Brief excerpts from the journal of St. John of Kronstadt “My Life in Christ"
- With what attentiveness, what reverence, what love, peace, and gratitude we must always say the name of God, and the Lord’s prayer, and all other prayers. The name of God is great, holy, terrible, and only to speak it fills every believer with bliss…
- The evil one tries to demolish our prayer like a sand castle; he wants to make our words be like dry sand without any moisture, i.e. without warmth of heart. Our prayer can either be like a house built on sand or like a house built on stone. Foundations of sand are used by those who pray without faith, absent-mindedly, coldly – such prayer disintegrates of its own accord and brings no benefit to the supplicant. Stone foundations are used by those who keep their minds and hearts directed toward God throughout the entire prayer, and who pray to Him as to a living Being Who converses with them face to face…
St. John of Kronstadt
- Sometimes during a long prayer only a few minutes are pleasing to God, and these few minutes constitute true prayer and true service to God. The most important thing in prayer is the closeness of the heart to God, which is felt by the indescribable sweetness of God’s presence in our soul…
- Each one of us would like our nearest and dearest not to forget us after we depart from this life and to pray for us. In order for this to come to pass, we, too, must love our departed ones. “Whatever you measure out to others, so will it be measured out to you,” – says the word of God. Therefore, whoever commemo-rates the departed, will himself be commemorated by God and men after departing from this world…
- Elder Siluan on prayer: “If our prayers are not answered immediately, it means that God does not want that to happen to us which we want, but that which He wants. In this case He wishes and is preparing for us something infinitely better than what we are asking from Him in our prayer. Therefore, we must end each prayer by humbly saying: Thy will be done.”