Saint Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) the Kapsokalyvite
Commemorated on December 2
Pray for the purification of each and every person so that you may imitate the prayer of the angels in your life.
Yes, the angels don’t pray for themselves. This is how I pray for
people, for the Church and for the body of the Church. The moment you
pray for the Church, you are released from your passions. The moment
you glorify God, your soul is calmed and sanctified by divine grace. This is the art I want you to learn.
God wants us to become like the angels. The angels only glorify God. This is their prayer, glorification of God and nothing else. ..Doxology is prayer without self-interest. The angels do not pray in order to receive something; they are selfless…
When we enter into this prayer, we will glorify God continually, leaving everything to Him, just as our Church prays ‘We commend our whole life to Christ our God.’ This is the ‘higher mathematics’ of our religion!
I ask only for God to have mercy on the whole world and on me.
Pray for others more than for yourself. Say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,’ and you will always have others in your mind. We are all children of the same Father; we are all one. And so, when we pray for others, we say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,’ and not, ‘have mercy on them.’ In this way we make them one with ourselves.
Prayer for others which is made gently and with deep love is selfless and has great spiritual benefit. It brings grace to the person who prays and also to the person for whom he is praying. When you have great love and this love moves you to prayer, then the waves of love are transmitted and affect the person for whom you are praying and you create around him a shield of protection and you influence him, you lead him towards what is good. When He sees your efforts, God bestows His grace abundantly on both you and on the person you are praying for. But we must die to ourselves. Do you understand?
When we pray continually*, God will enlighten us as to what we must do in each situation, even the most difficult. God will speak in our heart, He will find ways.
We should refer all our problems, whatever they are, to God, just as we say in the Divine Liturgy that we ‘commend our whole life to Christ our God.‘We leave everything to You, O Lord. Whatever You will. Let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven .
The person who belongs to Christ turns everything into prayer. He makes both difficulties and tribulations into prayer. Whatever happens to him, he begins, ‘Lord Jesus Christ…’* Prayer is beneficial for everything, even for the simplest of things…
Learn to love prayer, familiar converse with the Lord.
In order not to live in darkness, turn on the switch of prayer so that the divine light may flood your soul.
Christ will appear in the depths of your being.
There, in the deepest and most inward part, is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is within you.
Prayer is made only with the Holy Spirit. It teaches the soul how to pray.
page 113 Wounded by Love, The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios
Christ is joy, the true light, happiness. Christ is our hope. Our relation to Christ is love, eros, passion, enthusiasm, longing for the divine. Christ is everything. He is our love. He is the object of our desire.
When you find Christ, you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person… Christ is in all your thoughts, in all your actions. You have grace and you can endure everything for Christ.
The aim is to live, to study, to pray, to make progress in love, the love of Christ, the love of the Church.This
is the holy and beautiful thing which gladdens the soul and liberates
it from every kind of evil, this is the effort one makes to be united
with Christ.
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