Hey everybody this is Steve and it’s time we get back to basics.
September 1st marks the beginning of a new Church year.
And, like all beginnings, it’s a chance to start fresh:
To work on something we’ve been struggling with for a while.
And there’s one thing I know a lot of us struggle with:
Starting, and keeping, a daily prayer rule.
We all know we’re supposed to pray, but how do we start?
If anything, it seems like prayer is harder than ever with all the stresses and distractions
of the past few months.
But even in the best of times, prayer can be a little intimidating.
Am I doing it the right way?
Am I doing it enough?
Because, when we read about it in the Bible, St Paul seems to say that we should be praying
all the time.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
I know what you might be thinking.
Maybe St Paul isn’t talking to me with those verses.
Maybe he’s talking to priests or monks.
Or someone else.
Nope.
“Let no one think, my fellow Christians, that only priests and monks need to pray without
ceasing, and not laymen.
No, no; every Christian without exception ought to dwell always in prayer.”
Don’t panic.
Now, if you’re like me, you’re nowhere near constant prayer.
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I’m very much a beginner.
And, no offense, but if you’re learning about prayer on YouTube, you’re probably
a beginner too.
Which is totally ok.
But if we’re ever going to pray without ceasing, we’ve got to start somewhere.
And that means starting with a prayer rule.
Remember, a prayer rule is more than just an item on a to-do list, as we covered back
in episode 95.
Prayer is about communion - it’s about relationship, connection with God.
A prayer rule is a simple, daily discipline that can slowly help us to spend more time
in ever deepening relationship with God.
It can help us place ourselves in God's presence, more and more, with every passing day.
Which hopefully changes the way we act on a daily basis.
So let’s start here, together, with 4 keys that you can keep in mind:
4 keys to starting, and keeping, a daily prayer rule.
Key Number 1: Be consistent with your prayer.
Remember, constant and unceasing prayer is the goal of all Christians.
But before we can get to constant prayer, we have to start with consistent prayer.
Consistency means a few different things:
It means having a place for prayer, a time for prayer, and a guideline or rule of what
you’re going to do for your prayer.
Let’s start with having a consistent place.
One thing you’ll find in virtually every Orthodox Christian home is what’s called
a prayer corner: a place that’s set aside only for prayer.
My prayer corner is here in my office.
I have a bunch of icons set up, as well as some prayer books, and incense I light when
it’s time to pray.
Having a place for prayer can help eliminate distractions and put you into a prayerful
state of mind.
Because you know that one thing and one thing only happens here.
Ok, we’ve got a consistent place.
Now we need a consistent time.
In the Old Testament, the People of Israel set aside particular times of the day for
prayer and worship.
And, in the Book of Acts, we see the first Christians continue with this practice.
“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three
o’clock in the afternoon.”
Setting aside a time for prayer is something we can do as we build our prayer rule.
Maybe the morning is a good time for you to pray: before you get overwhelmed by school
or work or whatever you need to do that day.
Or maybe right before bed is a good time for you to pray: because that’s when you’re
most alert.
Maybe you can pray both every morning and every evening.
Whether your day begins with prayer or ends with prayer, it’s important that we set
aside a particular time (every day) for communion with God.
Just like Christians have been doing from the beginning.
Ok, we’ve got a consistent place and time.
Now, let’s explore what it means to have a consistent rule or guideline for prayer.
At a minimum, this means spending prayerful time with God at least once a day.
When we’re consistent with our prayer, we put God first.
We make time to be with Him each and every day, no matter what.
There’s a gre at book called “The Way of the Pilgrim,” which is about a Christian
who wants to learn how to pray without ceasing.
At the start of his journey, when he’s still very much a beginner, the Pilgrim receives
some advice that’s worth sharing here:
“Our only contribution towards perfection in prayer, the mother of all spiritual good,
is regularity and consistency.”
Our goal then, especially as beginners, isn’t necessarily to pray a lot.
It’s to pray consistently.
Remember, we’re beginners.
It's ok if our prayer rule is just a few minutes in the morning or the evening.
But we have to prioritize that relationship with God by prioritizing those minutes we
spend with God.
By making sure that we make time for God each and every day.
As St Theophylact said, “It is better to pray little but often.”
It’s better to go to your prayer corner and stick to a short prayer rule every day
than start a big, complicated prayer rule and abandon it after just a few days.
It’s better to pray 5 minutes every day than an hour once every few weeks.
Consistency matters.
Key Number 2: Use your body during prayer.
Prayer is, of course, a spiritual reality.
But it isn’t merely spiritual.
As we covered way back in episode 23, our bodies are important.
And they have an important part to play when we pray.
Have you ever been to your grandmother’s house and just known that you’re getting
ready to see her because grandma’s house just smells like...well, grandma?
We can prepare to meet God in much the same way.
For example, we can light incense when we spend time with God.
The sweet smell can help calm us down and focus our attention on God.
The Church-y smell filling the air can make us feel Church-y on the inside.
And if the Jesus Prayer is part of our prayer rule, we can use a prayer rope: an important
tool we covered way back in episode 49.
It’s just a short loop with knots in it.
And each time we say a prayer, our thumb moves to the next knot.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.”
Our thumb, moving from knot to knot, can help us stay focused and attentive.
Remember that book “The Way of a Pilgrim?”
Well, here’s another bit of advice that the pilgrim receives early on:
“Say the Jesus Prayer vocally as often as possible.”
Just like the smell of incense and the feel of a prayer rope can help us stay focused
on God, the sound of our voice can do the same.
It’s easier to pay attention to your prayer when you can hear it.
So feel free to say your prayers out loud, and not just think them in your head.
Keeping our bodies involved in our prayers is also why we pray in front of icons, which
we covered back in episode 53.
Seeing an image of Christ in front of us uses our eyes to remind us that, when we pray,
He is present with us.
And it’s not just our senses: the smell of incense or the feel of a prayer rope in
our hands.
We can also use our body language to affect the way we pray.
Think about it: when you’re in a conversation face-to-face with someone, you don’t stand
still like a statue.
You don’t close your eyes.
You make eye contact!
You move your arms, legs, and whole body to reflect how you feel and what you’re saying.
We communicate with our whole selves.
Just look at how much I move around while I talk to you.
And when I do, I face you, to show that my attention is on you.
Imagine how weird it would be if I shot all these videos with my back to the camera!
That’s why we face an icon of Jesus while we pray, to help focus our attention on Him.
And so we can see Him, seeing us.
There are lots of things we can do with our bodies when we meet God in prayer.
We can stand during prayer, to be attentive.
We can bow during prayer, to be respectful.
We can kneel during prayer, to be reverent.
And we can even do a prostration during prayer, to be humble.
Prostrations are essentially really deep bows that we can do as part of our prayer.
You’ll often see people making prostrations during Great Lent in particular, but they
can be a part of your prayer any time during the year.
As St. Porphyrios said, bowing or making a prostration during prayer doesn’t just add
to the message we offer God in prayer.
It also opens our hearts to receive something from the Lord.
“With prostrations the Christian is humbled, and this helps for the grace of God to come
upon him...
When prostrations are made for Christ, grace works directly on the soul and brings penitence,
serenity, peace, and joy.”
So whether you’re standing,kneeling, or bowing, your body is an essential part of
the way you can pray.
Key Number 3: Be Present for God.
Like we said in key number 2, icons remind us that God is literally there with us when
we pray.
But we should make sure that we are fully there with Him, too.
We may be tempted to think of prayer as something we cross off our checklist: a thing we need
to finish and get through every day.
But prayer isn’t simply about speaking words into the void; it’s about communing with
Someone.
It’s about communing with God.
When we say the Jesus Prayer, for example, we’re asking God to have mercy on us and
forgive us of our sins.
If we don’t focus on our sins, if we don’t struggle to repent of our sins and set them
aside, then we’re missing the point.
We’re not really there with God.
In a sense, we’re just talking to ourselves.
And that makes what we say nothing more than empty words.
St Silouan the Athonite, one of the greatest saints of the 20th century, put it pretty
bluntly:
“Prayer which is only a habit, prayer without contrition for our sins, is not pleasing to
God.”
But focusing on our sins isn’t the only way we’re truly present for God while we
pray.
If we’re offering glory to God, we should try to be filled with a sense of awe.
If we’re offering Him thanks, we should try to be grateful.
Whatever our prayer, it should be more than empty words on our lips.
Back in episode 96, we talked about how silence helps us pray.
Because, when we get rid of our distractions first, it’s easier to focus our attention
on God.
And just a few moments of real communion with God are far more important than hours of empty
words.
Or, as St Dimitri of Rostov said, “It is better for me to pray briefly but with attention,
than to pronounce innumerable words without attention, vainly filling the air with noise.”
So before it’s time to pray, take the time to sit in silence and focus your attention
on God.
So you can be fully present with Him as He is with you.
And finally, Key Number 4: Connect with a spiritual father
This video offers some basic advice about starting and keeping a prayer rule.
But one thing you’ll hear again and again, from Church Fathers and great saints throughout
Church history, is to not do this alone.
If you want to learn to dance, you need a teacher.
If you want to learn to play an instrument, you need a teacher.
And, well, learning to pray works kind of like that.
We have to work at it.
We have to learn how to do it.
As St John Chrysostom put it, “Let us learn to pray like Christians.”
And if we’re going to learn, we need to find someone who can teach us.
This is why the Church in her wisdom has given each of us godparents to show us the way and
how to be Christians.
Each of us benefits from the presence of a true spiritual elder in our lives.
Maybe it’s the person you go to for confession: your parish priest or a priest from summer
camp.
Or maybe your godfather or godmother has helped guide you deeper into the Mystery of Christ
through prayer.
Or maybe it’s your grandma.
I mean, Yiayia really knows what’s up.
Whoever your guide may be, it’s important you have one, because the spiritual journey
is one best undertaken together.
If you’d like to learn more about what a spiritual father is, Christian covered that
in an episode of The Trench.
And maybe we’ll get into that in a future episode of “Be the Bee.”
So that’s it, 4 keys to help you start (and keep) a prayer rule.
But I don’t want us to just talk about these keys.
We need to put them into practice.
Like we said at the beginning of this video, September 1 is the start of the new Church
year.
It’s the perfect time to either start a new prayer rule or really dig into one we’ve
been struggling with.
So here’s what I’d like you to do.
Down in the doobly-doo, you’ll find a link to download a free Workbook for this episode.
It’ll help you be clear about what your prayer rule is, and help you stick with it.
Our Y2AM Prayer Challenge is to see if we can all stick to a prayer rule for the next
3 months.
Are you up for it?
Let’s start the new church year off right.
Or, if you’re watching this video later in the year, let’s just take this moment,
whenever it might be, to get back on track.
Download the workbook, share it with your spiritual father, write down your prayer rule.
And let’s see if we can stay on track together.
Let’s see if we can each stick with our prayer rule for the next 3 months.
That’s our Y2AM Prayer Challenge to you at the start of the new Church year.
Let’s get back to basics with our daily prayer.
So let's be the bee, and pray consistently, together.
Be the Bee, and Live Orthodoxy.
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I’ll see you all next week.
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