Orthodox Prayer Life
The Interior Way
“Prayer is the journey to the kingdom: the arrival
is union with God. The kingdom is not far from
us, but is within us”
What is Prayer?
• “Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1)
• “You have said, “Seek my face.’ My heart says to
you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’” (Psalm 27:8)
• Prayer that is spiritual and genuine is both a call and a response: a
divine call and a human response.
What is Prayer?
• According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, prayer is a
heart-to-heart talk, forever active on God’s part,
forever slow on ours. In fact, both parties call,
and both respond. However, the initiative is
always God’s: “I spread out my hands all day long” (Isaiah 65:2)
• In prayer, God offers us Himself
What is Prayer?
• Prayer is by nature a dialog between man and
God. It unites the soul with its Creator and
reconciles the two. It’s effect is to hold the world
together (St. John Climacus, Ladder of Divine
Ascent)
The Greatness of Prayer
• Prayer could not have an end or aim higher than
itself. It is the highest aim of the highest work.
• Prayer is not performed for the comfort or the
fulfillment of the needs or demands of man
• If we restrict prayer to the satisfaction of man’s
needs and demands or to responding to his pleas in
this life, it loses its essential greatness
The Greatness of Prayer
• Prayer is an act of glorifying God
• Prayer is paying absolute honor to God’s will
• Isaac the Syrian says that “Prayer is the kingdom
of God!”
• For this reason Christ urges us to pray: “You ought
always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1)
The Necessity of Prayer
• “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5)
• “Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40)
• “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and
you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15)
• “For the Father seeks such to worship Him” (John 4:23)
The Necessity of Prayer
• A passage from pages 29-30:
“The ripe fruit of the blood that was shed, and
the conscious response to the work of His
love and suffering, is our prayer”
The Effectiveness of Prayer
• “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will the
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask Him!” (Luke 11:13)
• Neither bliss, not interior peace, nor a feeling that
prayer is answered, not any other feeling is equal to
the hidden action of the Holy Spirit in one’s
soul. Such action qualifies the soul for eternal life.
The Effectiveness of Prayer
• The secret behind the mediation of Christ in every prayer
raised to the Father in His name lies in His intercession as a
high priest and in the shedding His blood as an atoning
sacrifice. This made him “able for all time to save those who
draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make
intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25)
• “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and
when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
(Luke 22:32)
The Degrees of Prayer
• “In every degree they ascend toward glory, they
think they have reached the end. But if they ascend
further and become illumined with a brighter light,
they forget their first degree and think that this is
the end! This is because it is not they who are
moving towards glory but the action of the Holy
Spirit within them” (St John of Dalyatha)
The Degrees of Prayer
• Vocal Prayer
• Meditation
• Contemplation
• Acquired Contemplation
• Infused Contmplation: “the gift or grace of prayer”
Vocal Prayer
• Calls for mental effort to follow the meaning of the
words we utter
• We should not merely recite words as if they proceeded from
others to God, but they should pass through our own selves and
then proceed directly from our own persons
Meditation
• Prayer is shared by the mind and the heart, linking
thoughts and feelings
• The best example of this is the Psalms: select portions
of David’s meditations with God
Meditation
• Meditation is an old ,traditional term closely linked to
profound and heartfelt Bible reading
• Such reading leaves an indelible impression upon one’s
memory, emotions, and tongue
• According to patristic tradition, meditation is the
key to all graces
Meditation
• “Meditation on the scriptures teaches the soul
discourse with God”
• “When man advances in the practice of meditation
with the help of grace, he begins little by little to
understand the mystical subtleties in the word of God
and in the Psalms.”
Contemplation
• Prayer is a mode of concentration. This applies to its
theme, like focusing one’s prayer on a certain
commandment or on one of Christ’s evangelistic or
redemptive works
• Man would be under a strong influence of love,
making his mind extremely alert
Contemplation
• Acquired Contemplation:
-depends on the amount of love a man bears in his heart for Christ
-depends on his readiness to employ all his mental powers in
meditating
• Infused Contemplation:
-God’s heart welcomes man in return for man’s warm
feelings of love in prayer
Beyond Prayer
• Ecstacy
• Vision of God
• Union with God!
Ecstacy
• “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for
trembling and astonishment had come upon them”
(Mark 16:8)
• Ecstacy, or spiritual trance, is a state of rapture.
• The Bible describes it…
Vision of God
St Stephen: the protomartyr
• “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into
heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the
heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God!” (Acts 7:55-56)
Vision of God
• “Thus He appeared to each of the holy fathers, exactly as
He wished and as it seemed helpful to them. In one
manner he appeared to Abraham, in another to Isaac, in
another to Jacob, in another to Noah, Daniel, David,
Solomon, Isaiah, and to each of the holy prophets. Still in
another way to Elias and again differently to Moses… To
each of the saints, likewise, God appeared as He wished so
as to refresh them, to save and lead them into a knowledge
of God.” (St Macarius the Great, Intoxicated with God)
Union with God
• “For He was made man the we might be made God; and
He manifested himself by a body that we might receive
the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the
insolence of men that we might inherit immortality”
• Behold the Bridegroom is coming, See, O my soul, that
you sleep not …But watch that you may meet the Lord
Christ with the oil of fatness and that He may grant you
the true wedding of His divine glory. (Midnight Office,
First Watch, Coptic Canonical Hours)
Jesus Praying For Us
that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in
You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may
believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me
I have given them, that they may be one just as We are
one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made
perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have
sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me… that
the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and
I in them. (John 17)