Showing posts with label Prayer Rule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer Rule. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Prayer Rule

I've been reading various books on Orthodox spirituality recently, trying to establish some kind of regular devotional life. One of the books prescribed this:
1. Read a minimum of one psalm vocally.
2. Read a minimum of one chapter from the Gospels
3. Read a minimum of one chapter from the Acts, Epistles or Revelations
4. Read the daily prayers from an Orthodox prayer book, vocally or silently.
5. Read at least a page from a book of Orthodox spiritual instruction silently.
6. Read at least a page from the life of a saint silently.
7. In your own words, ask for help from God, His Holy Mother, your guardian angel and your saint.

The idea is that by "washing" your soul in prayer, Scripture, and godly instruction you can develop a relationship to God and gradually remove the destructive tendencies and sin that clutter and impede your life.

I'm afraid however that even such a simple prayer rule would be too much for me at this point. So using the above prescription as a starting point, this is my plan.
1. Daily morning, noon and evening prayer using the Divine Hours book of prayers.
2. Read the daily lectionary readings of a gospel passage and an epistle passage. The Orthodox calendar that I received from the church has a listing for each day. On weekdays, I can listen to The Path podcast on the way to work which is a reading of the day's Scriptures.
3. Read a page of a book about Orthodox spirituality.
4. Daily ask for help to be faithful from God and His mother .

I'm also going to run this plan by my priest to see what he thinks.