It is very important to know how to pray. Many times, even we monks dwell in monasteries and do not pray, we just think we are praying. It is not enough to go to church, attend services, and stay there as if you have done your duty out of obligation. We must emphasize inner work. It’s useless to say many prayers with the mouth or with the mind if we do not deepen them, if we do not live what we pray.
Now even laypeople must deepen the prayer from the heart because it will be our only deliverance: the prayer from the heart, because in the heart lays the root of all passions, and that’s where we must work. Until now, superficial things have worked, but for the times ahead, it will not be enough. If we do not have prayer penetrating the heart, we will not withstand the psychological attack, because there are unseen methods of reeducating the mind.
Today, indifference seems to me to be the most severe sin. We no longer feel anything in prayer; we have no tears of repentance. There will come times when only those who feel the Grace of God will be able to distinguish between good and evil. With the human mind it will be impossible to choose between good and evil. There will be great deceptions, and only the Grace of God will be able to deliver us from them. Therefore, pray, pray so that you do not fall into the temptation of deception! Because only through prayer can we receive the Grace of God. If we do not pray and persevere in our laziness and indifference without repentance, then it is possible that we may lose the instinct for correction. May God protect us from losing the instinct for correction!
Excerpt from Father Justin, Petru Vodă’s Teachings via http://doxologia.ro.
