Our Father! Your Kingdom is the Kingdom of Light! Dispel the darkness of ignorance and the darkness of delusion of Your people, so that they all know You, the One, True God and Jesus Christ, whom You sent! (John 17:3) and in spirit and truth they always worshiped You, the One, True, Glorified God in the Trinity, and all had eternal life in You! Your kingdom is the kingdom of love! Help us with the power of Your grace, so that we, imitating Your example, who loved us to death, make this boundless love an image for our love: may we love You and all our neighbors, as You have loved us! Thy Kingdom is the Kingdom of grace, the Kingdom of mercy, which we have not earned and cannot deserve in any way, if Thy grace, so powerfully effective in Thy true followers, does not come to us!
May this grace always be with us, helping us to achieve our salvation; for we know that where Your grace reigns, there You also reign; and when You reign, O Great God, then sin does not reign in our mortal body (Rom. 6:12), and the victory of our spirit over the flesh is undoubted. And therefore, All-merciful Lord,
May Your kingdom come, to which, in the depths of our souls, we always strive, as to the kingdom of perfection, eternal peace and bliss!
Our Father! You want, command and arrange everything for us, according to Your infinite wisdom and goodness! You know what is harmful for us and what is useful and saving, which we ourselves often do not know. You know the paths that lead us to bliss, while we ourselves, wandering along the crossroads of life, often strive for the wrong paths that lead us to destruction. Your will is above us. Lord, this is the will of the good and merciful Father, who allows sorrows in order to bestow joy through them; sending illnesses and wounds in order to heal them and give greater value to health; taking in order to give back in abundance; rebuking - to correct; punisher - to make those punished happy and blissful! And because:
may Your will be done over us, and may it be accomplished in our souls and bodies!
Our Father! We know that he is not a good and faithful servant who, knowing the will of his master, does not fulfill it; but the one who knows, obeys her with filial obedience and love. We also know that not everyone who says to You: Lord! God! He who does Your will will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21). And therefore, we pray to You: grant us that, having called Your Holy will, we will always fulfill it! Grant that all our thoughts and feelings, desires and deeds, words and silence, sorrows and consolations, will always be pleasing to You, worthy of Your favor towards us and serve to glorify Your Name! Before Your face, O God, hosts of luminous Angels and Your Saints, burning with the fire of fiery love for You, always reverently worship You, thank and glorify You: grant us, ardently loving You, both in happiness and in sorrow, to reverently worship You; to give thanks for everything and sincerely cry to You: Thy will be done
as in heaven and on earth.
Our Father! You once said that your Father knows what you need before you ask Him (Matthew 6:8): and therefore we pray to You with hope: do not turn Your right hand away from us and grant us everything we need for our life! The birds of the air, who do not sow, do not reap, and do not gather into barns, feed on You: and we, Your creation, completely surrendering to You, also hope that You will not leave us without food and without those necessary clothes, in which You, the All-Merciful One, in Your wisdom and mercy, do not refuse even the grass of the field, dressing it in the same way as Solomon did not dress in all its glory (Matthew 6:28–30)! And therefore, we pray to You:
Give us our daily bread today! That is, give it only for this day, for tomorrow, according to Your teaching, you yourself will take care of your needs (Matthew 6:34) and give it no more than is required to satisfy our necessary, urgent needs; for excess, often leading to immoderation, can expose us to danger on the path to salvation. To acquire this bread and other things, we do not shy away from labor, Lord, as the condition You have determined for obtaining bread (Gen. 3:17-19; 2 Thess. 3:10-11); but we pray to Your goodness: send down upon us Your all-powerful blessing on our labors, so that it, staying over them, always fertilizes them! Before this bread, O All-Bountiful Lord, give us that bread that immaterially gives life to man, that is, spiritual bread (Matthew 4:4): so that we first of all seek Your Kingdom and its righteousness, and then everything else that is necessary for us here. Your bounties were added to him (Matthew 6:33)!
Our Father! We are all Your great debtors for our sins, and we cannot satisfy Your righteousness in any way for these our debts. But You, Lord, You Yourself showed us the way to salvation, sacrificing Yourself for these sins and assuring us through the mouth of Your Prophet that You do not want the sinner to die, but to turn the wicked from his path and live for him! (Ezek.33:11). And therefore, trusting in Your mercy, we repentantly cry out to You, Most Gracious God:
Leave us our debts! You know them; You can and want to release them to everyone who comes to You with repentance! But at the same time, we remember, Lord, the words of Your teaching, that if you do not forgive men their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins (Matthew 6:15) and that Judgment is without mercy for those who did not show mercy (James 2:13). And therefore, we willingly forgive all the sins of the brothers who have offended us, and, having reconciled with them, we dare to offer the gift of prayer before Your altar, crying out to You: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Continue to grant us the spirit of humility, patience and love: may we meekly and complacently endure insults and insults, and forgive them unfeignedly.
Our Father! All the destructive nets of the devil who ensnares us are open before You. You know that we cannot withstand the strength of various enemies; but we believe that You, the Almighty, are able and want to reinforce our weakness with Your strength, so that we do not fall in battle with these enemies! And therefore, we resort to You, Good and Merciful Lord, and ask for Your help! You know all the cases in which sin overcomes us, and you also know those in which it will continue to strike us if you do not help us gain victory over it. And therefore, we pray to You:
Do not lead us into temptation, that is, guide and protect us with Your grace, so that we, the weak, do not fall into the snares of sin! Grant to us that the sorrows and illnesses that befall us do not exceed our strength and do not remove us from the path of salvation; so that no insult instills in us a feeling of revenge, no seduction of self-interest leads us to untruth; no honor - to arrogance; no sorrows - to cowardice; no bad example leads to imitation; no difficulty means breach of duty; but so that always, bearing in our souls the image of You - who suffered and died for us - we do not weaken with patience and do not stretch out our hands to do evil!
Our Father! You know what burden we are able to bear and under the weight of which we will fall if Your right hand does not support us. Who can count all the types of illnesses and sufferings of man and all types of his misfortunes? We know, Lord, that all this does not come directly from Your will, the Source of goodness and bliss, but is only allowed by You as an atoning sacrifice for sins, or rather, as a means to our correction; We also know that we can avoid much of all this, or make it easier, with our firm determination to resist sin; and therefore we pray to You, Almighty and All-Merciful God: strengthen us and grant us to resist the deceptions of the devil, so that neither the internal attraction of a corrupt nature nor external temptations enslave us to the dominion of sin! Cover and protect us from untruth that wears the appearance of virtue; from the devil, who takes on the image of a bright Angel, and from predatory and crafty wolves hiding under sheep's clothing!
Save us from carelessness about our own salvation; from destructive forgetfulness of You; from blindness of spirit; from bitterness and insensibility, which can plunge us into the depths of evil, and thus