{"id":4082,"date":"2017-12-26T12:09:09","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T17:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2017-12-15T17:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-15T22:11:00","slug":"elder-st-porphyrios-on-meaningful-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=4082","title":{"rendered":"Elder St. Porphyrios on Meaningful Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"5jqb5\" data-offset-key=\"9hbne-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"9hbne-0-0\">\u201cYou are often forced to do what is good. But it mustn\u2019t be done under duress; it\u2019s not beneficial, it\u2019s not spiritually edifying. Take, for example, the Jesus Prayer. If you force yourself to say it, after a time you will weary of it and you will throw it away; and then what happens? If you do it as a chore, the pressure builds up inside you until it bursts out in some evil. Pressure of this kind can even make you not want to go to church at all. Go to church in a different spirit, not with pushing and shoving, but with pleasure and joy. For this to happen, you must pay attention and take pleasure and joy in the services, in the hymns, the readings and the prayers. Listen to each word and follow the meanings. Do you see? This is where the joy comes from There is, however, another great danger. If we don\u2019t pay attention, we may listen to and sing everything mechanically\u2026 When a person hears it without participating, he wearies of it, he dozes off, he doesn\u2019t enter more deeply into the words, he becomes bored and then reaction sets in. Thereafter he finds no benefit and no joy.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"5jqb5\" data-offset-key=\"3rsso-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"3rsso-0-0\"><span data-offset-key=\"3rsso-0-0\">&#8211; \u2018Wounded by Love\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n<div data-offset-key=\"3rsso-0-0\">\n<div id=\"attachment_4084\" style=\"width: 213px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4084\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4084\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/x6-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/x6-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/x6.jpg 541w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4084\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">vvlasidis@uowm.gr<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYou are often forced to do what is good. But it mustn\u2019t be done under duress; it\u2019s not beneficial, it\u2019s not spiritually edifying. Take, for example, the Jesus Prayer. If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4085,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}