Prayers

Contents A Voice to the Lord About Secret Prayer Prayer These reflections and this conversation of prayer must be constant for those who hope in their inner man to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to such interviews they are sanctified, and with such a will they are rewarded with a gift from above. We must pray with suffering and painfully pester God about all this. And we must have this attitude towards all people: with suffering, pray for them as for ourselves, for in this way the Divinity will come and dwell in us, and His will will live in us both in heaven and on earth. This goal in prayer and meditation should also be yours, our brother, all your days - while you kneel on the ground, and at other times - secretly and inside your heart. Even if the order of words and their sequence are not the same, undoubtedly, the purpose of prayer should be the same at every moment, so that, thanks to such aspiration and such reflection, we are worthy of the gift received by our fathers, whose bodies and souls became temples of the Holy Spirit. But, Christ, the only omnipotent one! “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You and whose heart is directed towards You” (Ps. 83:6). You, Lord, turn our faces away from the world to lust after You, until we see what the world is and stop believing the shadow as reality. Having created again, renew, O Lord, in our minds zeal before death, so that at the hour of our departure we may know what our entrances and departures were in this world, until we complete the work for which by Thy will we were originally called into life, and then the hope is accepted by a mind filled with hope, to receive, according to the promise of the Scriptures, the great blessings that love has prepared Yours, in the second re-creation, the remembrance of which is preserved by faith in the sacraments. Grant me, O Lord, to know and love You not with the knowledge that is acquired through exercise with waste of the mind, but grant me with that knowledge in which the mind, contemplating You, glorifies Your nature in contemplation, stealing the sense of the world from thought. Vouchsafe me to rise above the vision of the will that gives rise to dreams, and to see You, bound by the bonds of the cross, in this second part of the crucifixion of the mind, which, free from the influence of mental ideas on it, rests in the unceasing, supernatural contemplation of You. Make it so that my love for You grows in me and that, following Your love, I leave this world to me. Arouse in me the understanding of Your humility, with which You lived in the world, in this monastery, which You bore on Yourself, borrowing from our members through the mediation of the Holy Virgin, so that in constant and unforgettable remembrance of this, I may perceive with pleasure the humility of Your nature. Do not approach the words of the sacraments contained in the Divine Scripture without prayer and asking for help from God, but say: “Grant me, Lord, to receive the feeling of the power contained in them.” Consider prayer as the key to the true meaning of what is said in the Divine Scriptures. When you pray, say this prayer: “Grant me, O Lord, to truly be dead to converse with this world.” And know that you have combined all the petitions in this; try to fulfill this task in yourself. For if prayer is followed by action, then you truly stand in the freedom of Christ. Test yourself, soul, and consider in what land your inheritance is, and whether you have passed through the field, which brings sorrow to the fruitful workers; with groaning and anxiety, cry out and cry out, - in what way will your God rest more than sacrifices and burnt offerings. Let your lips exude painful voices, with which the holy Angels delight; wet your cheeks with the tears of your eyes, so that the Holy Spirit may rest in you and wash you from the filth of vice; Appease your Lord with tears to help you; call Mary and Martha, let them teach you lamentable voices; cry to the Lord: “Lord Jesus Christ, our God, who wept over Lazarus and shed tears of sorrow and compassion over him, accept the tears of my sorrow, heal my passions with Your sufferings, cleanse my blood with Your blood and dissolve the stench of Your life-giving body with my body. May the bile that your enemies gave you to drink sweeten my soul from the sorrow that my opponent gave me to drink. Thy body, stretched out on the tree of the cross, may my mind, carried away by the demons, stretch out to Thee. May Thy head, bowed on the cross, exalt my head, strangled by adversaries. May Your all-holy hands, nailed by the infidels to the cross, lead me to You from the abyss of destruction, as Your all-holy lips promised. May Your face, which has received the blows and spitting from the damned, illuminate my face, darkened by iniquities. Let Thy soul, which Thou gavet unto Thy Father on the cross, guide me to Thee by Thy grace. I do not have a sick heart to seek You; I have neither repentance nor contrition, by which children are introduced into their own inheritance. I have no consoling tears, Vladyka. My mind has been darkened by the affairs of this life and with illness I do not have the strength to raise my gaze to You. My heart has grown cold from many temptations and cannot be warmed by tears of love for You. But You, Lord Jesus Christ God, treasure of good things, grant me complete repentance and an untiring heart, so that with all my soul I may begin to seek You. For without You I will be alien to all good. Therefore, O Good One, grant me Your grace. May the Father, who eternally and eternally brings You out from His bosom, renew in me the features of Your image. I left you; Don't leave me. I have departed from You; You come to seek me and lead me into Your pasture, number me among the sheep of Your chosen flock, nourish me with the grain of Your Divine mysteries along with those whose pure heart is Your abode, and in it the leafing of Your revelations is visible - this is consolation and this joy for those who have labored for You in sorrows and in bitterness of all kinds. May we also be worthy of this oblation by Your grace and Your love for mankind, our Savior Jesus Christ, forever and ever! God, deign me to feel the hope that is prepared for the righteous at Your coming, when You come in our body to reveal Your glory to the worlds. God, who brought Your love to the world when it did not know You, and who revealed Yourself to the righteous in part in all generations, through the shadows of Your revelations, resurrect the deadness of my thoughts, so that they might know You, so that I hasten to come to You and not rest until the hour when death puts a limit to my journey in the haven of silence. O Christ, the haven of mercies, the One who revealed Himself to the sinful race, the One for whom generations of the righteous were waiting and who in His time revealed the joy of all creation, You grant me other eyes, another hearing and another heart, so that instead of the world I see, hear and feel the blessings that You have prepared for the revelation of Your glory to the Christian race through that vision, hearing and sensation that are extraordinary. Awaken in me, O Lord, a taste for perceiving You, so that I may be worthy of leaving this world for You, for the world has captivated me with its joy away from You. While my eyes rejoice in the vision of perishable things, and my mind understands only physicality, it is impossible for me to completely free myself from the weak and perishable feelings that arise from these things. Grant me, O Lord, to meet that vision over which corruption has no power, so that when, having met it, I forget the world and myself, all bodily images will disappear before my eyes. O Christ, the delight of our race, the consolation in our poverty, the support of our humble nature, which has wavered and fallen, the hope of the deprived, the venerable Name that has become known among people, restore me from a fallen state, bring about the resurrection of my deadness, so that the sense of life within me will awaken; Bring my soul out of the prison of ignorance, that I may glorify Your name. Breathe into my members the breath of new life, visit my corruption that is in the grave, and lead me out of the place of darkness. May the dawn of Your revelation visit me in the Sheol of ignorance. The verbal nature fell silent in me; You, Lord, awaken it again in my nature, for in Sheol there is no remembrance of You: in the grave who will glorify You? I have no lips to say this last prayer, but may the living, like me today, thank You. Feelings have become numb, movements have fallen silent, thoughts have dried up, all the activity of nature in me is devoid of true life, there is no memory of You in me, there is no gratitude to You in Sheol in which I dwell, there is no joyful sound of Your praises in the loss of my soul, all my members that are dead await the birth pangs of the resurrection! There is no one who would come to me in the abandonment of Sheol! My God, may I hear Your voice, which resurrects everything mysteriously! Mysteriously do what happened to Lazarus, Your friend, to me. I know, Lord, that I have never shown myself to be Your vigilant friend, but I am from Your flock, and my enemy captured me and humiliated me on earth. God, deign me to partake of the greatness that You have prepared for Your friends in the new age, and the feeling of this knowledge of Your love, and this inseparable union and this inextricable connection of pleasure from the vision of You. Lord, do not take Your grace from me, so that I may not be deprived of the knowledge of You, filled with hope. Lord, save me from spiritual darkness! Merciful Christ, may I rejoice in Your hope, sow hope in You in my thoughts and make me worthy, O Lord, of Your mercy when Your revelation shines from heaven. Lord, may I not be called to judgment for my mistakes when You come in Your glory! By Your grace, O Lord, You brought me into existence, and by Your grace You will honor my body with resurrection. May my rise from the dust not be for judgment and disgrace of my face! Lord, may I not awaken to endure Your condemnation and deprivation. But awaken me, Lord, from the dust for pleasure and for that glory to which You wanted to bring the verbal creation from the very beginning, when You created it. You did not create me, Lord, to be tested in Gehenna, lest I become a vessel of destruction. Destruction, Lord, consists in man being completely deprived of that vision of You, which gives all joy. Make me worthy, O Lord, to comprehend that hope for which from the very beginning, according to Your will, You created me, so that I may see Your eternal glory. For, when we did not yet exist, You desired in Your love that creation should come into being to know You. O Christ! Thou who died for us out of Thy love, make me dead to sin and put off this old man from me, so that with newness of mind I may stand before Thee at all times, as if in the New Age. God, Whom the Heavens of the Heavens cannot contain, Who has chosen from us a reasonable Church to inhabit, deign me to become the receptacle of Your Love. From the feeling that the saints forgot themselves and became mad for Your sake and at all times mingled with You in the intoxication of attraction to You, and never turned back when they were rewarded with this sweet source, thirsting for Your Love, You intoxicated them with amazement at Your Mysteries. Lord, save me from mental darkness Show me, O Lord, Thy ways, and teach me in the spirit so many and ineffable Thy ways. Guide me on the path of truth and teach me the perfect knowledge of You, which is found in the saints who have left the world. O Christ, goal of the path of the saints, show me the path of truth in my heart through the sweetness of the thought of You, so that I may walk along it and draw closer to You until I see Your face. God, grant me humility, so that I can be freed from the scourge and so that, thanks to humility, I can come closer even to those pleasures of the mind, which, until I have humility, I do not know, no matter how much I would like to know about them! He drew them, composed them and composed them from words that were devastating and convincing, and he made a single body from members harmoniously united: something useful for the reflection of secret prayer. A person does it standing or sitting, working or walking around his cell, falling asleep - until sleep steals him away - sitting at home or traveling: he secretly does this inside the heart, as well as constantly kneeling to the ground or standing anywhere, not necessarily even in front of the Cross. He adds to the humility of his body the movements of his prayer: thanks to this he receives benefit, as well as thanks to those prayers that he has assigned himself as a rule, and thanks to the place allocated for prayer, with all the beneficial benefits that he gains from this according to the change that takes place in his mind, as well as the periods of peace and anxiety that alternate with him. And in this way he uses these prayers, for they are composed in such a way that he finds consolation: thanks to them, his soul is sanctified and filled with the grace of the Spirit. With all my bones and with all my heart I offer You service worthy of You, bowing the head of my soul to the earth. O all-glorious God, living in inexplicable silence! For the sake of my renewal, You built on earth a tabernacle of love, a place of rest for Your will, a church of flesh, built with the help of holy oil, which is above all holiness. Thou hast filled it with Thy holy things, so that the service of all may be performed in it; and the worship of the eternal Hypostases of Your Trinity You indicated in it; and revealed to the worlds that You created by Your grace an ineffable mystery and power, which the senses of Your creatures who have come into being cannot feel or know. Before her, the angelic natures are silently immersed in amazement before the cloud of this eternal mystery and the stream of glory flowing from amazement, for in the realm of silence everything that thinks worships her, being sanctified and becoming worthy of You. I throw myself at the footstool of Your feet, O Lord, and at Your holy right hand, which created me and made me a man who knew You. But I sinned and committed evil before myself and before You, abandoning holy conversation with You and devoting my days to conversations with lusts. I beg You, Lord, do not impute to me the sins of my youth, the ignorance of my old age and the weakness of my nature, which overpowered me and drowned me in thinking about hateful things. But from the annoying wandering of lusts, turn my heart to You, the hidden light, may it live in me. Your good deeds to me at all times anticipated my every will for good and the readiness of my heart for virtue. You never restrained Your care for me in order to test my free will, on the contrary, just as a father cares for his little son, so Your care accompanied me, Your fatherly grace visited my weakness and did not look at testing my will, for You knew me at all times - you knew that I knew less than a child where I was going. I beg You, God, send help from Your highest heavens and remove from my heart every evil action and every carnal desire. Do not deprive me, O Lord, of Your protection, so that my enemy does not find me and trample me, as he would like, and crush me completely. For You are the One who gives repentance and a weeping heart to the repentant sinner, so that thanks to the consolation from crying and from the gift of tears, You free his heart from the burden of sin that lies on it. I knock on the door of Your compassion, Lord, send help to my scattered impulses, poisoned by a multitude of passions and the power of darkness. Arouse in me suffering from the vision of my wounds, even if it does not correspond to the power of my sins, for if I receive an awareness of the extent of my sins, Lord, my soul will not endure the bitter pain from them. Help my weak impulses towards true repentance, and may I find relief from the burden of sins through this suffering, which is from Your gift, for without the power of Your grace I am completely unable to even go inside myself and recognize my sins, so that at the sight of them I can calm down from the abundance of absent-mindedness. O name of Jesus, key to all gifts, open the door for me, so that I may enter into Your treasury and praise You with praise from the bottom of my heart for Your mercies that were upon me at the end of time, for You have come and renewed me with the knowledge of the new age. I praise, O Lord, Thy holy nature, for Thou hast made my nature the sanctuary of Thy hiddenness and the ark of Thy mysteries, the place of Thy dwelling and the holy church of Thy Divinity - the church of Him who holds the scepter of Thy Kingdom, Who rules all that exists, Who is the Ark of Thy eternal glory. Renewal for the fiery ranks serving You. The path to Your knowledge. The door to the house of Thy visions, the totality of Thy power and great wisdom - Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten from Thy womb and the “remnant” gathered from Thy creation, both visible and intelligible. O Mystery, exalted beyond words and silence, made human to renew us through voluntary union with the flesh, open to me the path by which I would be raised to Your mysteries, walking along the clear path of silence from the thoughts of this world. Gather my mind into the silence of prayer and may my wandering thoughts be silenced through this enlightened conversation of prayer and amazement, filled with mysteries. I throw myself, my Lord, at the Throne of Your Majesty—I, who am dust and ashes and the rabble of mankind. Thousands of thousands of angels and countless legions of seraphim, with fiery praises and holy movements, offer You spiritual service in the secrecy of their natures - You, the holy Nature, hidden from the feeling and knowledge of every creature, for with Your help, Lord, You are close to everyone in every time of calamity, and in time and out of time Your door is open to the petitions of all. You do not disdain sinners, and Your greatness does not turn away from souls stained by all kinds of sins, but You remove everyone from endless evils - also me, Lord, completely defiled, whom You deigned to fall on my face before You, so that I would dare to pronounce the name of Your holiness with my lips, although I am a vessel of all uncleanness, unworthy to be numbered among the descendants of Adam. Grant me, Lord, to be sanctified by Your praises and cleansed by the memory of You, renew my life through the change of thoughts and beneficial thoughts that You, by Your grace, arouse in me. Be the guide of my mind in my meditation on You and help me forget about things that lead me astray from the true path, through the renewal of my mind that You awaken in me. Arouse in me such petitions that bring benefit due to the agreement of my will with Your will, for You are the One Who gives prayer to those who pray. Fix in me a single will that looks at You at all times, and a thought that would never weaken in hope for You through constant dying for Your sake. Grant, Lord, that I may not pray to You with insensitive words of my lips, but that I may prostrate myself on earth in the innermost humility of my heart and the repentance of my mind. O God, thanks to Your patience with my sins, You give me life in this world; do not deprive me of the life of the world to come, which those who look for You here among sorrows expect with hope. O Christ, Whose love separated the saints from family, kinship and comfortable human habitation, so that the power of natural passions fell silent in them in the face of the sweetness of Thy love, - Thou, Lord, grant me to hate my life out of love for Thee, and may I become dead during my life in relation to all the pleasures of this world and by Thy power, Lord, may the storms that flare up in my members subside; and may Your love separate me from the world and conversations with it. Draw in my mind a single invisible image, so that the attraction to all sweet memories of the temporary and visible world is defeated. I bow my knees before Your greatness and throw myself to the ground before You, God, for You brought me into existence, although I did not ask You for this, and indeed did not exist at all. Before You formed me in the womb, You knew that my life would be disordered and apostate, but this did not prevent You from creating me and granting me all the rights with which You honored human nature, although You knew in advance about all my vices. You know about my petitions even before they become known to me, and about my prayers - before they are spoken before You; Grant me, my God, at this hour also what You consider necessary for my pitiful nature, which is in danger. You know about the sorrow of my soul, and its healing is in Your hands. O Power, thanks to which the ancient fathers surpassed the powerful and terrible attacks of the rebel - people who, being in human nature with its many needs, were like those who had no needs, showing on earth the likeness of future realities; and Thou hast made the graves of men, caves and chasms the place of the Shekinah of Thy revelations to them; You pour into my heart the fervor of their thoughts, so that I may be strengthened by it and trample on the natural desire and fear of opponents, sow in me the knowledge of humility and the uncontrollable desire to go straight to You. O Refuge for the weak, Straight Path for all those who are lost. A place of refuge for those overwhelmed by storms, You yourself bring down the pride of my enemy before me, You destroy the power of his tricks against me, You humiliate his exalted pride, make smooth Your hidden paths before my thoughts, be my consolation during my troubles and a guide in the place of danger. O Sun of truth, thanks to which the righteous saw themselves and became a mirror for their generations, You open in me the door of knowledge of You, grant me a vigilant thought that does not stumble over the pitfalls of mistakes, until I reach that bright refuge that the ancient fathers reached, who pleased You with all their exploits. Sanctify me with Your mysteries, enlighten my mind with the knowledge of You, let Your hope shine in my heart, deign me to pray for it inwardly. O God, my Father and Lord of my life, light Your lamp within me, place in me what is Yours, so that I forget about mine. Awaken in me the power of amazement by You, so that it overcomes the compulsion of nature. Arouse in me a vision of Your mysteries, so that I realize what was invested in me in Holy Baptism. You have given me a Guide: may He show me Your glory at all times. You have destined me to be the light and salt of the world: let me not become a stumbling block for my friends. Since I have left the world, let me not turn my gaze again to it and to the things that I rejected when I made my vow to You. Place pleasant reins on my heart, so that my feelings do not look at what is outside the paths of Your laws. Gather my impulses for the ship of repentance, so that I may rejoice in it in the midst of the sea of ​​life until I reach the harbor of Your hope. Through the memory of You, may my mind gain courage in temptations. Through the radiance of knowledge about You, may the path of darkness be illuminated before me. O God, deign me to understand the mystery of Your love, reflected in Your economy in relation to the sensory world, in Your creation of created being and in the mystery of the slaying of Your Beloved! Our Creator, knowing the pain of my nature, You Yourself remove from me the violence of the enemy, You drive out the rebellion of sin from my members, You extinguish its heat in my heart, stretch out a healing hand to my defeated soul, bind my inner feelings with the bonds of the Cross, increase in me the fullness of love for You, which comes from the knowledge of the Crucified One, make my mind internally focused thanks to the innermost secrets that are contained in Cross, strengthen in me the memory of the humility of Your Beloved, increase in me amazement at Your economy in relation to me. O God, even before You were reconciled with the world, You gave it Your Only Begotten, and after reconciliation You gave Him to inherit the throne of Your Divinity; do not leave me deprived of hope of going to the grave, and may I not find myself sitting in the bonds of the darkness of my sins, as if dead for eternity. We thank You, O God, for Your gift to the world, for created beings are not able to speak of its riches. Since I, too, am a part of this world, let me not regret my part of the thanksgiving that I must bring to You. Therefore let me praise You and give thanks to Your name. Thou hast given Thy entire treasure to the world: if Thou hast given the Only Begotten from Thy womb and from the throne of Thy Being for the benefit of all, is there anything greater that Thou hast not given to Thy creation? The world mixed with God, and creation and the Creator became one! Praise be to You for Your incomprehensible Providence! Truly great is this mystery! Glory to Thee for Thy mysteries that are hidden from us! Vouchsafe me, Lord, to taste this great hidden and hidden secret, which the world is not yet worthy to know. Perhaps You have shown some of it to Your saints - to those who live above the world and who are above carnal movements at all times. The flow of the mysteries of Christ, like the waves of the ocean, overwhelms my mind. I would like, Lord, to be silent before them and not speak, but they turned out to be like a burning flame in my heart, burning my bones. My conscience convicts me and shows me my sins. Your mystery stuns me, but compels me to look at it. In silence she points out to me: “Do not hesitate to draw near for fear of your sins, O sinner, for it is through meditation on them that the filth of sin will be removed from your mind.” O Liberator of our nature, release me from the hidden bonds with which my inner members are entangled, and from the obvious obstacles in the face of my outer senses, so that I may strive to enter the paradise of Your mysteries and eat from the tree of life, from which Adam was not allowed to eat. My Savior, save me from demonic seduction; My God, deliver me from relaxation of conscience; My hope, pour into my heart the intoxication of hope in You. Resurrection and Light of all worlds, Jesus Christ, place the crown of knowledge of You on the head of my soul; suddenly open before me the gates of mercy; may the rays of Your grace shine in my heart; be a guide for the feet of my thoughts until I reach Zion, Thy holy mountain. Honor me with that holy city into which the saints entered at the end of their journey. My Creator and my Hope, Anchor of my life in the midst of storms, Staff in my weakness, Honor in my dishonor, lift up my head, bowed to the ground, do not betray me to the will of my enemy, do not give an opportunity to his shamelessness. Place a great abyss in front of him, so that he does not stand across my path and confuse me. Grant me, in serving You, to end my short and fleeting life, may I be near You at the end of my days, may I be in Your vineyard at the end of my life. Honor me with the denarius that You assigned to the laborers even before the time of my departure. By grace, Lord, and not by my works, grant me, even at the eleventh hour of my life, to be awake in Your service. May the world not captivate me with its interviews, full of temptation, and may it not imprison me in the cage of its worries. O Christ, clothed with light as with a robe, Who for my sake stood naked before Pilate, clothe me with Thy power, with which Thou hast overshadowed the saints, and thanks to which they have emerged victorious from the struggles of this world. O Lord, may Your Divinity rest in me and may it lead me above the world to be with You. O Christ, upon whom the many-eyed cherubim cannot look because of the glory of Your Face, out of Your love You received spitting on Your Face: remove shame from my face and grant me prayer with an open face before You. O Christ, Who, because of the duty of our nature to God, went into the wilderness and defeated the ruler of darkness, robbing him of the victory that he had enjoyed for five thousand years; make him run away from me - the one who at all times forces the human race to sin. Let the shameful Cross that You carried for my sake be a bridge for me to this peaceful refuge. Let the crown of thorns with which Your head was crowned be a helmet of salvation for me on the hot day of battle. May the spitting received by Your Face prepare me to have an open face before the judgment of Your coming. May Your holy body, which was naked on the Cross, crucify me to this world and its lusts through love for You. Let Thy garment, for which the lot was cast, tear into shreds before my eyes the garment of darkness in which I am inwardly clothed. Let the water and blood that flowed from You be for me a book of liberation from my former slavery. May Your Body and Your Blood, mixed with my body, remain in me as a guarantee that I will not be deprived of a constant vision of You in that place to which there is no limit. May the sacraments of faith, which I have kept intact within myself, preserve something worthwhile for me on that day when the world is preparing to welcome Your coming, and may they there make up for the lack of my asceticism. May they be remembered, O Lord, on Thy holy altar in the terrible hour, when Thy Body and Blood are sacrificed for the salvation of the world, all the fathers and brothers who are in the mountains, in caves, in gorges, in rocks, in harsh and deserted places that are hidden from the world, and only You know where they are - those who have died and those who are still alive and serve You with body and soul, O Holy One, living in the saints in whom Your Divinity rests; those who left the temporary world and have already become dead to its life, for they went out in search of You and sought You diligently among their misfortunes and sufferings. O King of all worlds and all Orthodox fathers, who for the sake of the true faith endured exile and disasters from persecutors; those who in monasteries, monasteries, deserts and deserted places all over the world, in every place and in every locality, are concerned about pleasing You with labors for the sake of virtue, may Your help accompany them, O Lord, and be a helmet for them at all times, send them constant innermost consolation and tie their minds to You in all their struggles, may the power of Your Trinity live in them, and may they serve You until the end of their lives with kindness conscience and good behavior. Honor them with a haven of peace while they are still in the body. And to those who endure cruel battles with demons, openly or secretly, send help, O Lord, and cover them with the cloud of Thy grace; place the helmet of salvation on their mental head; bring down the power of the enemy before them; May the power of Your right hand support them at all times, so that they do not cease to constantly look to You in their thoughts; clothe them in the armor of humility, so that a sweet fragrance may emanate from them at every moment, delighting Your will. May those who suffer from severe pain and bitter bodily illnesses also be remembered before You, Lord; send them an angel of mercy and pacify their souls, tormented by the intense suffering of their bodies. Have pity, Lord, also on those who are in the hands of cruel, evil and godless people; Send them an angel of mercy quickly and save them from the hands of the atheists. My Lord and my God, send comfort to all who innocently endure all kinds of disasters. Autumn, Lord, Thy holy Church, redeemed by Thy Blood, may Thy true peace, which Thou gavest to Thy holy apostles, live in her, bind her children with holy bonds of unbreakable love; Let the rebel have no power over her, and remove from her persecution, rebellion and war, both internal and external; and may kings and priests be bound together in great peace and love, so that their minds may be filled at all times with a vision of Thee; and may holy faith be a wall for your flock. And me, a sinner, through their prayers, also deign to be preserved at every moment under the powerful protection of Your holy hand, which is Your Providence, which embraces everything. Amen. I beg and ask You, Lord, to grant all those who are in error the true knowledge of You, so that they may know Your glory. For those who have passed from this world deprived of a virtuous life and not having faith, be a protector for them, for the sake of the body that You took from them, so that from the one united body of the world we bring glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of Heaven and that pleasure that has no end forever and ever. Amen. Enlightened thinking about God is the completion of prayer, or rather, it is the primary source of prayers - because prayer itself also ends with thinking about God. It happens that from prayer a person is transported into amazed reflection about God, and it happens that from reflection about God prayer is born. All these are different stages along the path along which the mind runs divinely in the field of the world, so that each person looks at his own crown. The crown of a monk is mental pleasure, which is in Christ our Savior. Whoever found it received a guarantee of future benefits in this world. O Christ, Source of life, deign me to taste You and may my eyes be enlightened. O Mercy and Compassion sent to the world, O Hope of creation, grant me to taste the pleasure of Thy hope; May I be blind to the world, but enlightened in spirit, and through Your love may my life be intoxicated, so that I may forget the world and its deeds. May we be captivated by You in our minds as we converse with Your great radiance. Do not leave us to be captivated by the world through harmful interviews with it. But grant us, according to Thy will, to serve Thee vigilantly and glorify Thee without embarrassment, in great peace, at every hour. Grant us, O Lord, lips full of Your praise, as well as a mind that can endure suffering. Enlighten our consciousness with purity, purifying thoughts, so that we may become a pleasant and blameless sacrifice for You during the hours of our prayers. Let Your hidden power live in us, so that the feelings of our soul may be strengthened, so that our soul may mysteriously cry out a song full of amazement. And with the alleluias of the highest angels, may we praise at every moment the power of Your Being. And, as if in heaven, let us bear the shrine of Your Divinity on our hidden members. And with all Your saints, let us give thanks to Your great name and serve Him without satiety, O glorious by nature Father, Son and Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.