Dear all, our booklet 'Prayer by Night' is now available for pre-sale, at a discounted price, from our Monastery store. Despatch day is October 19th, but purchasing the booklet now will make the entire publishing process much easier for us. Thank you for ALL your questions, comments and suggestions. They help us understand what aspects of night vigil you want us to address in more detail. Here is the link: shop.mullmonastery.com/product/prayer-by-night/
At 63 I'm constantly waking up at night for 15 minutes+, so that aspect should not present a problem. The problem is getting back to sleep. Ah...the joy of youth!
Thank you father for this practical lesson in praying. It was looking me in the face when I lived in the UAE, a Muslim country. The Muslims pray with prostrations five times a day. Fortunately the UAE allows churches. I regularly went to Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Al Ain. I never thought to do prostrations. Yes, we must show God that we are praying. How else than physically our bodies do it.
Dear Rev. Fr. Seraphim, Thank you so much for teaching the reverential bows and prostrations before God and the grace of praying in the night. God bless you dear Father.
Thank you, dear Thomas. That icon is one of our very first - I remember making the sketches and discussing the composition with our iconographer. It has a very special place in my heart too.
Thank you, Father, for this video on how to bow, do prostrations, and pray by night. I live on an island in South Korea where there is no Orthodox church, so the internet and books are all I have to learn about the faith. Thank you so much for these videos, and please pray for me.
My dear Anna, thank you for this message, it gives me so much hope and strength to keep working to hear that you find some use in these videos. You are never alone, dear one - the Holy Spirit is always with you and He will teach you how to pray. Just offer Him the chance: try your best, put in the time, the effort and the love, and God will receive these poor sacrifices and give you Life in return. Remember me and the Monastery in your prayers, please.
Thank you Fr Seraphim for this video and showing all of us how to do a prostration. Having come back into the Roman Catholic church just three years ago, I've been confused by this particular term. To me, prostration always meant lying on the belly fully flat with face to the ground. So it's lovely to see that what I've been doing when I enter the church for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament qualifies as prostration. I started doing it on an internal prompt to more fully express my adoration and surrender to our Lord and Savior.
As we have gotten older and decrepit, we remember the bows and prostrations in spirit. But miss doing many! Doing one can be your only grace sometimes. Hugs.
My dear Thomas, I remember our old monks in my Monastery in Moldavia - they had entered the Monastery before Communism and they were then (when I became a novice) in their late 80s / early 90s. They could hardly walk, let alone do a prostration, yet often I found my 'old man' (as we called them) on the floor, not being able to get himself up after falling down in a desperate attempt to make just one prostration. At the end of a lifetime of monastic struggle, that ONE prostration was for them the most important, the most treasured one. I was in my early twenties then and I was terrified by the strength of the repentance that moved their hearts. I used to pray, and I still do, that Christ grants me this gift of repentance before I die. May we all be blessed, dear one.
May the good Lord bless you and keep you safe Father. I lost my sister as she was my best best friend and 3 years later, am still suffering her absence and listening to you daily and nightly have given me new hope and courage and I cannot thank you enough. Always in my prayers🙏🏻
Doamne ajută Mulțumiri, frate Serafim pentru gândul cel bun și pentru cele de mare folos împărtășite nouă! Ucenicia de la sf. Man.Putna,face roade ,intru slava Domnului! Doamne ajută
Thank you so much for this. I wanted to offer prayers at night, but when I was too tired to think straight I thought it was pointless. I didn't look at the exercise as a sacrifice and mortification of the body! I really needed this advice! God Bless! ✝️🌹🙏🧎♀️🙇♀️
United we travel under His One Holy name to gather up others because our journey is the same Be beacons of truth to light the way along the narrow road to heaven where Jesus promises lay We will stumble and we will fall but we will lift and raise each other through the greatest LOVE of ALL Then at our journeys end met by the promise of ALL time we will be blessed to spend eternity in the arms of the Divine 🙏
Thank you, Father, for this teaching and demonstration of bows and prostrations. I am learning about Orthodoxy, and did not know the difference between bows/prostrations. Thank you. Lord have mercy.
My dear Nancy, I didn't know the differences and the ways to use them, either. Someone else taught me over twenty years ago and I am grateful grateful to that father to this day. I still pray for him to this day for that act of love towards me. I am trying to look back and see more clearly the gifts Christ gave me, in the hope that I may pass them on to you all. Thank you for your kind words. May we all be blessed.
Thank you so much for your kindness, dear one. There is hardly ever any time, but we must make the time if Christ moves our hearts to do something in His Name. Please remember me and the Monastery in your prayers.
The great Prophet sang from the depth of his being, with words that came from the painful experience of a humbled heart, not from the empty imagination of a proud mind. This is why his words are full of Life and why they have the strength to nourish us from that Source of Life, too. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Mull Monastery When we offer in humility our whole being, body and soul to Christ, we become prayer because the holy spirit is praying in us and then there will be no place for the imagination . Prayer is the knowledge of God and the knowledge of God is prayer. Thank you Father for your enlightening message. Keep me in your prayers ❤️☦️
May Christ be kind to me and may He continue to give me both the words (because I have nothing) and the strength to keep working. As long as Christ wants me to do this, I shall do my best. The fact that you find some use in all this work counts more than I can say, because it gives us the courage to keep going forward. So thank you for your kindness and for taking the time to write these words of encouragement, dear one. May we all be blessed.
Saint Paisios the Athonite (+1994) had shared that prayer as being a very powerful one against demonic attacks: “Great is the the name of the Holy Trinity, Most Holy Theotokos protect us.”
Thank you Fr Seraphim for teaching the Bow and the Prostration. The very slow and very deliberate bow and prostration seems to have much thought, reverence and grace about it and seems to display the body, mind, heart and spirit working as one in deep love and worship. Thank you.
Dear Maxine, at my age and with my health, I am also increasingly discovering the benefits of doing everything slower - bows, prostrations, prayer itself. I discover that by taking more time, every gesture and every word gains a weight which I was missing when I used to do everything quicker. I do less now, but it weighs heavier on me and I feel the impact in a way I didn't twenty years ago. Thank you for your words, dear one. May we all be blessed.
That picture of Saint Sophrony in the background drew a smile on my face, then, your beautifully shared experience and words about prayer made that smile bigger! Thank you father. I ask your prayers for my country Lebanon.
If we hold on to the belief that we are always merely taking the first step in our spiritual life, if we never let go of the humility of our beginning, we remain close to Christ - the Truth, and we are not tempted to fall because of our pride. The Fathers were surrounded by the angelic hosts on their deathbeds and they were still asking for time to BEGIN their repentance. This Path has always set my heart on Fire. May we all be blessed, dear James.
Thank you Father Seraphim ! We need living witnesses, real experiences, and you pass this on with great simplicity and a lot of love ... May the Lord grant you the grace to continue this transmission, this gift of the life of prayer, to all of us who are thirsty and very ignorant ! May the monastery of Mull be Light and great tenderness of God for all of us!
One obstacle that I have noticed in myself (and I think it comes from pride) is this willful idealistic attitude of "all or nothing". Which it is nice to hear your guidance about patience and humility. The Devil, it would seem, tries to drive us to the conclusion, that if we cannot do something by our own force of will, that it really didn't reflect our full intention and therefore didn't have its full merit. But this is pride. I have to constantly remind myself that we cannot do anything without God's grace and that nothing that we do has any merit without Him. But I truly appreciate your reminders of patience and humility. I need both. Thank you.
Father , Thanks for all your Tiching. I Love to listen to you. And thanks so much.🕯 I'm Chatolic, faith. we all have one LORD JESUS CHRIST. AMEN .HALELUJA.🕯🕯🕯💞🌹👏
Dear Fr. Seraphim: When you feel the love of God in your heart, do you wish to sing and dance? I found that singing to the Lord has significant power, not power but the heavy heart feels instant relief. Singing has opened my heart. Offering it to the Lord. Constant song and love affair with the lord.
Thank you, dear one, for taking the time to write these words. They mean a lot to us and they give us courage to keep working. Please remember me and the Monastery in your prayers.
Dear Patricia, may this blessed excitement remain with you always. May the grace of this beginning shelter and guide you always. May you never 'rust' spiritually and may you remain always open to the coming of Christ in your heart. And do remember me and the Monastery in your prayers. May we all be blessed, dear one.
God bless you father. I never knew how absoloutely beautiful it is to pray the Orthodox way. I’ve been learning so much! thankful for your videos. I’m very new to the Orthodox way (I’m a born again Christian), any resources for information for women?
Thank you for providing us with the psychological -- 'inner' -- context for laying the mental and physical foundations of prayer. Within my limited experience, I have found little so explicitly discussed concerning instituting meaning right at the start as has been done here. When it all comes down to it, no matter how long I may have been practicing, I remain a beginner each and every time that I once again commence. Thank you for this gem of clarity, matter-of-factness and compassion; my heart leaps at its hearing and the Beauty of its sense.
Bună seara părinte ,sunt din Romania și mă bucur că v-am că v-am descoperit! Domnul sa va binecuvinteze! Mulțumim pentru explicațiile și învățăturile pe care le împărtășiți cu noi! Mă bucură cur că pot împărtăși cu prietenii mei din Irlanda de Nord unde locuiesc de peste 16 ani! Cu mult drag vorbesc cu colegii și prietenii mei despre frumuseța rugăciunii in credință Ortodoxă!
Reverend Father,thank you for this homily,since like most,who are in missionary laities,separated from their church by distance & ' wordly' prohibitions I have been seeking to pursue Our Lord,your eloquent explanation is of great value,as I have been seeking,how to start praying at night,thank you so much,your Blessing Father please.
Thank you so much for explaining how to bow and do prostrations. Also praying at night. How to pray at night, how long and evrything you explain in detail is very helpfull.
Thank you father for this wonderful series. It was very timely for me. I generally wake up at about 5 am and was wondering if getting up an hour earlier and just staying awake for that additional time is the same as waking and then going back to sleep. Regardless of the time of night, once I wake up, I have a lot of trouble going back to sleep. I have been getting up at 4 am for the past week, but after the vigil, I can't fall back into sleep until about 5-10 minutes before 5.
Dear Father Seraphim. Thank you for these videos. I am discovering them to be very beneficial. Your exhortations and explanations are easily grasped and my understanding is being enlarged. You are helping me [and I am certain many others as well] to live a more devotional live as a Christian. My prayers are with you in your labors for Christ. Sincerely, David
Thank you for your kind words, dear David. If we all helped each other, sharing the humble gifts we each received, our world would be so much closer to God Who Is Love. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Father! Thank you for showing me how to properly bow, to do a prostration; and to assume a proper attitude and spirit. I followed your advice, given some years ago in a previous Monastery booklet "On Prayer", to pray at night. This practical "how to" video will be very helpful to me. I pass on to any reader the very valuable admonition you gave me in that booklet regarding prayer. "Just start". I know John of the Ladder would agree! NR
Dear Dallas, I appreciate your kindness and I am very grateful for your encouragement, but I am certain I would not survive one year in the company of St John of the Ladder. I know my weak measure and I am humbled by it. By the grace of God, it has served me to continue to repent, while trying my best not judge anyone else. Our generation has nothing in common with theirs, EXCEPT for the Same Love of God. For this Love of God, despite knowing my weakness, I have great hope for my salvation and the salvation of all of us. We should do all we can, fully aware that what we can is nothing, and that salvation comes from the Lord, as a free and undeserved gift. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Dear Father, Thank you very much for this beautiful video and for all your very deep videos. I would like to ask a question: according to your experience, how many times you advice to pray by night (every night or less)? Thank you very much! God bless! Keep me in your prayer.
Father bless. This is wonderful and beautiful and something I definitely hope to begin sometime. As newly illumined I am building and taking things slowly; watering the tree of my prayers. Do you have a suggestion on how to wake? How do you wake? I could see after some years you might simply wake at the right time on your own as your body is trained. An alarm might not work for me as my wife would wake too - unless we are both ready for this new discipline at the same time. But what other methods do you suggest if any? Thank you, Father. By your prayers and the prayers of our Holy Fathers.
Dear one, I cannot use an alarm clock either, because it induces a feeling of anxiety and restlessness in me which is definitely good for my prayer. I use simple methods to wake myself naturally - I keep a glass of water and a slice of bread by my bed (if I eat a bit or drink a bit, I am less prone to go back to sleep immediately), I drink a lot of water before going to bed (which wakes me up during the night) or I leave my curtains or windows open, so either the light or the cold wakes me up. Depending where you live and your personal sleep pattern, you will discover your own ways to wake up in a natural and gentle way, which does not affect the quality of your prayer. Be blessed, dear one.
I remember reading about St Joseph the Hesychast smacking himself or fabricating these weird chairs to keep himself upright even when he would nod off during his vigil. It seemed extreme at the time but the more I learn the more I see that it was simply his dedication and his love for God that made him do these "extreme" things. We will never be at his level, but to even partake in a fraction of his dedication is worthwhile. Not that I would know.
God only knows the hearts and prayer of the Saints, dear Derek. We should know our measure and grow through our humble and repentant prayer. As we do that, God is always able to step in and teach each of us our own prayer, which may seem strange to everyone else. As long as we have the blessing of our spiritual father, we should be safe. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Dear all, our booklet 'Prayer by Night' is now available for pre-sale, at a discounted price, from our Monastery store. Despatch day is October 19th, but purchasing the booklet now will make the entire publishing process much easier for us. Thank you for ALL your questions, comments and suggestions. They help us understand what aspects of night vigil you want us to address in more detail. Here is the link: shop.mullmonastery.com/product/prayer-by-night/
Thank you for this just bought 2 book 🙏 Glory to God ☦️
At 63 I'm constantly waking up at night for 15 minutes+, so that aspect should not present a problem. The problem is getting back to sleep. Ah...the joy of youth!
I am 70. Thank you for addressing all the elderly health issues ( I have all that you listed and cannot get on my knees any more but I can make bows.
Me too at 69 with knee replacement surgery. Glory to God 🙏☦️🙏
Thank you father for this practical lesson in praying. It was looking me in the face when I lived in the UAE, a Muslim country. The Muslims pray with prostrations five times a day. Fortunately the UAE allows churches. I regularly went to Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Al Ain. I never thought to do prostrations. Yes, we must show God that we are praying. How else than physically our bodies do it.
Dear Rev. Fr. Seraphim,
Thank you so much for teaching the reverential bows and prostrations before God and the grace of praying in the night.
God bless you dear Father.
Love your community's icon of St. Cuthbert where he is standing in the cold North Sea while praying.
Thank you, dear Thomas. That icon is one of our very first - I remember making the sketches and discussing the composition with our iconographer. It has a very special place in my heart too.
Very beautiful. St Mary Magdalene was the first to be blessed and forgiven.. She was our first Saint of Love..
Thank you, Father, for this video on how to bow, do prostrations, and pray by night. I live on an island in South Korea where there is no Orthodox church, so the internet and books are all I have to learn about the faith. Thank you so much for these videos, and please pray for me.
My dear Anna, thank you for this message, it gives me so much hope and strength to keep working to hear that you find some use in these videos. You are never alone, dear one - the Holy Spirit is always with you and He will teach you how to pray. Just offer Him the chance: try your best, put in the time, the effort and the love, and God will receive these poor sacrifices and give you Life in return. Remember me and the Monastery in your prayers, please.
@@mullmonastery Thank you for this message of hope. I will pray for you and the monastery, certainly.
Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ ελέησον με...☦️✝️🇬🇷🏴
Thank you Fr Seraphim for this video and showing all of us how to do a prostration. Having come back into the Roman Catholic church just three years ago, I've been confused by this particular term. To me, prostration always meant lying on the belly fully flat with face to the ground. So it's lovely to see that what I've been doing when I enter the church for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament qualifies as prostration. I started doing it on an internal prompt to more fully express my adoration and surrender to our Lord and Savior.
As we have gotten older and decrepit, we remember the bows and prostrations in spirit. But miss doing many! Doing one can be your only grace sometimes. Hugs.
My dear Thomas, I remember our old monks in my Monastery in Moldavia - they had entered the Monastery before Communism and they were then (when I became a novice) in their late 80s / early 90s. They could hardly walk, let alone do a prostration, yet often I found my 'old man' (as we called them) on the floor, not being able to get himself up after falling down in a desperate attempt to make just one prostration. At the end of a lifetime of monastic struggle, that ONE prostration was for them the most important, the most treasured one. I was in my early twenties then and I was terrified by the strength of the repentance that moved their hearts. I used to pray, and I still do, that Christ grants me this gift of repentance before I die. May we all be blessed, dear one.
@@mullmonastery 🕊️❤️🕊️
May the good Lord bless you and keep you safe Father. I lost my sister as she was my best best friend and 3 years later, am still suffering her absence and listening to you daily and nightly have given me new hope and courage and I cannot thank you enough. Always in my prayers🙏🏻
Doamne ajută
Mulțumiri, frate Serafim pentru gândul cel bun și pentru cele de mare folos împărtășite nouă!
Ucenicia de la sf. Man.Putna,face roade ,intru slava Domnului!
Doamne ajută
Thank you for demonstrating the prayer bow and how to use it. So instructive and helpful.
Holy Father Seraphim
Please Pray for me and my wife.
For blessing at work
Jacob
Leni
Thank you father for sharing abut bows and... more 💚💛💔 I'm from Ethiopian Orthodox pls pray for us God bless you
Thank you so much for this. I wanted to offer prayers at night, but when I was too tired to think straight I thought it was pointless. I didn't look at the exercise as a sacrifice and mortification of the body! I really needed this advice! God Bless! ✝️🌹🙏🧎♀️🙇♀️
I am Catholic and love my Orthodox brothers and sisters. Hope we all unite one day. Are you Greek or Russian orthodox Fr?
United we travel under His One Holy name to gather up others because our journey is the same Be beacons of truth to light the way along the narrow road to heaven where Jesus promises lay We will stumble and we will fall but we will lift and raise each other through the greatest LOVE of ALL Then at our journeys end met by the promise of ALL time we will be blessed to spend eternity in the arms of the Divine 🙏
Thank you, Father, for this teaching and demonstration of bows and prostrations. I am learning about Orthodoxy, and did not know the difference between bows/prostrations. Thank you. Lord have mercy.
My dear Nancy, I didn't know the differences and the ways to use them, either. Someone else taught me over twenty years ago and I am grateful grateful to that father to this day. I still pray for him to this day for that act of love towards me. I am trying to look back and see more clearly the gifts Christ gave me, in the hope that I may pass them on to you all. Thank you for your kind words. May we all be blessed.
God bless you, and your brotherhood!! I didn t know, there is orthodox monastery in Scotland. Greetings from Belgrade.
Domnul sa te binecuvanteze.
thanks for your time. Greetings from Santorini. Please pray for my daughter Irini
I love you Father thanks be to God for your time for these blessed videos.
Thank you so much for your kindness, dear one. There is hardly ever any time, but we must make the time if Christ moves our hearts to do something in His Name. Please remember me and the Monastery in your prayers.
❤️
Ps 109:4
“In return for my love they are my adversaries; But I am all prayer.”
The great Prophet sang from the depth of his being, with words that came from the painful experience of a humbled heart, not from the empty imagination of a proud mind. This is why his words are full of Life and why they have the strength to nourish us from that Source of Life, too. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Mull Monastery
When we offer in humility our whole being, body and soul to Christ, we become prayer because the holy spirit is praying in us and then there will be no place for the imagination .
Prayer is the knowledge of God and the knowledge of God is prayer.
Thank you Father for your enlightening message.
Keep me in your prayers ❤️☦️
Thankyou this is a huge blessing to me, amazing. So practical but deep.
Thank you Father I really appreciate the time you have taken to explain prayer by night
Right around 15 is the best motivational speech ever! 💜☦️ I loved this so much. Thank you so much Father. Glory to Jesus Christ!
Thanks Father!!
Domnul să te binecuvânteze, frate Serafim.
Domnul sa ne binecuvinteze pe toti.
What beautiful advice about prayer! Please keep this coming Father!🙏🏼❤️
May Christ be kind to me and may He continue to give me both the words (because I have nothing) and the strength to keep working. As long as Christ wants me to do this, I shall do my best. The fact that you find some use in all this work counts more than I can say, because it gives us the courage to keep going forward. So thank you for your kindness and for taking the time to write these words of encouragement, dear one. May we all be blessed.
Thank you Father!
Thank you for this
Beautiful! Thank you, Father!
Thank you. God bless you. ❤😇❤
Saint Paisios the Athonite (+1994) had shared that prayer as being a very powerful one against demonic attacks: “Great is the the name of the Holy Trinity, Most Holy Theotokos protect us.”
Thank you.
Simply Beautiful!
Thank you Fr Seraphim for teaching the Bow and the Prostration. The very slow and very deliberate bow and prostration seems to have much thought, reverence and grace about it and seems to display the body, mind, heart and spirit working as one in deep love and worship. Thank you.
Dear Maxine, at my age and with my health, I am also increasingly discovering the benefits of doing everything slower - bows, prostrations, prayer itself. I discover that by taking more time, every gesture and every word gains a weight which I was missing when I used to do everything quicker. I do less now, but it weighs heavier on me and I feel the impact in a way I didn't twenty years ago. Thank you for your words, dear one. May we all be blessed.
That picture of Saint Sophrony in the background drew a smile on my face, then, your beautifully shared experience and words about prayer made that smile bigger! Thank you father. I ask your prayers for my country Lebanon.
Thanks for sharing Father 🙏
One of the best videos.. Thanks
Thank you for this video
Thank you so much for this beautiful and humble explanation.
Very helpful video. Thank you, Fr.
Thank you, Father for your kind help.
Thank you father
A 1000 thanks! Your blessing father!
Thank you Father ❤️
Thank you for your emphasis on prayer. I appreciate these videos
Thank you so so so much Father, I learned so much from this. Thank you
Amen Amen Amen
The basics will never fail you.
Truly this is the way. Bless you Father +++
If we hold on to the belief that we are always merely taking the first step in our spiritual life, if we never let go of the humility of our beginning, we remain close to Christ - the Truth, and we are not tempted to fall because of our pride. The Fathers were surrounded by the angelic hosts on their deathbeds and they were still asking for time to BEGIN their repentance. This Path has always set my heart on Fire. May we all be blessed, dear James.
Bless you Father for such a heartfelt and practical sharing.
Thank you Father Seraphim ! We need living witnesses, real experiences, and you pass this on with great simplicity and a lot of love ...
May the Lord grant you the grace to continue this transmission, this gift of the life of prayer, to all of us who are thirsty and very ignorant !
May the monastery of Mull be Light and great tenderness of God for all of us!
Thank you father Serafeim
Glory to God! 🙏🏻💒🙏🏻❤🌿
God bless you
Thank you. 🙏🏻☦️♥️
Glory be to God, dear Kay. I am grateful to Christ that you found something useful in this video. Please keep me and the Monastery in your prayers.
God bless you,father Serafim, from Georgia!
One obstacle that I have noticed in myself (and I think it comes from pride) is this willful idealistic attitude of "all or nothing". Which it is nice to hear your guidance about patience and humility. The Devil, it would seem, tries to drive us to the conclusion, that if we cannot do something by our own force of will, that it really didn't reflect our full intention and therefore didn't have its full merit. But this is pride. I have to constantly remind myself that we cannot do anything without God's grace and that nothing that we do has any merit without Him. But I truly appreciate your reminders of patience and humility. I need both. Thank you.
Thank you Father for everything you tel us God Bless You Always 🙏 ❤
Father , Thanks for all your Tiching. I Love to listen to you.
And thanks so much.🕯
I'm Chatolic, faith. we all have one LORD JESUS CHRIST. AMEN .HALELUJA.🕯🕯🕯💞🌹👏
Father Seraphim, Thank you very much for sharing your prayers.. May God bless you all...
Thank you Fr. Seraphim
Glory be to God for all good things, dear Tamra. May we all be blessed.
This is very practical and much needed teaching. Thank you, Father.
Thank you fatherFor preaching about God God bless you
Thank you
Thankyou for these videos
Thank you for your for your kind advice you are very sincire i will do my my best !!
Dumnezeu să vă binecuvânteze! Mulțumim părinte!
Dear Fr. Seraphim: When you feel the love of God in your heart, do you wish to sing and dance? I found that singing to the Lord has significant power, not power but the heavy heart feels instant relief. Singing has opened my heart. Offering it to the Lord. Constant song and love affair with the lord.
Спасибо☺! Успехов вам и помощи Божией
Thankyou for showing us
Wow! I am constantly learning from these amazing videos. As one who struggles in prayer this is so helpful. Thank you so much.
Salutations in Peace ! Very impressive pratical instructions very rare to hear ! Many thanks
Cu mulțumiri, părinte!
Thank you Father for your videos. I benefit from watching them over and over again. May God Bless you and keep you safe.
Multumesc mult parinte pentru acest video
Slava Bunului Dumnezeu pentru toate.
Thank you for this! I used to prostrate fast, but now I am 5o have knee pain I will do the slower prostration!
Fabulous explanation of night prayer but so much more, encouragement to begin it. One of your finest videos dear father, thank you
Thank you, Father! Very beautifully explained! God bless you!
Thank you, dear one, for taking the time to write these words. They mean a lot to us and they give us courage to keep working. Please remember me and the Monastery in your prayers.
salutari din Toronto, Canada, foarte frumoase si valoroase invaturi !
Thank you immensely, Father. I am anxious to begin. Praying for you.
Dear Patricia, may this blessed excitement remain with you always. May the grace of this beginning shelter and guide you always. May you never 'rust' spiritually and may you remain always open to the coming of Christ in your heart. And do remember me and the Monastery in your prayers. May we all be blessed, dear one.
God bless you father. I never knew how absoloutely beautiful it is to pray the Orthodox way. I’ve been learning so much! thankful for your videos. I’m very new to the Orthodox way (I’m a born again Christian), any resources for information for women?
God bless you father for sharing the knowledge about prayer, from India, kerala, kochi,
Thank you for providing us with the psychological -- 'inner' -- context for laying the mental and physical foundations of prayer.
Within my limited experience, I have found little so explicitly discussed concerning instituting meaning right at the start as has been done here.
When it all comes down to it, no matter how long I may have been practicing, I remain a beginner each and every time that I once again commence.
Thank you for this gem of clarity, matter-of-factness and compassion; my heart leaps at its hearing and the Beauty of its sense.
Bună seara părinte ,sunt din Romania și mă bucur că v-am că v-am descoperit! Domnul sa va binecuvinteze! Mulțumim pentru explicațiile și învățăturile pe care le împărtășiți cu noi! Mă bucură cur că pot împărtăși cu prietenii mei din Irlanda de Nord unde locuiesc de peste 16 ani! Cu mult drag vorbesc cu colegii și prietenii mei despre frumuseța rugăciunii in credință Ortodoxă!
Părintele este român?
Reverend Father,thank you for this homily,since like most,who are in missionary laities,separated from their church by distance & ' wordly' prohibitions I have been seeking to pursue Our Lord,your eloquent explanation is of great value,as I have been seeking,how to start praying at night,thank you so much,your Blessing Father please.
Thank you so much for explaining how to bow and do prostrations. Also praying at night. How to pray at night, how long and evrything you explain in detail is very helpfull.
Thank you father for this wonderful series. It was very timely for me. I generally wake up at about 5 am and was wondering if getting up an hour earlier and just staying awake for that additional time is the same as waking and then going back to sleep. Regardless of the time of night, once I wake up, I have a lot of trouble going back to sleep. I have been getting up at 4 am for the past week, but after the vigil, I can't fall back into sleep until about 5-10 minutes before 5.
Dear Father Seraphim. Thank you for these videos. I am discovering them to be very beneficial. Your exhortations and explanations are easily grasped and my understanding is being enlarged. You are helping me [and I am certain many others as well] to live a more devotional live as a Christian. My prayers are with you in your labors for Christ. Sincerely, David
Thank you for your kind words, dear David. If we all helped each other, sharing the humble gifts we each received, our world would be so much closer to God Who Is Love. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Помогай вам Господь!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Father! Thank you for showing me how to properly bow, to do a prostration; and to assume a proper attitude and spirit. I followed your advice, given some years ago in a previous Monastery booklet "On Prayer", to pray at night. This practical "how to" video will be very helpful to me. I pass on to any reader the very valuable admonition you gave me in that booklet regarding prayer. "Just start". I know John of the Ladder would agree! NR
Dear Dallas, I appreciate your kindness and I am very grateful for your encouragement, but I am certain I would not survive one year in the company of St John of the Ladder. I know my weak measure and I am humbled by it. By the grace of God, it has served me to continue to repent, while trying my best not judge anyone else. Our generation has nothing in common with theirs, EXCEPT for the Same Love of God. For this Love of God, despite knowing my weakness, I have great hope for my salvation and the salvation of all of us. We should do all we can, fully aware that what we can is nothing, and that salvation comes from the Lord, as a free and undeserved gift. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Amen
Dear Father,
Thank you very much for this beautiful video and for all your very deep videos.
I would like to ask a question: according to your experience, how many times you advice to pray by night (every night or less)?
Thank you very much! God bless!
Keep me in your prayer.
Amen🙏🙏🙏
Amen l am Ethiopia orthodox l love orthodox people
Father bless.
This is wonderful and beautiful and something I definitely hope to begin sometime. As newly illumined I am building and taking things slowly; watering the tree of my prayers.
Do you have a suggestion on how to wake? How do you wake? I could see after some years you might simply wake at the right time on your own as your body is trained. An alarm might not work for me as my wife would wake too - unless we are both ready for this new discipline at the same time. But what other methods do you suggest if any?
Thank you, Father.
By your prayers and the prayers of our Holy Fathers.
Dear one, I cannot use an alarm clock either, because it induces a feeling of anxiety and restlessness in me which is definitely good for my prayer. I use simple methods to wake myself naturally - I keep a glass of water and a slice of bread by my bed (if I eat a bit or drink a bit, I am less prone to go back to sleep immediately), I drink a lot of water before going to bed (which wakes me up during the night) or I leave my curtains or windows open, so either the light or the cold wakes me up. Depending where you live and your personal sleep pattern, you will discover your own ways to wake up in a natural and gentle way, which does not affect the quality of your prayer. Be blessed, dear one.
Amen Amen Amen 🤲🤲🤲🙏🙏🙏🙏
I am a Protestant Christian Can I follow his preachers...I Don't know much about things recently I got healed.. my family is in other religion...
I remember reading about St Joseph the Hesychast smacking himself or fabricating these weird chairs to keep himself upright even when he would nod off during his vigil. It seemed extreme at the time but the more I learn the more I see that it was simply his dedication and his love for God that made him do these "extreme" things. We will never be at his level, but to even partake in a fraction of his dedication is worthwhile. Not that I would know.
God only knows the hearts and prayer of the Saints, dear Derek. We should know our measure and grow through our humble and repentant prayer. As we do that, God is always able to step in and teach each of us our own prayer, which may seem strange to everyone else. As long as we have the blessing of our spiritual father, we should be safe. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Thank you for this video Father. May I ask, how many prostrations do you recommend for a beginner?