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Prayer-Connecting with God

 

Prayer: An Act of Love

“Rejoice always, pray unceasingly, give thanks in all things; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1Ths. 5:16-18).

“Whether you pray alone or in the company of others. try never to pray simply as a matter of routine, but always with conscious awareness of what you are doing. Remember that God is the other person with whom you are conversing.”   Evagrios of Pontos

Saint Gregory the Theologian points out that “we ought to remember God even more often than we draw our breath; and if it suffices to say this, we ought to do nothing else…or, to use Moses’ words, whether a man lie asleep, or rise up, or walk by the way, or whatever else he is doing, he should also have this impressed in his memory for purity.” (Theological Oration 1.5)

Saint Basil the Great writes that “the in-dwelling of God is this—to have God established within ourself by means of memory. We thus become temples of God, when the continuity of memory is not interrupted by earthly cares, nor the noetic faculty shaken by unexpected sufferings, but escaping from all things this (noetic faculty) friend of God retires to God, driving out the passions which tempt it to incontinence and abides in the practices which lead to virtues.” (Epistle 2)