About #Prayer (Part 7)
2/ How and What Should We Pray?
Dear and respected members who follow the Orthodox education and spiritual counseling service that we convey on the website of John's Repentance, continuing from our previous lessons on prayer, we have prepared a lesson for today on how to pray and what to say.
True prayer means a person believing and fearing God, loving and hoping for His will. Prayer is a way for a person to approach his heavenly Father in the Spirit with his whole heart and express his gratitude, repentance, and supplication. In turn, it is a time of meeting between the creature and the creator, a great act of worship where he receives grace and comfort from God.
We have also learned about the conditions of true prayer. However, knowing the order of prayer alone is not enough; the state of our mind is an important factor. True prayer originates in the heart, not the mouth. If the heart is preoccupied with other thoughts and the mouth recites alone, the prayer is worthless. Therefore, when we pray, we should unite our mouth with our heart, and our heart with our mouth, understanding the secret and purpose of the prayer and pray. A person who prays in this way sees God as his father, and God sees him as his son, giving him everything he asks for without disdain, belittling, or disdain. However, if there is pride and self-righteousness in our hearts, or if we just recite the words like an automaton without our heart, it will not be accepted as a Pharisee's prayer. Therefore, it is appropriate for a person who prays to gather his mind, leave earthly thoughts, go to the sky to connect with his heavenly Father, and pray with inspiration. Additionally, he should have a broken conscience and a clear mind, believing that he is truly the son of God, and approach God as his "Father."
The Type and Content of True Prayer
Real prayer is to approach the real heavenly Father to talk to him in the Spirit. He taught us to say "Our Father" (Abune Zebesemayat) as a prayer and made it a prayer.
The Lord not only taught us how to pray for what and to whom but also explained the true nature and content of what we should pray for. He did this so that our prayers would not be like the prayers of the pagans. They think that God is listening to them by repeating useless words and by the number of their words. Therefore, the Lord gave us the prayer "Our Father" (Matthew 6:7,15).
This prayer, which our Lord himself commanded us to pray, appears to be very short in length, but it reveals many things in a few words. The secret is vast and includes many things, covering our physical and spiritual needs. This is a perfect prayer suitable for everyone, a model for all prayers, explaining that we should always pray in this form.
As the perfect God who made this prayer and taught it is our Lord Jesus Christ, the prayer is perfect. It is what the Lord revealed and taught about the divine will that was impossible for a creature to investigate and know with a perfect mind. Therefore, every believer should pray without neglecting it. Each of the words found in the Our Father prayer has a higher meaning and mystery. And every word is holy and godly.
Our Father, who lives in heaven,
1. Hallowed be thy name.
2. Let your kingdom come.
3. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
4. Give us today our daily bread.
5. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
6. Lord, do not lead us into temptation.
7. Save us from all evil
About the #Great #Lent
Dear and respected members who follow Orthodox education and spiritual services conveyed on John's Repentance website, today we are translating and sharing an important lesson on the subject from the book "Orthodox Mind" written by Deacon Yohannes Getachew. We urge you to read and learn from it.
All the things that our God and Savior Jesus Christ did when he came to this earth were works of salvation. It is a crime to mutilate even one of the works done from conception to ascension. All of them are works of redemption for our salvation. Not only that, to avoid confusion as to who taught us righteousness, and to be an example for us in practice, he commanded us to do righteous deeds and leads us there. Therefore, it is essential to realize that this fasting is an example and a redemption fast. Of course, this name comes from the 40 days of fasting.
What makes this fast great is because it is the fast that our Lord himself fasted for us. When St. Irenaeus explained how Christians in the past fasted this fast, some limited themselves to fasting for one day, some fasted for two days, others fasted for more than that, and some fasted for forty days until now. This difference in the timing of fasting has been there from those who were before us.
He also tells us that most Christians fasted for several days during Lent, saying that some would fast by abstaining from food for 40 hours. Devotees at different times, some abstain from food all day and eat in the evening, and some fast day and night; Some people "fast" on Fridays and Saturdays. However, it is not disputed that this fast is a great fast known to all.
Our Lord fasted this fast after his baptism. The reason for this is to make it clear that after we have received our sonship through baptism, we must keep the grace we received through fasting and prayer. When we get God's grace, the enemy, the devil, will inevitably try to destroy us, so he became a living example to us that we should fast and pray hard to protect ourselves.
The Bible says, "After that, the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" Matthew 4:1. The phrase 'After that' means that after the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove, and after the Father testified, "this is my beloved son," in the cloud. It is said that the Spirit took him to the desert to defeat Satan, who was confused by these words. The essential thing that we need to understand here is that it is never said that the Holy Spirit moved Jesus Christ just as he takes the righteous to the monastery and the martyrs to the blood. 'The Spirit took him' is to express the unity of the will with the Holy Spirit. It is to show that he came down from heaven, was born of a virgin, and went to the desert by the will of the Trinity. However, it does not mean that Jesus Christ had a different will from the Holy Spirit and took him to the desert at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. This cannot be. In this reading, the "wilderness" is Satan's abode. Christ went to the desert means to Satan's place. Because Satan deceived Adam with food and went to where Adam was, Christ is going to defeat Satan in his own city.