Onward Christian Warriors

This is why it is so important that we carry faith as a “weapon” into “battle” each day. Because each of us fights a battle just about every day. https://t.co/cicbQ8lP09

— OCN (@MyOCN) October 9, 2020

Why Use a Prayer Rope?

The prayer rope helps whoever wants to find peace and tranquillity because it brings the peace and tranquillity of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints#orthodox_times

https://t.co/dIk2lKxerA

— Orthodox Times (@orthodox_times) September 10, 2020

Keeping to a Prayer Rule

Keeping a daily prayer rule is foundational to being Orthodox on Purpose!
Be the Bee #147 | How to Start (and Keep) a Prayer Rule https://t.co/LpEMADHKAn via @YouTube

— Fr. Barnabas Powell (@FrBarnabas) August 25, 2020

Preparing for Prayer

Old Russian Practice of Preparing for Prayer https://t.co/Hm5tkqoda8 pic.twitter.com/QvuASf3rZh

— Russian Faith (@Russian_Faith) August 16, 2020

Children and Prayer

One Thing Needful

Why mysticism is not an “Option” by Thaddeus J. Kozinski

Romano Guardini described, in the 1950s, a neo-pagan totalitarianism that no longer tolerates any threats to its secularist, atheistic, and humanist dogmas, one in which Christians and other theists are called to brook no compromise and live out their Faith all the more integrally and heroically. But Guardini’s prescription for action is something at once more bracing and consoling than Rod Dreher’s.

Make a Prayer Corner Today

Silence and Stillness

Prayer Ropes

The Publican's Prayer

A Demanding Task for the Modern Man

Go Stand in the Corner: A Convert Reflects on Discipline. #myOCN #TheSounding http://myocn.net/go-stand-in-the-corner-a-convert-reflects-on-discipline/

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Saturday, November 7, 2015

Video on the Jesus Prayer

Check out this short animation.

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Sunday, September 13, 2015

Prayer Corners

Post by Orthodox Christian Network.

Not Quite Getting it

M. Shea: Masculine and Feminine, Evangelical and Catholic

One of the big examples that contrasts different attitudes towards prayer is the current worship "style" of the Roman rite in Uhmerica -- how do the emotions relate to the spirit in prayer? See Ronald Know's Enthusiasm or Archimandrite Gabriel Bunge:

Fr. P.: The next question would be about those examples that are often taken by the Orthodox as indicators of false orientation of Catholic mysticism. If for the East the crystal purity of the soul is the main condition for inner work in order that the Divine Light would act in it, then the examples of such ascetics as Teresa of Ávila show something very opposite: the aim of podvig is to attain to ecstasy where a person experiences God. Could you please comment on this?

Fr. G.: There are two types of mysticism in the Catholic Church: restrained (inner work) and ecstatic. Both schools are rooted in the monastic tradition. The first school that originated in Sts. Macarius, Anthony, and Evagrius is the inner mysticism, “inner work.” But St. Macarius’ Homilies contain the other school too, more affective mysticism. Therefore he is traditionally considered to belong to the softened or semi- Messalianism, that is a kind of ecstatic monasticism. I think, that here we could see just two different spiritual temperaments that confront one another. That’s why it’s difficult to find a common language. The follower of the inner work could say to his opponent, “You are too sensual,” and the latter could reply, “You are too reasonable. You don’t have any inner experience.” And both these opinions would be wrong.

However, I have to admit that in the Middle Ages there were purely women’s mystical movements on the West that seem strange to me and are beyond my comprehension. I belong to a different school. I don’t have anything that could help me to understand or feel deeply that affective, ecstatic mysticism. The main rule of any spiritual life for me is restriction and lack of exaltation because exaltation itself is a ground for demonic prelest. This experience we can find today in charismatics. To avoid mistakes that Evagrius calls imitation of spiritual and mystic states, we have to be very careful, wise, and to possess simplicity and purity. Today it is called a self-suggested condition, that is, an imaginative mystic (spiritual) condition.

St. Theophan the Recluse, who is very popular in the West, by the way, understood the matter of western mystics very subtly. Once he exclaimed: “Oh, these Western people, they cannot distinguish between psychic and spiritual!” And really, when I talk to people who come for confession, I see how often they mix these things. One has to teach and help people to see the difference between their feelings and true spirituality from God. People quite often feel something deep inside and think “Here it is, here is that true spirituality.”

Christianity is No Mere Intellectualism

Post by Orthodox Christian Network.

Study of the Church Fathers is nonetheless important...

Post by Orthodoxy and the World.

Fr. Thomas Loya: Praying with Icons

Fr. Hildebrand: “The Sanctification of Time and the Liturgy of the Hours”

Post by Thomas Aquinas College.

Monasticism, Clericalism, and the Priesthood of All Believers

Monasticism, Clericalism, and the Priesthood of All Believers
Benjamin Mann
Abbot Nicholas Zachariadis

The essence of monasticism is not clerical service—which is possible only for some—but a radically converted way of life, available to all.


Via Insight Scoop

More on The Little Oratory

Interview with the authors.
How Do I Set Up a Home Altar

Another Review of The Little Oratory

Post by Sophia Institute Press.