analogous to the spiritual experience and progress of each praying person.
The Prayer of Supplication. Prayer begins as petition and supplication when we express our needs and our deficiencies to God. This type of prayer is the most familiar to all of us because this is the type we use most often. We are always aware of our needs and weaknesses.
The Prayer of Thanksgiving. After the prayer of supplication what usually follows is the prayer of thanksgiving. This is a higher type of prayer because the believer does not any longer seek something from God but rather expresses gratitude and thanksgiving to Him for the benefits and the gifts already received. When the prayer of supplication receives its necessary response, the believer usually expresses a prayer of thanksgiving to the God who loves mankind and grants requests. We respond with a prayer of thanksgiving because we recognize and acknowledge the grace of God, which we have received in the past or in the present.
The Worshipful Prayer of Doxology. The worshipful prayer of doxology and praise confirms in a way the following affirmations: "You Lord are God and I am a human person, Your creation. You exist forever and eternally, while I have been created by You and depend upon You." Our life must always be based upon the truth. And the basic truth in this instance is that God is God and man is man, God is the Creator and man is the creation, and not the other way around. When we, therefore, accept this fundamental truth and worship selflessly our most Benevolent Creator, we secure our authenticity and spiritual freedom, our health, and maturity as human beings. The free and selfless worship and praise of God make us truly free and enlightened human beings, who reflect that glory and that honor with which our Creator has endowed us from the beginning. God Himself, of course, does need to be glorified by us. But it is proper and right precisely for the regenerated human nature of mankind to praise and to worship God, using the most pure and most perfect type of prayer. Holy Scripture is full of hymns and praises with which to worship God. When God is praised and glorified by man it is the human person that is magnified and honored precisely because we are able to recognize and honor God Who is infinitely superior to us. By glorifying God the human person fulfills his or her destiny - to be and to act like a child of God, who turns to God in humble yet confident prayer of love and selfless devotion.
Difficulties and Demands of Prayer
It should not be a surprise to anyone that such an important gift of God and such a privilege of man, as is prayer, with its various types and various spiritual levels, should also be accompanied by certain concrete difficulties and demands as we seek to cultivate and develop it in our life.
We should from the star confess that prayer is essentially a daring and dangerous undertaking for man. When a person conscientiously attempts to encounter the Living God and converse with Him, admittedly such a person is actually undertaking an awesome adventure! Every encounter with God is also a crisis, an ultimate event, because truly "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrew 10:31). When we seek to enter into the presence of God through prayer, we are actually approaching Divine fire, which at the same time both attracts us and repels us. During the time of prayer we are required to place ourselves without reservation, but with humility, contrition, and love, before this Divine fire and to become like that biblical bush that burned but was not consumed (cf. Exodus 3:2). This daring undertaking means that we must remove from our old selves everything that separates us from God, that we may rediscover our life anew and regenerate in Christ.
"...When we are truly near to God, we can see far more clearly the great difference which exists between Him and us. But when we are at a distance from God and do not have a relationship with Him, then we cannot successfully distinguish this difference. This happens because the image of God in us is badly distorted, not only our thoughts and our understanding but also in personal reality of our being. This means that the presence of God is absent from our life, and the reality of God is for us nothing but a fleeting fantasy and a discordance, with no resonance in our personal experience. But the closer we come to God, the clearer becomes our understanding of our own sinfulness before the Holy God. Without the Light of the Holy and Divine Presence, our sins seem insignificant, while under the most bright light of Divine Truth and Life our sins acquire all of their tragic depth. Consequently, a desire swells up in us for repentance and spiritual regeneration. (Source: A Prayer Book - An Anthology of Orthodox Prayers by Reverend Father Peter A. Chamberas)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George