When I am praying, I must think through the words, I must know what it all means and how much I need it...

 

When I am praying, I must think through the words, I must know what it all means and how much I need it...

When this is taken care of, once and for all, then I must try to make sure that I always think through the words of the prayer, I must think through what I’m saying and of course, I have to try to live accordingly...

However, a human being is not just his mind.  A human being has a heart.

A mind without a heart is just a cold tool - it's just an instrument.

A mind can neither love nor hate....

And during prayer, we have to be able to do both - to love God and to hate sin.

Without heart, words spoken by the mind would be dead. 

Then what is it that the heart should do? – The heart must give confirmation to these words….

When I read the praises, when I praise God, the heart has to be filled with this joy....

Is this usually the case? - No, it is not.

Mind doesn’t have the ability to rejoice, it only knows that this is the way it should be, it knows that we must glorify God…

But the joy comes from the heart. The heart must become a partaker of all this...

I say “have mercy on me” – The mind knows, for sure, the sins that I’ve committed. I also know what a mess I am today and of course I say “have mercy on me”…

However, who has to feel the pain? Who has to be humbled? Who has to mourn for their own sins and godlessness? – Of course, the heart.

This is how it is in everything else as well, in every word, mind and heart have to work together… without this unity, there is no prayer.

Archpriest Theodore Gignadze