Prayer Rule

[falafel333]

I was just wandering what kind of prayer rule most people follow. Does it involve praying the Divine Office (which one), Prostrations, Jesus Prayer, Meditation, Contemplation, Other Prayers, Thanks...

How about Scripture and Spiritual Reading, how do u fit that into ur day and how much?

Thanks

[choirfiend]

i dont know about everyone here, but most people are advised to keep their prayer rule private. It's just something between a person, their spiritual director, and God.

There are excellent guidelines in place. There are the church's daily epistle and gospel readings. There are the morning and evening prayers, and the are the prayers of the hours. What someone does is their business alone. If you're searching for what may be good for you, your priest should be able to help you with that.

[ania]

very true choirfeind...
I don't have much regarding prayer rule, since I don't at the moment have a spiritual father (haven't in quite a while, actually, actually, never really have had one, though when I need advise I usually just go to my dad, whose a priest).
However, lately (past 3-4 months) I find myself saying "Gospodi Pomiluy" very often.  Even when I'm not even thinking of religion (which is unfortunately often) suddenly "Gospodi Pomiluy" will pop into my head.  Sometimes its if I yell at a stupid driver, or sometimes it's at work when I have to deal with a specifically difficult accounting problem.
Most interesting of all, since I am taking courses in Massage Therapy, I've been thinking that at school.  Massage is associated with a lot of Yoga and all that cr@p, and when I have to concentrate on providing a client with an excellent (I hope) massage, I find myself chanting "Gospodi Pomiluy" (funeral melody, I think 5th or 6th tone) along with my strokes, rather than paying attention to the New Age stuff they play on the stereo. 

[Silouan]

Even different monks within the same monastery will have different rules.  The key is finding a spiritual father and being obedient to his guidence and consistent.  It is better to do a short prayer rule everyday than have a super long one by skip it every few days. 

As to Ania, I find Κύριε Ελέησον to be much better than Господии Помилуй. 

[Sabbas]

I agree that a Prayer Rule should be kept a private matter but I think there is nothing wrong sharing a little as long as you have you spiritual father's blessing and have discussed it with him a bit first. I will just share that I think finding silence is hard enough in our modern U.S. let alone being able to say our Prayers with the attention that is appropriate. Often I just at random, when I have free time, say to myself, I am going to be quiet for just a little while and pray the Jesus Prayer ten times but at each repetition I will devote all my concentration and not let any demon disturb me. Often after telling myself this and firmly resolving to do so I can pray much more than ten repititions and thank God all the more for giving me this gift of being able to pray with an undivided heart for longer.

As others have said there are many Prayer Rules out there. I would love to pray the Hours (Office) but there is much more to this in the Orthodox Church and I still have not learned enough Liturgics to do this properly on my own. Besides I have a hard enough time saying the Morning and Evening Prayers from the Jordanville Prayerbook to think about making it a Rule to say the Hours!

falafel333 you  sound as if you are coming from Roman Catholicism. I mean no offense in saying this but I seldom hear Orthodox mention meditation or contemplation when discussing prayer. I would just like to say that something I find good that is emphasized in Roman Catholicism, at least the Roman Catholic Tradtionalists I have read wrote this, is that in order to pray properly one must cultivate a love for silence. This is said constantly by the Fathers in the Orthodox Church but so many get "jazzed up" whent they hear about Prayer Ropes and the Jesus Prayer that they forget that the cultivation of the love for silence and the calming of the mind is absolutely necessary before even attempting to become a Hesychast. Amazing that they fail to realize this whent the Hesychia means silence!

That is all I have to write for now. I pray that all of you will are drawing ever closer to the Lord and are not sliding backwards as I constantly am!

[Michael]

Until recently, I had always worked shifts and so regular prayer was difficult.  I started to pray the Office in the Anglican Breviary, but have since moved on to the Sarum Psalter.  I wish to begin using the Saint Colman Prayer Book, which should arrive in the post soon.  This will be my first Orthodox Office book, based on the Sarum office.

[greatanthony]

Just  aquick response to Sabbas, I think you are right. There is not too much talk about silence generally, but I listened to talk given by Father Thomas Hopko recently and he really made it a point to stress silence in fact he even said it should be considered one of the sacraments. So the importance of silence is definately talked about.

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