Chapter 12
On Freedom in the Prayer Rule
12.2.1 The mercy of God be with you!
12.3.1 Bless us, Lord, and continue in prayer according to your rule.[1] But never bind yourself to a rule, and don’t imagine that there’s anything of value in having such a rule or in always keeping it. All the value lies in the prayer of the heart before God. The holy Fathers write that if someone leaves prayer not as one condemned and worthy of every punishment from the Lord, then such a person leaves it as a Pharisee. Another said: “When you stand in prayer, stand as if at the dread judgement, when the decisive determination of God concerning you is about to be uttered: Depart, or: Come.”
12.4.1 You must avoid formality and mechanical routine in prayer at all costs. Let it be each time an act of deliberate, free choice, and perform it with awareness and feeling, not carelessly. When circumstances require it, you should know how to shorten your rule. How many unexpected things come up in family life? For instance, when you don’t have time in the morning and evening, you can simply recite from memory the morning prayers and the prayers before sleep. You don’t even have to recite all of them—just a few. You can even skip reading altogether and simply make a few prostrations, but with genuine prayer of the heart. You should approach your rule with complete freedom. Be the master of your rule, not its slave. A servant of God alone, obliged to devote every moment of her life to pleasing Him. I will gladly receive your labor. But something small. Your labor should go to the poor, except for what concerns your family.
12.5.1 Be saved!
12.6.1 Your well-wisher, Bishop Theophan.
12.7.1