Welcome to Lent, 2009.
I'm totally stealing this lovely prayer that Alana posted.
Prayer of St. Ephraim, to be prayed during Lent
"O Lord and Master of my life do not give me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, or idle talk. But give rather a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant. Yes Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother. For blessed art Thou unto ages of ages, amen."
And I add this, which popped into my head last night as I was trying to get to sleep:
"Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."
The prayer of St. Ephraim is prayed at every prayer service in the Orthodox Church (and at home during morning and evening prayers) during lent, and after each line, we make a complete prostration to the ground. Then the whole prayer is repeated, with another prostration at the end.
ReplyDeleteVery beautiful, and good for the legs and back, too.
That sounds so incredibly beautiful. I was putting off ordering those books by Kallistos Ware until the end of the month (which it almost is), but I broke down and ordered them tonight.
ReplyDelete*wishes she weren't so socially awkward* I could find an Orthodox Church and attend a service.
*boggles* I ordered them on Amazon last night and they shipped last night. *glances around suspiciously* I've never had that happen before, and I've probably put the CEO of Amazon's kids through college...
ReplyDelete