How to Use This Book

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Do not concern yourself with the number of prayers read, but only lift your heart and mind to the Lord in prayer, and continue in a worthy manner for the time set aside.

A few prayers, correctly read, are better than many prayers raced through. And, of course, it is hard to keep from rushing when, in our eagerness to pray, we have gathered more prayers than we can handle. —St. Theophan the Recluse

These words of St. Theophan— undoubtedly one of the greatest teachers of prayer the Orthodox Church has ever produced—were the inspiration for the “rule of prayer” followed in this book: a rule made to be broken. You hold in your hands a rich collection of prayers for set times of day taken from the Book of Hours

(the Horologion), representing the ancient tradition of Orthodox devotion, as well as prayers for various needs and occasions and prayers composed by numerous saints of the Church from East and West. But no one should feel obliged to say them all. This prayer book offers variety and flexibility according to each person’s situation and capability. For this reason, in the “set” prayers found in these pages, choices of one or more psalms and prayers are given. The focus of one’s prayer rule (often suggested by one’s spiritual father) should not be the rule, but the prayer. Therefore, let the attention be not on the “one” or the “all,” but on learning to pray “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).