Part 3 of a talk presented at Sts. Cyril & Athanasius of Alexandria Institute for Orthodox Studies Symposium “Prayer in the Church Fathers” on 17 February 2013, San Francisco, California.
[CONTINUED FROM A PREVIOUS POST]
Prayer Rule as a Safe Path
When we pray, we attempt to reconnect with the fullness of reality which includes not only the physical, but equally the spiritual world. But the spiritual world can be a dangerous place. There is so much that we do not see and do not understand about the spiritual reality. To begin with, most of us do not see the beings that inhabit that reality: we can see neither angels nor demons, and we are not very good at discerning their actions in our lives and what effect they have on us. Even the movements and desires of our very own soul are sometimes frustratingly confusing to us: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”[1]
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