Prayer is needed or needed mainly so that a person knows his dependence on God. Church prayer is higher than home prayer. However, the first does not exclude the second (home). The 100 prostrations required at home cannot be compared with one church word: “Lord have mercy”! And so that the mind does not become distracted while standing in the church of prayer, one must mentally repeat within oneself what is being sung or read there, and not just listen with one’s ears and enjoy the way they sing, but understand what is being sung. And if you can’t hear the reading, silently read the prayer briefly: Lord have mercy! And therefore, knowing the importance of church prayer, every Christian (Orthodox) soul, if it cannot be in the Holy Church during the celebration of divine services and especially the Holy Liturgy, should, at the hour of its celebration, stand for a short prayer with a living consciousness of what is currently happening in the Holy Church in the face of the faithful children of God who are there, from whom you are, sigh to God and thank Him for the salvation of the entire human race and in particular you, unworthy of His great and rich mercy.
You must pray with contrition of spirit and a humble heart, aware of your weakness and powerlessness. The words of the prayer must be pronounced in a plaintive tone, as beggars ask for alms, and with the words of the prayer, do not seek the gift of prayer or pleasure, but say the words of the prayer so that the Lord God Himself will drive away from you that passion or sinful habit with which you often struggle: either anger, or rancor, or vain thoughts, or blasphemous thoughts, or carnal lusts, or distraction of the mind, or hardening of the heart, or laziness, or drowsiness, or ignorance, or oblivion, or any other sinful passions. And you also need to say the words of prayer so that the Lord God will forgive your sins and save your soul, which is the message of fate. The end of everything in prayer is surrendering oneself to the will of God. Whoever surrenders to the will of God, God, as it were, carries him in His arms, and whoever only asks God in his prayer for something useful and saving, He gives him what he asks for, but does not carry it in his arms.