Prayer: The Essence of the Spiritual Life
by Thomas S. Buchanan
“Richard Smith, Master of Science in Chemical Engineering!” rang the voice from the podium. “James Stevenson, PhD in Civil Engineering!” came the next. As this secular litany continued, I found myself praying, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand” (Psalm 95:6–7).
The beauty of prayer is that it is always appropriate. Whether it be during a long commencement program or while cooking a meal, there is always time for prayer in one form or another. For us, praying should be a way of life, a halakha, to borrow a word from Hebrew.
The Shema, the great prayer of the Jews from Deuteronomy 6:4–7, says, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
The Lord told the Jews to keep His words in their hearts and, for this reason, a good Jew says the Shema four times a day: while sitting in his house, while walking by the way, while lying down, and when rising.
As Orthodox Christians, we are taught to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I like to think that is why God gives us so many boring and mundane tasks to do. A friend of mine once said that he loved driving to work in downtown Chicago because it gave him so much time to pray. He found it very peaceful. But for me, driving in Chicago rush-hour traffic would prompt me to cry out, “Save me, O my God! For You have struck all my enemies on the cheekbone; You have broken the teeth of the ungodly!” (Psalm 3:7) as I struggled with aggressive drivers. Perhaps it is good that I live in a rural area!
“Prayer is the primary work of the moral and religious life,” wrote St. Theophan the Recluse (1815–1894). Theophan, a bishop who retired and retreated into the Russian wilderness to live as a hermit, spent hours each day giving spiritual advice in letters. He was particularly known for his writings on prayer. “The root of this life is a free and conscious relationship with God, which then directs everything,” he continued. “It is the practice of prayer that expresses this free and conscious attitude towards God, just as the social contacts of daily life express our moral attitude towards our neighbor, and our ascetic struggles and spiritual efforts express our moral attitude towards ourselves. Our prayer reflects our attitude towards God, and our attitude to God is reflected in prayer.”
Theophan argued that prayer is a barometer of our relationship with God. It is the essence of our spiritual life. Communication with God, just like communication with others, forms the foundation of our relationships.
I talk to myself, but I don’t listen to what I say
Learning to pray as a way of life is not a simple thing. Our minds are easily distracted by the events of the day, and it is easy to wander into daydreams. We tend to spend many hours each day talking to ourselves in our minds. We consider what decisions to make or worry about getting our work done. But prayer is turning those self-conversations into conversations with God. It is taking our worries about the things we have to do and directing them to one who can help us do them.
I once heard a song entitled, “I talk to myself, but I don’t listen to what I say.” It was a very funny song, but I think the idea is poignant. We often spend a lot of time replaying events in our heads and readdressing decisions we’ve made as if we didn’t listen to ourselves the first time we thought such things through. Rather than rehashing the past and praying to ourselves, we should be praying to someone else. We could find comfort in sharing such thoughts with God or, perhaps better yet, using that time to say a psalm or a prayer of the Church.
Removing our thoughts about ourselves and worries about our lives is an important step if we wish to approach God. That is why we begin the Great Entrance with the Cherubic Hymn, which exhorts us to “lay aside all earthly cares.”
Prayer need not be eloquent. It can be as simple as a single word or as sophisticated as a Divine Liturgy. Sometimes we know exactly what we need to say. Other times we don’t know what to say and simply want to turn our hearts to God. For this reason the Church has given us several different ways to pray.
In Orthodox spiritual life, prayer can take many forms: spontaneous prayer, the prayers of the Hours, the Psalter, and the Jesus Prayer, to name a few.
Spontaneous Prayer
I like to think of spontaneous prayer as being like the way Tevye prays in Fiddler on the Roof—speaking to God all day. This is an ongoing conversation with God about concerns in one’s life. “Lord, please take care of my cow.” “Lord, how should I treat my daughter if she marries outside the faith?” “Lord, why am I so poor?” These are the thoughts and concerns of our lives poured out to the caring God.
Many years ago, well before I was Orthodox, this is the only type of prayer I prayed. We would sometimes call it (with tongue in cheek) the prayer of the just, as in, “Lord, I just want to thank You for being so good,” or “Lord, I just want to ask You to bless this food.” In the best cases, such prayers can have tremendous value, especially for saints—those who are spiritually attuned to God—as they express the desires of a holy heart. In the worst cases, they devolve into prayers of gibberish—the rambling thoughts of one who doesn’t know what to talk about when in the presence of the All-holy God.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult for us to pray to God as the saints do. While such prayers have great value, especially when we are troubled with specific burdens, they are not the best prayers to use exclusively. Our thoughts are not always holy and we should strive to put our minds beyond the cares of this world. That is why the Church has given us other prayers that offer a greater depth and wisdom and that teach us how to pray.
The Hours
The Hours of Prayer are short prayer services that can be said at specific times during the day. They begin at sundown with Vespers, followed by Compline, which is said before going to bed. A brief midnight service can be prayed in the middle of the night. The Hours continue the next morning with Matins at dawn, followed by prayers of the first hour (6:00 am), third hour (9:00 am), sixth hour (noon), and ending with the ninth hour (3:00 pm).
I know several Orthodox Christians who pray the Hours regularly, and in talking to them it is easy to see that there is great spiritual tranquility to be found by immersing oneself in the Hours. However, for the typical person, trying to fit in this many structured prayers during a day may be overwhelming. But one need not pray all of the Hours to reap great benefit. I think it is important for all Orthodox Christians to have at least one time every day when they come before God to say the prayers of the Church.
If you aren’t used to praying the Hours, consider starting with one service a day, such as Compline, then gradually add more services as you are able and as you are advised by your spiritual father.
The Psalter
I have a friend who began praying the Psalter every day, although she doesn’t really like to talk about it. I say praying the Psalter because she doesn’t just read the Book of Psalms; she prays it. She lets the psalms be her words to God. She prays through all 150 psalms every week. She has been doing this for over ten years. It is remarkable how she radiates peace and wisdom.
I know another person who has been praying through the Psalter every week for over 45 years. This is in addition to his regular Bible reading. Like the prayer of the Hours, this is an ancient rule practiced in monasteries.
I asked my friend how long it took her to pray the psalms every day. She said, “I honestly don’t know.” She is not a person with a huge amount of idle time. She has four children and started, I believe, when she had two. She has done this while changing diapers and homeschooling her older children.
I have enjoyed praying the psalms because I find they tend to bring my thoughts away from whatever is distracting me. They bring me into the mind of David and others who poured out their hearts to God. It is hard to be caught up with worldly things while praying, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, / So pants my soul for You, O God. / My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. / When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1–2).
By memorizing some psalms, I find that I always carry with me the ability to wrestle my mind in the direction of God. I don’t need a prayer book, and the psalms have such depth that one can meditate on them for hours while waiting to pick up the kids from Boy Scouts or ballet lessons. As I mentioned earlier, the psalms are the perfect thing for convocations or for dealing with traffic (especially the imprecatory psalms for the latter!).
I do not advocate praying through the whole Psalter every week unless advised to do so by your spiritual father. It is rather time-consuming, and one needs great patience to deal with failure when attempting Herculean tasks. But you might consider starting with a single short psalm, such as Psalm 134, which is often used in the Compline service:
Behold, bless the Lord,
All you servants of the Lord,
Who by night stand in the house of the Lord!
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary,
And bless the Lord.
The Lord who made heaven and earth
Bless you from Zion!
Say this psalm every day until you have it memorized and you are ready and able to add another. There is no disgrace in starting small; but how many blessings we miss when we don’t start at all!
The Jesus Prayer
There are many ways of praying the Jesus Prayer. One of my favorite stories about this is that of two novices who were shipwrecked on a desert island. After many years, a small boat with two monks stopped on the island and found them. The monks asked them how they had survived all those years, and the novices said all they did was eat whatever they could find and pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” over and over.
The monks said that was nice, but the novices had left off an important part of the prayer. The complete prayer was, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The novices thanked them for this instruction and felt badly for saying it wrong for so many years.
Finally, the monks told the two novices to take their boat back to land, as it was small and only had room for two, and send someone back to get the monks. The novices agreed and headed out in the boat. But when the novices had gone some distance, the monks were astonished to see one of them stand up in the boat, get out, and run across the water back to shore. The novice said to the monks, “Forgive me, fathers, but we forgot the end of that prayer. Could you repeat it for us?” To which the monks replied, “Never mind, you were doing it just fine.”
Having read through the Philokalia, I realize that I am unworthy to say much about how to pray the Jesus Prayer. So many saints have said so much about the beauty of praying this simple prayer that I have nothing to add. I can only say that, for myself, I have found great peacefulness in saying this prayer, especially in time of trouble, and my desire is to pray it more often.
The Prayers of the Saints
I have mentioned prayer here as if it were done in isolation, but that should not be the case. Although there are many times during the day when we are able to pray alone, praying with others is a wonderful way to bind relationships and speak as a family to God. I think praying as a family is one of the most important things Orthodox Christians can do to keep their children in the Church. Children need to learn the importance of prayer, and the best way to learn that is by praying with their parents and brothers and sisters every day. Such prayers need not be long and exhaustive, but they should be regular and consistent—just as we want our children to be consistent in their moral behavior, as God wants us to be consistent in our moral behavior, and ultimately, just as God is consistent in His love for us.
We should be unswerving in our love for our husband or wife and our children; we should be equally unswerving in our love for God. The barometer of that love is prayer.
This article was originally published in the Vol. 11 No. 3 issue of The Handmaiden (Summer, 2007).
Author biography (at the time this article was published):
Thomas S. Buchanan is a senior editor of Touchstone magazine and a professor. He attends Holy Ascension Antiochian Orthodox Mission in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife, Gaye, and their three children.