23/08/2026
On prayer. Someone wrote: St. Theophan makes an important distinction between saying prayers and actually praying. The goal isn't merely to pronounce the correct words, but to stand consciously before the living God with attention, reverence, faith, and the heart engaged.
He describes the essence of prayer as the raising of the mind and heart to God.”
So engaging the intellect is necessary, but it isn't the whole thing. First I understand what I am saying. Then I try to make the words genuinely mine—to mean them before God. The mind attends to God, and the heart responds with repentance, gratitude, love, longing, sorrow, trust, etc. We shouldn't manufacture emotions, but neither should we deliberately remain spectators to our own prayers.
And interestingly, St. Theophan explicitly encourages personal prayer in one's own words. He says that morning and evening we can tell God our needs, weaknesses, thanksgiving and repentance directly, “from your own mind and from your own heart.”
He even gives very practical advice about when to do this. He says to pray in your own words before or after the normal prayer rule, and also between the written prayers. Most beautifully, he says that if, while reading a psalm or written prayer, personal words of prayer spontaneously arise from your heart, don't stop them simply because you feel obliged to finish the text. Stay there and speak to God.
So, for example, you may be praying:
“O Heavenly King, Comforter…”
and suddenly become deeply conscious of how badly you need the Holy Spirit's help with something happening in your life. You don't necessarily have to rush onward simply because another paragraph is printed on the page. You can stop and say with your own words from the heart something like:
“Lord, You know what is happening with me. I don't know what to do. Give me wisdom. Purify what is selfish in me. Don't let me deceive myself. Help me do Your will.”
Then return to the prayer rule.
This is actually something St. Theophan himself recommends.
