⁕ I love to pray in God’s temple, especially within the holy altar, before the Holy Table or the Prothesis, for by God’s grace I became wonderfully changed in the temple. During the prayer of repentance and devotion the thorns, the bonds of the passions, fall from my soul, and I feel so light; all the spell, all the enticement of the passions vanish, and I seem to die to the world, and the world, with all its blessings, dies for me, I live in God and for God, for God alone.
I am wholly penetrated by Him, and am one spirit with Him. I become like a child soothed on its mother’s knee. Then my heart is full of most heavenly, sweet peace. My soul is enlightened by the light of heaven. At such times we see everything clearly; we look upon everything rightly; we feel friendship and love towards everyone, even towards our enemies, readily excusing and forgiving everyone. O, how, blessed is the soul when it is with God! Truly the Church is earthly paradise.
⁕ O, holy temple, how good, how sweet it is to pray in thee: For where can there be ardent prayer if not within thy walls, before the throne of God, and before the face of Him Who sitteth upon it? Truly the soul melts from prayerful emotion, and tears flow down the cheeks like water. It is sweet to pray for all.
⁕ During Divine service, during the celebration of all the sacraments and prayers, be trustful, as a child in relation to his parents. Remember what great Fathers of the Church, what inspired luminaries, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, are guiding you! Be simple, trustful, undoubting as a child in godly matters. Cast all your care upon the Lord, and be entirely free from sorrow. “Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, which speakith in you.” [Matthew 10:19, 20] [1]. The Lord has long ago freed us from this care, this sorrow, having taught our God-fearing Fathers by His Spirit, what to say and how to pray to the Lord at Divine service, at the celebration of the sacraments and upon various other occasions and circumstances of human life, requiring prayer to bring down a blessing from above. It ought to be easy for us to pray. Only the enemy troubles us. But what matters his troubling our heart is firmly established in the Lord! It is only a misfortune if we do not rest in God; if there is no firm faith in us, if We have bound ourselves by worldly attachments, if our intellect is proud and presumptuous, then, even in the most holy, most pure matter of service, at the celebration and communion of the Holy Mysteries, the enemy will greatly hinder us.
⁕ In Divine Services the Church shows us those things or needs, for which we should beseech God’s mercy with undoubting hope of receiving them, because we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who said: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” [John 14:13] [2].
⁕ When, standing in church, let all of you be as though in heaven with God; for in church everything is heavenly… Hehe, comon prayer is of nothing other, worldly, but—for the soul’s salvation, for the forgiveness of sins, for success in acts of goodness and the granting of immortality to our souls—prayer for all. Every worldly care must be laid aside upon entering church and while standing within.
⁕ The Liturgy is a visible representation in persons, in various objects, words, and acts, of the birth, life, teaching, commandments, miracles, and prophesies, of the sufferings, of the crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven of the Founder of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God. During the Liturgy He Himself invisibly assists. He Himself acts and accomplishes everything through the priest and deacon, who are only His instruments.
⁕ You hear in church oftener than anything the voices of th1 priest, deacons, readers, and singers praying to God to have mercy upon us. What does this signify? It signifies that all of us who are in God’s Temple are deserving, by our sins, of God’s punishment, and that before everything—on our coming into the church—we must remember that we are sinners, and have come to the Lord of Heaven and Earth, to our Benefactor, Whom we have daily and hourly angered by our iniquities, to ask for mercy, each one for himself, and also, in accordance with Christian love, others. The prayers asking for mercy are called in the Russia Orthodox Church ‘great,’ ‘small,’ and redouble.” As there is not a single superfluous word in the church service, it is especially necessary at the time of the singing of the redouble litany to pray to God most fervently, from the very depths of a most contrite heart, as we are reminded at the very beginning of the litany by the words: “Let us say with our whole souls and with our whole understanding.” At this time we must lay aside even the slightest coldness, the slightest inattention of heart, and, burning with the spirit of humility, becoming all attention, offer up to the Creator our most fervent prayers to have mercy upon us sinners. But what do we see at the time of the exclamations of the priest and the singing by the singers of the great and redoubled litany? For the greater part, the usual inattention and indifference on the part of those praying.
⁕ If, during service, your brother does anything irregularly, or somewhat negligently, do not become irritated, either inwardly or outwardly with him, but be generously indulgent to his fault, remembering that during your life you yourself commit many, many faults, that you yourself are a man with all infirmities, that God is long-suffering and most merciful, and that He forgives you and all of us our iniquities an innumerable multitude of times. Remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” These words should always remind us that we ourselves at all times are great trespassers, great sinners before God, and that, remembering this, we should be humble in the depths of our hearts, and not be very severe to the faults of our brethren, weak like ourselves; that as we do not judge ourselves severely, we must not judge others severely, for our brethren are—our members, like ourselves. Irritability of temper proceeds from want of self-knowledge, from pride, and also from the fact that we do not consider the great corruption of our nature, and know but little the meek and humble Jesus.
⁕ Those who go to attend the Divine service after having eaten much, voluntarily lay upon themselves an unnecessary and injurious burden, and deaden their hearts beforehand to prayer, obstructing the access of holy thoughts and feelings to it. We must be most careful not to eat before Divine service. We must remember that “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,” [Romans 14:17] [3] that is, that God cannot reign in the heart that is overburdened with surfeiting and drunkenness.
⁕ To the glory of the most holy name of our Master the Lord Jesus Christ and that of Our Lady, the Mother of God. I have experienced a thousand times in my heart, that, after the Communion of the Holy Sacrament or after fervent prayer at home—ordinary prayer or prayer in consequence of some sin, passion and sorrow and straitness—the Lord, at the prayers of Our Lady, or Our Lady Herself, by the Lord’s grace bestowed upon me, as though it were a new spiritual nature, pure, good, great bright, wise, beneficent, instead of impure, despondent, languid, faint-hearted, dark, dull, and evil. Many times was I thus changed, with a marvellous great change, to mine own wonder and often to that of others. Glory to Thy power, Lord! Glory to Thy mercy, Lord! Glory to Thy bounties, Lord, which Thou hast manifested upon me a sinner!
⁕ Both learned and unlearned young men seldom go to church, and in general do not attend to their spiritual education, looking upon it as unnecessary and giving themselves up to worldly vanity. Attention must be paid to this. It is the fruit of pride, of want of spiritual development. They consider attendance at church and Divine service as the business of the common people and women, forgetting that, in the temple, Angels officiate with trembling, together with men, and regard this as their highest bliss.
[1] But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.Matthew 10:17-22
[2] Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:11-18
[3] I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of: For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. Romans 14:14-20
Orthodox Life, September-October 1965, No. 5 (95), pp. 27-35
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