Vol: 8 Issue: 5
Baramouda 1730 / May 2014
Prayer is Simple By: St John Chrysostom If I have righteousness, someone will perhaps say, what need is there of prayer, since my condition is sufficient to make a success of everything and the one in whose power it is to give knows what we need? Because prayer is no small bond of love for God, developing in us the habit of converse with him and encouraging the pursuit of wisdom. I mean, if someone has an association with a remarkable person and gains much benefit from the interchange, much more is this the case in conversing incessantly with God. We are, however, not as aware as we should be of the benefit of prayer, for the reason that we neither apply ourselves to it with assiduity nor have recourse to it in accord with God's laws. Instead, when on the point of conversing with some people of a class above us, we ensure our appearance and gait and attire are as they should be, and dialogue with them in this fashion. In approaching God, by contrast, we yawn, scratch ourselves, look this way and that, pay little attention, loll on the ground, do the shopping. If on the contrary we were to approach him with due reverence and prepare ourselves to converse with him as God, then we would know, even before receiving what we asked, how much benefit we gain. You see, the person who has been taught to converse with God as befits the one conversing with God will from then on be an angel. In this way the soul is released from the shackles of the body; in this way the mind is raised on high; in this way our abode is transferred to heaven; in this way one scorns things of this life; in this way one attends on the very throne of the king, be one pauper or servant, commoner or dullard. God, after all, looks not for beauty of utterance or tum of phrase, but for freshness of spirit; even if we say what just comes into our mind, we go away with our entreaties successful. Do you see how easy it is? I mean, in the case of people, the one who brings a plea to anyone needs to have oratorical skills and be capable of flattering all the great man's retinue, and give thought to many other details so as to be acceptable. In this case, by contrast, there is need of nothing except a sober attitude, with no obstacle to being close to God. “I am a God who is nearby, and not a God who is far off,� remember. Being far away is
on our side; he, after all, is always close by. And why mention that we have no need of oratory? Often we do not even need a voice. I mean, even if you speak in your heart and call on him as you should, he will readily incline towards you even then. In this way was Moses also heard, in this way also Hannah. No soldier stands by to scare people away, no bodyguard to cut short the proper moment; he is not the one to say, "Now is not a good time to make your approach, come back later." Rather, when you come, he stands listening, even if it is lunchtime, even if dinnertime, even if the worst of times, even if in the market place, even if on a journey, even if at sea, even if inside the courtroom before a judge, and you call on him, there is no obstacle to his yielding to your entreaty as long as you call on him as you should. There is no excuse for saying, "I am afraid to come forward and pray: my enemy is at hand." This obstacle too is removed: he does not heed an enemy, you see, or cut short your petition. Instead, you are always and without interruption able to converse with him, without any difficulty intervening. There is in fact no need either of doorkeepers to introduce you, or of managers, guardians or friends; rather, when you make your approach in person, then most of all he will hear you, at that time when you ask the help of no one. So we do not prevail upon him in making our requests through others to the degree that we do through ourselves. You see, since he longs for our friendship, he also does everything to have us trust in him; when he sees us doing so on our own account, then he accedes to us most of all. This is what he did too in the case of the Canaanite woman: when Peter and James came forward on her behalf, he did not accede; but when she persisted, he promptly granted her petition. I mean, even if he seemed to put her off for a while, he did it not to put the poor creature aside but to reward her more abundantly and render her entreaty more favorable. Let us too study, therefore, how to converse with God; let us learn how we must make this entreaty. There is no need to take ourselves to a library, nor outlay money, nor hire teachers or orators or debaters, nor devote a great deal of time to learning this oratorical skill. It is instead sufficient to want to do it, and the skills fall in place. In this tribunal you will be able to speak not only for yourself but also for many others.
Bishop Anba Daniel and the monks of the monastery would like to wish all our readers a happy feast of Resurrection Page 2
Left: Year 8 Sunday School class from St Mark’s Church
Right: A Group of youth from St Anthony’s Church
A Group of Youth from St Anthony’s Church and St Mark’s Church
THREE DOORS THAT MUST BE SHUT DURING PRAYER By: H.G. Bishop Youssef
The door of the heart Your heart carries emotions, worries, cares. When you have a problem and you worry about it, you feel uptight in your heart. The heart is a place of worries. When you enter your room for prayer, you have to put aside all the worries and to completely forget them, knowing that this time of prayer is contact with God and you shouldn’t be distracted about anything else but rather focus only on prayer and your relationship with God. In Philippians 4:6 St Paul says; “have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” St Paul is saying that when you stand for prayer, have no anxiety about anything; forget about all your problems. This is because you are now standing before God and you will make your request known to Him, and God is omnipotent, He can answer all your requests and prayers. The fruit of having no anxiety and letting your requests be know to God is the “peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” You need to train yourself that when you stand up for prayer you should forget all your worries, and if these worries are pushing you to think about them you need to put these worries before God, as St Paul said; “let your request be made known to God.” During prayer some people may become distracted by many thoughts and worries. It is very important to forget all of these things because thoughts and worries are the main obstacle that makes the prayer unfruitful, and therefore you can not build yourself up spiritually with prayers because of this. When a person stands before God, he is like a dead person; he died to the world and is now living before God. During prayer you are standing before the Throne of God, and you should not worry about anything and focus as though you are giving an account before God.
The door of the senses Senses lead to experience (example; when you see something, hear something, touch something). Experience leads to knowledge/thoughts (example when you eat
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something you may think about how it tastes). Knowledge/thoughts leads to judgment/ decision (example; experience of tasting something good may lead to the judgment that you will eat it). Judgment/decision leads to actions . If you analyse anything you do in your life you must go through these four processes. (Experience, knowledge, judgment, action). Therefore, senses are the door to all your decisions and behaviour. If your senses are sanctified, then all your behaviour will be holy and good. If the senses are not sanctified, then you will have a lot of impure thoughts, bad decisions and bad behaviour. This is why when you stand for prayer you must put to death all the carnal senses (the senses that leads to spiritual death and destruction). If you don’t put these senses to death you can not pray as you ought to pray. In Colossians 3:1-3 & 5 St Paul says; “if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” When you stand up for prayer you need to confess all your bad thoughts, senses and experiences, and you need to confess before God that you hate these thoughts, and make resolution before God that you will renounce these thoughts and these experiences. There is no fellowship between light and darkness. These experiences are like darkness and you cannot experience the light of God while you have the darkness inside you. “Shutting the door” of senses means to put a spiritual wall, the crucified Christ between what is spiritual and what is carnal. And before God confess all bad and impure experience and renounce them before Him and try not to return to that behaviour. Otherwise you can not experience God during prayer (no fellowship between holiness and evil).
The door of the other When you stand before God you shouldn’t be distracted before others in anyway, because this time is contact with God, a relationship between you and God. There are four ways to be distracted during prayer by others; Having emotions and feelings towards others, During prayer these feelings and emotions can distract you from focusing and concentrating on God. Worries about others, examples; parents worrying about their children. These worries can distract you from praying. Anger or hatred towards others, if you have feelings against someone, your heart is not clear and will not allow you to focus on God. Self worship, How others perceive me, or think of me. Wanting praise and glorification from others. You can speak to God about others but not think or be distracted by others. You need to train yourself that when you stand for prayer you must make the strong decision to put aside all thoughts or worries or emotions or feelings towards others because this time is for the direct relationship between yourself and God. Page 5
Just Pray By: One of the Youth Prayer is all about the heart. Its not about how long our prayer is, or how beautiful and articulate the words are that comes out of our mouths. Its not about ticking off that box that you have prayed today, or doing it because you want to benefit materialistic things. Rather view prayer as an expression of the heart. What ever you are feeling, whatever concerns you have or even the emptiness you may feel; give it all to God. He doesn’t want the words. He wants the heart. Have a normal conversation with Him; He just wants you to be real with Him. Even if its ‘Good morning Jesus’, or ‘Jesus, I feel ___’. Just tell Him everything that comes to mind, especially the things we don’t normally say. God knows everything we are experiencing; He knows our thoughts, our intentions and our emotions. He just wants us to take the first step; as an initiative that we accept Him and want Him in our lives. Lets make the most of the last few weeks of Lent; and try and make the extra efforts to involve God and that we try and make time for Him in our busy schedule; when His whole entire life was revolved around us through His Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Hoy Week at the Monastery
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Saint
Lat est Pub lica tio n
Anthony
A Biblical Ascetic By: Fr Matthew the Poor
The life of St. Anthony is a life that is precisely in accordance with the Bible, one which was aided by tremendous power from the Holy Spirit. His going out into the wilderness as an eighteen year old to live in the mountains and parched deserts was an expression of the measure of intense faith that filled the heart of Anthony, the young teen who was accustomed to living a lavish lifestyle. This book by Fr Matthew the Poor, on of the twentieth century prolific writers explores the biblical basis of the monastic life through the lens of the life of the founder of the monastic life himself.
Christian Living Series
Buy the 4 Vols for only $30.00 Only from our eBay store Page 7
Asaph Tunes, is a new St Shenouda initiative that aims to encourage young Orthodox Christian artists to write, compose and sing new songs using contemporary music. A very important aspect of a song is its educational value that it offers to listeners. In other words the lyrics must present a substantial theological teaching about the Orthodox Church teaching and theology. Asaph Tunes role is to encourage and present the work of those artists to the best quality and provide it in the most common media available such as iTunes and sound cloud and various other internet radios.
Taste & See RELEASED SOON
The Eucharist in the Orthodox Church is the true Body and the True Blood of Jesus Christ. There are many names given to this sacrament such as bread of life, living bread, true manna, etc. what is common in all these names is that it gives life to those who partake of it. This album is the fruit of hard work of many talented young people who presented the orthodox understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharis in these great songs. These songs not only present an entertaining music but also the Orthodox teaching about this sacrament.