Introduction
Before I talk about prayer, I want to provide some context:
God is Beauty, Light, and Love. He made the cosmos good and with the potential to become better forever. That is, to grow in beauty, light, and love each moment into eternity.
God’s desire for us is to do His work. To “subdue” the world to His plan of harmonious perfection. This is the work we were made for – we “Image” God in this way. But we have corrupted the “Likeness.” This means that even our well-intentioned efforts spread the corruption in our hearts into the world through the work we do. This is what we call sin. The Greek means to miss the target. The target is to move things from the crooked to the straight and even from the good to the better; anything that keeps us from doing that well is sinful.
It is in this context that I believe prayer makes the most sense. It helps us avoid thinking about prayer as purely intercessory. Our theology is largely defined by our culture, and our culture is both transactional and, forgive me, entitled. This means that we are primed to think of God as a sort of Santa Claus. We modify this vision and describe it using Orthodox words, but the underlying expectation remains. As we mature in Orthodoxy, we might adjust it to take into account the need for holiness, but it is still transactional; “if I do good, God will hear me.” After all, God is a loving parent who does not give a child who asks for bread a stone or who asks for fish a snake (Matthew 7:9-11). But scripture is contextual: we are called to work the vineyard of this world at least as much as we are called to enjoy its fruits.
The Metaphor of Work
The good news is that as much as our culture is about consumerism, it also has historically had one that is rooted in a strong work ethic and entrepreneurialism, or what I like to call “getting things done.” Some of us have been supervisors, managers, investors, and owners of businesses or leaders in the military or civil service. All of us have reported to people as workers. What were those work conversations like? When were they most productive? Sometimes it was intercessory: we might ask for more resources so that we can be more effective, or we might ask for a raise, but is that what most of the communication is about? No. The communications between management and workers of a healthy organization are designed to help the worker be more effective: clear goals, responsibilities, and consequences. Later conversations involve both positive and negative evaluations with the expectation that over time the workers will be able to work with less guidance. In theological terms, this is what happens in theosis: it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. During this time, prayer becomes increasingly hesychastic, with the worker basking in the glory of God and God’s will being done efficiently by His servant.
So, having added this dimension to the definition of prayer, let’s talk about how prayer perfects us.
Introduction: what prayer is and why we do it
Prayer is communication and relation-building with God. Communication is always difficult, even among people with similar characteristics; it is even more so when few characteristics are shared. While God became man so that we could know Him, it is still hard for us to understand His will; we simply don’t have the concepts, the symbols, or the words. In addition, our noetic receptors are all but shut. We do not hear the clear communications of God, despite the fact that they are constant and clear to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Prayer is not just the communication between man and God, but one of the primary mechanisms He has given us to improve our understanding.
The Metaphor of Music
The disciplines of musical training turn a person into a musician who can easily sing/play any music alone and with others in a way that brings joy to the musician’s heart and to the community.
Musical practice trains the intellect to think musically (notes, chords, harmonics, progressions, modes, melodies, tones, scansion)
Musical practice trains the reins/instincts/passions to automatically adjust timing and pitch to meet what is written and being sung. Builds up the ability to ignore distractions and focus on what is necessary.
Musical practice trains the nous/heart for a deeper appreciation of music that moves us towards awe of beauty, the beautiful, and the One who is the author of beauty.
The Metaphor of Work
A healthy workplace:
Trains the intellect by getting workers familiar with the company’s ethos, mission, and processes, and how each specific employee helps fulfill its mission
Trains the instincts through repetition until the mechanics of the employees’ work can be handled automatically, and they are able to spend their energy improving the efficiency, scope, and beauty of their work.
Trains the nous by allowing the employee to work in harmony with other employees and departments, internalize the ethos of the company and the desires of the leadership, and bask in the way their work serves both the company and its customers.
How prayer does these same things for us:
Prayer:
Trains the intellect for theological thinking. Words. Concepts. Symbols. Ethos.
Trains the instincts. Self-control. Automatic preference for things that are good and holy and true.
Opens the heart to the experience of God so that love of both God (awe, worship) and neighbor (sacrificial love).
The communal aspect of the prayer rule:
Rote prayer is not merely a private or individual act. It binds the faithful together across time and space. To pray the Church’s prayers is to join a living, mystical community—the communion of saints—who have prayed these same words across centuries and continents. This shared spiritual vocabulary allows believers to experience time and space sacramentally and corporally, collapsing the apparent distance between the living and the departed, the local and the universal.
Moreover, a common prayer life strengthens the practical cohesion of the Church. It creates a shared theological and moral culture, allowing for better communication, cooperation, and unity within the Body of Christ. In an age of polarization, the shared experience of daily prayer can be a source of profound reconciliation and common purpose. Thanks to the shared psalmody of prayer, we can follow St. Paul’s direction to go about “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19a).
And this is to say nothing of our worship, which is the communal culmination of personal prayer.
The Special Case of Silent Prayer
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Conclusion
Repetitive prayer is not dead ritual but dynamic formation. It trains the intellect to think theologically, disciplines the instincts toward virtue, and prepares the heart for divine encounter. It also weaves the individual into the community of saints, creating a shared culture that manifests the love of God in the world.
In short, the prayer rule makes the crooked straight—not just in ourselves, but through us, in the world we touch. We are always replicating what we are. Through prayer, we become properly patterned imagers of God, capable of helping to re-pattern a broken world in love, peace, and grace.
From the UOC-USA Prayer Book:
I. WHAT IS NECESSARY DURING PRAYER
1. Constantly remind yourself that you are in the presence of the Almighty and are asking Him to forgive the multitude of your sins, for which you will have to answer, perhaps even today – for we do not know the last day of our life. St. Ephraim the Syrian says, “Being responsible for all my evil deeds, when I am at prayer, I am fearful that fire from heaven might destroy me. However, I do not fall into despair, for I hope in the Mercy of God.” This is an example of prayer that is well pleasing to God.
2. Concentrate on the purpose of prayer. Attempt to make all the Signs of the Cross, all prostrations and other liturgical actions with great reverence. This drives away negligence, slumber and being inattentive while praying.
3. Do not think about personal or worldly concerns, which can always be addressed after prayer.
4. Remove all earthly thoughts that distract one’s concentration during prayer. If you find your thoughts drifting to earthly matters, ask forgiveness of God, that you interrupted your conversation with Him.
5. Always attempt to avoid feelings of pride, self-satisfaction.
6. If you desire to pray without a prayer book or reciting specific prayers, you should do so.
7. Ask the Lord to reveal to you the most meaningful way to pray to Him.
II. WHAT DISTRACTS PRAYER
1. An excess of food, drink, or sleep.
2. An excess of any things that can tempt the spirit and make it indifferent and insensitive to spiritual treasures and can lead to an obsessiveness and compulsion to sin.
3. Spitefulness and anger.
4. An unhealthy obsession with your profession, work or worldly matters. You concern yourself with these matters during most of the day. Leave them for a few moments during your time in prayer.
5. Desire to satisfy the excessive pleasures of the body.
6. All great and minor sins for which we do not repent. They remove us from God and lead us closer to greater temptation and evil.
III. WHAT HELPS PRAYER
1. Reading the Bible (every day) and the writings of the Holy Fathers help you understand the way a true Christian should live.
2. A life in accordance with the Commandments of God. In order for Him to attend to us, we must be attentive to Him.
3. Reflection about your day – considering how you may have sinned against God and how you may have harmed others.
4. A pure conscience and participation in the Holy Mysteries.
5. Fasting.
6. Acts of charity that help others and enable the Mercy of God to be evident in us.
7. A constant and unrelenting struggle against the passions, sinful deeds and evil thoughts, which influence the soul. The Holy Fathers have written that there are eight major passions to avoid: A love of food (gluttony), lust, love of money and material goods (greed), anger, strife over earthly concerns, spiritual disillusion and negligence, a desire for personal glory and pride.
IV. CONCERNING PROSTRATIONS AND PRAYER
Full prostrations and prayer while kneeling are not prescribed for Sundays and Great Feast Days, as well as during the period from Pascha to Pentecost and from the Nativity of Christ to Theophany. On days when one participates in Holy Communion, one should not make penitential prostrations.
V. ABOUT MAKING THE SIGN OF THE CROSS
1. We make the sing of the cross with our right hand. We place our thumb and the first two fingers together and the last two fingers we place in our palm. With our united thumb and first two fingers we touch our forehead, our abdomen, right shoulder and the left shoulder. When making the Sign of the Cross, we finish by placing our arm at our side and bowing.
The united thumb and first two fingers symbolize our faith in the Holy Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The two other fingers symbolize our faith in the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ and that He had two natures Divine and human and that he came from heaven to earth (the palm) for the sake of our salvation.