Eight Reasons to Thank the Lord for the Church’s Prayers
By Fran Presley
In Orthodox Church time, a mere ten years is like the blink of an eye! Still, my tenth year as an Orthodox Christian is a good time to reflect on everything I appreciate and love about the ancient Church. High on my list of things to thank God for are the Holy Spirit-breathed prayers of the Church. Of course I am deeply grateful for the life-giving prayers we pray during the services, but here I am referring to the Church’s prayers we can pray at home.
I had developed the habit of a daily morning prayer time long before I became Orthodox. For the last ten years, though, my morning prayer time has been enriched beyond measure because I have been praying the prayers of the Church. I use A Pocket Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians, published by the Antiochian Archdiocese. It offers a variety of prayers and is small enough to carry in my purse when I travel.
Every morning I pray the Morning Prayers (beginning on page 5) and “A General Intercession” (beginning on page 25). I also regularly pray several other shorter prayers from the prayer book. From time to time I add other prayers as the need for them arises (such as prayer before a journey). One can easily insert the names of specific people in the appropriate places throughout all the prayers.
It is important to start each day with prayer. In fact, it seems to be the Lord’s plan for us. “A Prayer to the Holy Trinity” says plainly, “Arising from sleep I thank Thee, O Holy Trinity . . .” and later, “that at dawn I might sing the glories of Thy Majesty.” It’s hard to miss the assumption that Christians pray every morning.
I can think of many reasons to thank the Lord for the Church’s prayers. Here are just a few of them:
1. The prayers start my day off with praises to God.
The birds outside my window start singing at the beginning of the day. Why shouldn’t I also praise Him when the day begins? The birds sing the songs God put inside them. Likewise, He put a song of praise within the Church. Listen for its lyrics in the Church’s prayers.
When I pray the Church’s prayers of praise to God in the early morning, I am using Spirit-chosen words that are right and appropriate and fitting. “Having arisen from sleep, we fall down before Thee, O Blessed One, and sing to Thee, O Mighty One, the angelic hymn.”
2. The prayers remind me of my life’s goal.
I need this potent prayer each morning: “Help me to do Thy will.” The whole point of our existence is to surrender our will to Him and to obey Him in everything. In a recent sermon, Father Luke Veronis said that to become a sincere follower of Jesus Christ means precisely to lay aside our own rights. He continued, “We relinquish our self-centered desires, and we willingly and joyfully become slaves to the divine ways of God. We obediently accept His commands, no matter how difficult they are, and no matter where they lead us.” Because I fail Him so often, I need to surrender afresh to Him at the beginning of each day.
3. The prayers broaden my vision and give me the op-portunity to pray for people I probably would not have thought about otherwise.
I won’t list all the categories of people mentioned in the general intercession, but examples include people who are traveling, orphans and widows, the sick and suffering, the sorrowing and the afflicted, and the needy poor. I pause at appropriate places in the intercession to pray for specific people who come to mind. (And, incidentally, I am reminded to visit or call or write some of them.)
And without the Church’s prayers, I doubt if I would pray every single morning for the Lord to “be mindful of our archbishop and of every bishop of the Orthodox; of priests and deacons and all the clergy of Thy Church.” How desperately our bishops, priests, and deacons need our daily prayers! I am thankful for the reminder to pray for them. And included in the prayer book is a wonderful prayer for priests which I pray every morning, mentioning the names of specific priests.
I am thankful that provision is made, too, for prayers for “my parents, my brothers and sisters, my relatives and friends, and all who are near and dear to me.” Here I name everyone on my regular prayer list.
4. The prayers remind me that I am not alone, and they enkindle in me a love and appreciation for the family of God.
I live eighty miles from my church. I don’t see other Orthodox Christians except on Sundays. When I pray the daily prayers, surrounded by icons, I know that I am not alone; I am connected not only to Jesus’ tender Mother and the other saints in heaven, but to Orthodox Christians all over the world who are praying the same prayers I am praying.
5. The prayers keep Judgment Day before me.
“Suddenly the Judge shall come, and the deeds of each shall be revealed,” I pray every morning. I need to be reminded every day that one day I will face the Judge and have to give Him an account of my deeds. Without this prayer’s reminder, it would be so easy to ignore this truth.
6. The prayers keep me grounded in the Faith.
This happens through the daily repetition of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.
7. The prayers refocus my mind when I become dis-couraged and look away from the Lord to focus on problems.
Discouragement is a symptom of unbelief. From time to time I am tempted to be discouraged, but I cannot continue in that attitude when I turn to Jesus every morning and pray.
8. The prayers lift my thoughts higher than they could have soared on their own.
For instance: “Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence.” Another prayer says, “O Lord, enlighten my mind and my heart.” To ask for the eyes of our understanding to be enlightened is to invite God’s resurrection power into our lives.
Along with faithful attendance at the Divine Liturgy, the Church’s daily prayers—prayed from our hearts day after day, month after month, year after year—bring the Lord’s transforming power into our lives. And to become transformed is the reason we were born.
This article was originally published in the Vol. 11 No. 3 issue of The Handmaiden (Summer, 2007).
Author biography (at the time the article was published):
Fran Presley is a freelance writer who also contributes feature stories and other columns for the
Texarkana Gazette. She is a member of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Shreveport, Louisiana.