PRAYER BY NIGHT. How to keep nighttime vigil and how to pray during the night. 'KEEP WATCH AND PRAY'

Summary

This video script offers practical guidance on beginning prayer by night, emphasizing the importance of discipline and self-awareness. It suggests starting with short, 10-15 minute sessions focused on staying awake and learning about personal prayer habits. The speaker discusses the significance of bows and prostrations, and how to incorporate them into prayer. The script highlights the value of persistence and patience, likening the spiritual journey to nurturing a tree that takes time to bear fruit, ultimately leading to a deeper connection with God.

Takeaways

• 📚 Start with the basics: The speaker emphasizes the importance of beginning prayer by night with simple and basic tools, focusing on discipline and consistency.
• ⏱️ Short sessions initially: Aim for brief prayer sessions of 10-15 minutes to begin with, to build the discipline to stay awake and pray.
• 🌙 Night prayer as a discipline: The initial goal is to keep oneself awake during prayer, learning about personal strengths and weaknesses in the process.
• 🕴️ Physical actions matter: Incorporate physical movements like bows and prostrations to aid in staying awake and to add a contemplative aspect to prayer.
• 🙏 Significance of bows and prostrations: These actions are more than just physical—they symbolize offering oneself to Christ and seeking humility and repentance.
• 🔄 Adapt to personal capacity: The number and speed of bows and prostrations should be adapted to one's physical ability and health.
• 💡 Spiritual growth over time: As one grows older or faces health issues, the focus shifts from quantity to quality, learning to appreciate slower and more meaningful movements.
• 🌱 Patience and humility required: Spiritual growth in prayer by night, like any other spiritual practice, requires patience, humility, and time.
• 🌟 The Holy Spirit as a teacher: The speaker believes that the Holy Spirit will guide and teach how to pray effectively, especially in using physical actions as spiritual offerings.
• 🌱比喻 of a tree: The process of spiritual growth in prayer is likened to the growth of a tree, needing consistent care and time to bear fruit.
• 🌃 Night prayer as a spiritual fight: The struggle to stay awake and pray at night is seen as a form of spiritual combat, offering physical effort as a sacrifice to Christ.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video script?

The main focus of the video script is to provide practical advice on how to approach prayer by night, especially for those who have not practiced it consistently or seriously before.

What are the two main aims when beginning to pray by night according to the script?

The two main aims when beginning to pray by night are to keep oneself awake and to learn about oneself, including one's strengths, patience, and the best times for prayer.

Why is it suggested to start with a brief period of 10-15 minutes for night prayer?

Starting with a brief period of 10-15 minutes is suggested because it sets a manageable goal to acquire the discipline of staying awake during prayer, which goes against one's natural inclination for rest.

What is the significance of bows and prostrations in prayer by night?

Bows and prostrations are significant in prayer by night as they represent humility and an offering of oneself to Christ. They also serve as a physical act that can help to maintain focus and wakefulness during prayer.

How does the script describe the transition from physical to spiritual prayer?

The script describes the transition from physical to spiritual prayer as a gradual process, where the initial physical struggle of staying awake and performing bows and prostrations eventually leads to a deeper, more contemplative form of prayer through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in teaching how to pray according to the script?

According to the script, the Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in guiding and teaching individuals how to pray, especially in transforming physical actions into meaningful spiritual practices.

Why is it important not to rush through the initial months of prayer by night?

It is important not to rush through the initial months of prayer by night because the focus should be on acquiring the discipline to stay awake and learning about oneself, rather than achieving a high level of spiritual prayer immediately.

How can one make the most of slower bows and prostrations due to health or age?

One can make the most of slower bows and prostrations by taking the time to reflect on the spiritual significance of each movement, using them as opportunities for repentance, forgiveness, and deepening one's relationship with Christ.

What is the comparison made between prayer by night and fasting in the script?

The comparison made between prayer by night and fasting is that both start as physical struggles and, over time, with the grace of God, they transform into spiritual sacrifices that are well received by God.

How can the discipline acquired during prayer by night be applied to one's daily life?

The discipline acquired during prayer by night can be applied to one's daily life by learning to see everyday actions as opportunities for prayer and offering, thus transforming mundane activities into spiritual practices.

What is the advice given for maintaining patience and humility during the process of learning to pray by night?

The advice given for maintaining patience and humility is to compare the process to the growth of a tree, which requires time, care, and the right conditions to bear fruit, emphasizing that spiritual growth also needs patience, humility, and consistent effort.

Outlines

00:00

🌙 Introduction to Night Prayer

The speaker introduces the topic of prayer by night, emphasizing the importance of starting with a brief period (10-15 minutes) to stay awake and learn about oneself. The goal is to develop the discipline to wake up and remain awake, despite the natural inclination to sleep.

05:01

🙏 Significance of Bows and Prostrations

The speaker shares personal experiences of learning about bows and prostrations, emphasizing their significance in prayer. They describe the process of making the sign of the Cross and bowing or prostrating before an icon, highlighting the symbolic offering of oneself to Christ.

10:01

🕊️ Learning Through Slower Prostrations

The speaker discusses the benefits of slow, deliberate prostrations, especially as one ages or faces health issues. They explain that these slower actions can be deeply meaningful, allowing time for reflection and spiritual growth, and should be adapted to one's physical capabilities.

15:03

🌱 Physical Struggle and Spiritual Growth

Drawing a parallel between night prayer and fasting, the speaker explains that both practices begin as physical struggles but can lead to spiritual growth. They emphasize the importance of patience and perseverance, likening the process to nurturing a tree from planting to fruit-bearing.

20:08

🌌 Transforming Physical Actions into Spiritual Offerings

The speaker advises on turning physical actions during night prayer into spiritual offerings. They suggest dedicating prostrations and bows to specific Saints or intentions, thereby enriching the physical struggle with spiritual significance and preparing the mind for deeper prayer.

25:08

🌠 The Humble Beginnings of Prayer

Emphasizing humility and patience, the speaker explains that the initial phase of night prayer involves simple physical actions to stay awake. This period should be seen as foundational, allowing for gradual growth in spiritual depth and understanding without rushing or high expectations.

30:10

🌳 Patience and the Growth of Prayer

The speaker concludes by reiterating the need for patience and humility in nurturing a prayer life. They compare the process to caring for a tree, requiring time and consistent effort to eventually bear fruit. The emphasis is on steady, humble practice leading to spiritual blessings.

Keywords

💡Prayer by Night

Prayer by Night refers to the practice of praying during the late hours, often when one would typically be asleep. It is a form of spiritual discipline aimed at deepening one's relationship with God. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of beginning with short durations and gradually building up discipline and understanding of oneself in relation to prayer.

💡Discipline

Discipline in this context is the practice of self-control and training to follow a specific routine or set of rules, particularly in the pursuit of spiritual growth. The script discusses the necessity of developing discipline to stay awake for the initial 10-15 minutes of prayer by night, which is crucial for overcoming the natural inclination towards sleep and aligning oneself with spiritual practices.

💡Bows and Prostrations

Bows and prostrations are physical acts of reverence and submission before God, often used in prayer to express humility and devotion. The speaker explains the significance of these acts, how to perform them, and the spiritual connection one should make while engaging in them, such as offering oneself to Christ during the act of bowing or prostrating.

💡Humility

Humility is the quality of being humble, not arrogant or vain, and recognizing one's own limitations. In the video, the concept of humility is tied to the act of bowing and prostrating, symbolizing the laying down of one's pride before God. It is also discussed as an essential quality for spiritual growth, as it allows for openness to God's teachings and guidance.

💡Spiritual Sacrifice

Spiritual sacrifice refers to the act of offering something of personal value to God as an act of devotion. The script uses the metaphor of sacrifice to describe the act of staying awake for prayer by night, which is seen as an offering to Christ. This concept is expanded upon to include the idea of turning physical actions into mental and spiritual offerings.

💡Contemplative Prayer

Contemplative prayer is a form of prayer characterized by quiet reflection and meditation on divine truths. The speaker mentions that beginners should not focus on this form of prayer initially but rather on the physical act of staying awake and the discipline it requires, with contemplative prayer becoming more accessible as one's spiritual life matures.

💡Active Prayer

Active prayer involves more physical and verbal engagement, such as reciting prayers, making bows, and prostrations. The video contrasts active prayer with contemplative prayer, suggesting that beginners start with active forms to help stay awake and later integrate contemplative elements as they progress in their spiritual journey.

💡Patience

Patience is the ability to wait without complaint and with a calm demeanor, especially when faced with delay. The speaker emphasizes patience as a key virtue in cultivating a prayer life, likening the growth of spiritual fruit to the slow maturation of a tree, which requires time and perseverance.

💡Repentance

Repentance is the act of feeling regret or remorse for one's wrongdoings and seeking forgiveness. In the script, the act of prostrating with one's forehead and palms on the ground is associated with repentance, symbolizing the shame and sorrow one feels before God for their sins.

💡Fasting

Fasting is the practice of abstaining from food, drink, or other bodily needs for a period of time, often for spiritual purposes. The speaker compares the physical struggle of prayer by night to fasting, suggesting that both begin as physical disciplines that can evolve into deeper spiritual practices over time.

💡Vigil

Vigil refers to staying awake, often for the purpose of prayer or watchfulness. In the context of the video, keeping vigil by night is the initial struggle of staying awake for prayer, which is later transformed into a spiritual practice of offering one's wakefulness as a form of worship.

Highlights

Introduction to a series of videos on prayer by night and the importance of starting with the basics.

Practical advice on how to approach prayer by night for beginners, emphasizing the simplicity of the initial practice.

The significance of bows and prostrations in prayer and their role in connecting with spiritual significance.

Guidance on the proper way to perform bows and prostrations, including their physical and spiritual aspects.

The importance of starting with a brief period of 10-15 minutes for night prayer to build discipline.

Two main aims of night prayer for beginners: staying awake and learning about oneself.

The challenge of night prayer as a fight against one's own nature and the importance of persistence.

Strategies to stay awake during night prayer, such as fresh air, water, or a cup of coffee.

The recommendation to stand during prayer and combine contemplative and active prayer forms.

Personal story of learning to pray from a priestmonk and the impact of this teaching.

The spiritual meaning of bows and prostrations as an offering to Christ and a symbol of humility.

Different approaches to bows and prostrations based on age, health, and personal spiritual journey.

The value of slow and deliberate bows and prostrations for deepening spiritual connection.

The spiritual benefits of enduring physical discomfort during night prayer.

The comparison of night prayer to fasting as a form of physical and spiritual struggle.

The importance of patience and humility in the development of a night prayer practice.

The transformation of physical actions into spiritual sacrifices and the role of the Holy Spirit in teaching prayer.

The potential for night prayer to change one's daily life by viewing actions as offerings to God.

The advice to focus on the physical struggle of staying awake as a form of sacrifice in the early stages of night prayer.

The analogy of planting a tree to illustrate the process of developing a night prayer habit and the importance of long-term commitment.

Encouragement to view the initial stages of night prayer as a monologue with God, focusing on self-awareness and repentance.

The closing blessing and the emphasis on the grace of God in the journey of night prayer.

Transcripts

Hello everyone. This follows from our previous video

about prayer by night, and by the grace of God hopefully we'll have

two or three videos on the topic before we finish

writing our booklet. Today we'll be very practical:

we'll all go back to the basics; at least I know that's where I am and

that's where I've been for years and probably will

end up being for many more years. So we'll go at the very beginning and

we'll talk about how to approach prayer by night when

you've not really practised it in any serious or

consistent manner. We'll have a look at bows, we'll

have a look at prostrations, we'll see how to make them, I will tell you what

I've been taught about their significance and what I

should be praying when I make them, what I should be thinking when I make

them. So just the very simple, basic tools

for praying by night. At the very beginning,

which again is where all of us are at this moment,

at the very beginning aim for a very brief period of time when you

should pray by night, and by very brief I

I mean not more than 10-15 minutes, absolutely not more than that.

You have only two main aims when you begin to pray by night, the first aim is

just to keep yourself awake, nothing more, just to keep yourself awake

while---and this is the second goal---while you learn

about yourself, while you learn things about your strength, about your

patience, you learn when you pray better, do you

pray better earlier in the evening or do you pray

better later at night, closer to morning, you'll

learn how long you can pray, you learn how

you can mix more active forms of prayer with more contemplative forms of prayer,

but mostly as you begin prayer by night, simply aim to acquire the discipline

that will keep you awake; in fact, the discipline that will

get you to wake up and the discipline that will keep you awake

for only those 10-15 minutes of this humble beginning of ours.

Don't forget that although it doesn't sound like

much---10-15 minutes is not a lot--- but what you aim to do goes against

everything, it goes against your own nature,

it goes against your nature in the same way in which

abstinence, for instance, goes against your nature or fasting goes against your

nature, because our bodies as they are now

in this fallen form that we are living in this world, they require

sleep and rest, they require nourishment, there

is an instinct of survival and reproduction in all of us,

and to fight on any of these directions is to actually fight against our own

nature, and that is difficult, that is a difficult

thing to acquire and you must give yourself credit for

trying to do it. So aim to acquire the discipline to get

yourself up and to keep yourself awake for

10-15 minutes. Do anything that works for you,

and in time you will learn what works best for you;

it may be best if you open your window, for instance, and fresh air can help you

stay awake, it may help you to drink a glass of water, it may help you to

prepare a small cup of coffee before you go to bed so you have it by your bedside

when you wake up, it may help you even to go outside

for three-four minutes before you begin your prayer just to

fully wake up. Go on your balcony or go in your garden if you have a garden,

anything that helps you, and you will learn

what helps you, but anything that helps you,

do it, and don't sit down, whatever you do during these first few

months do not sit down, do not lie down, try to stand as much as you can and try

to mix a more contemplative form of prayer

with a very active sort of prayer that

involves bows and prostrations. I'm convinced

that all of you know what is a bow and what is a prostration, but just in

case that there is someone out there who doesn't know, I remember that I was

actually taught how to make a bow and how to make a

prostration when I was--- I don't know---18 or 19: a wonderful

priestmonk at Putna, one of the wonderful, wonderful monasteries of

Moldavia, a monastic there has taught me how to make them and I am

grateful to this day for that experience, just because

it mattered so much to me that this father

took the time to teach me, a teenager, to pray.

He took the time, he invested that time

in me, although it could have been a complete waste of time,

he didn't think about that, he simply thought about

the potential that I had and the potential that

those few minutes of explaining what a bow is and what a prostration is

could have in my life. So a bow is simply

making the sign of the Cross from your forehead to your

feet and then bowing all the way down in front of an icon of Christ, of the

Mother of God, or a Saint. In fact, let me just show you:

You make the sign of the Cross over your body, the way you would normally do,

from one shoulder to another, and then you bow

down all the way to the ground;

you mark yourself for Christ, you seal yourself

with the sign of the Holy Cross, you give yourself entirely to Christ, who you are,

this physical self: you give that as an

offering to Christ, who you are, this body of yours and your

mind, you seal yourself from your mind

all the way down to your toes,

from one shoulder to another, and you give everything that

you are to Christ, you lay everything that you are before

Christ as an offering, and as you do that,

you find true freedom, because it is only in becoming

the servants of Christ that we find freedom from the slavery of the world,

and the world is ourselves, our passions, our weaknesses, and our sins.

You seal yourselves for Christ. Think back to the time of your

baptism or chrismation: you seal yourself

from from your mind to your toes, from

one shoulder to another. You seal yourselves as a sacrifice, as an

offering, and then you fall before Christ---and this fall

can be either a bow all the way down to the ground as a sign of humility,

or it can be a literal falling down when you do a full prostration,

which is almost the same thing as a bow, only that this time as you

bow yourself before God, you let your whole body fall down,

and you get yourself down in the position of kneeling, or---

it looks very much like a fetus position, with your palms on the ground

and your forehead between your palms on the ground before God.

There are all sorts of ways in which one can make bows and

prostrations. Some Fathers advise that you do them

very quickly, and in fact they more or less

match the advice for the Jesus Prayer; some Fathers advise

that you do a lot of them, hundreds or thousands of them,

of course depending on your physical power and

your youth and your health and everything else;

and other Fathers advise that you do less of them

and you take your time in doing them. From my own very limited experience, I've

noticed that there is a good time for everything:

there is a time for more prostrations and more bows done

in rather rapid succession, and that's

particularly when you are young and healthy and able to do

them, they can act as a physical way to drain

yourself up, to get yourself tired, and

that is helpful in fighting your passions,

but then you grow older and you begin to have

health issues and you have two herniated discs

and all sorts of problems like that, so you can no longer make as many

prostrations or bows as you did before and you definitely cannot make them as

quickly as you did before--- but as your body forces you to slow down,

the Holy Spirit steps in and you are being taught to

appreciate and to make the most of these slower

acts of humility before God. Slow, very, very slow

bows and prostrations are very helpful. It is more useful to make

less prostrations and less bows, but to take your time as you make them, and by

that I mean really take the time; you should be able

to say the Our Father while you make one

prostration, for example. Take your time as you bow

down and give weight to that process of

bowing down, think of you falling into sin as you bow

down, and when you are down on the ground with

your forehead and your palms on the ground before

Christ, think of you in repentance before God,

think of the shame of looking up and seeing his

holy, loving face. Christ will teach you how to pray,

the grace of the Holy Spirit will teach you how to pray.

Then, when you get up, think of the forgiveness you are given by

confession, think of the new life, the new chances,

the new forgiveness you've been given, but also the new forgiveness you are

called to give to everyone around you.

Give weight to these physical actions and

take the time to feel them. When you go through a hundred bows

or a hundred prostrations in a row very quickly

when you are a young person, there is a certain set of benefits that comes

with that, but when you make them as slowly as

possible and with all the pain that your body

places on you because of your health or because of your age, and when

you give this weight of a mental or a spiritual

understanding to bowing down and keeping yourself on the

ground and then resurrecting for another one,

another bow, another prostration, another set of spiritual benefits

will be revealed to you. So what I'm trying to say is, do not

be afraid if you prefer one way or another of making your bows, your

prostrations, just learn to use them to the best of

your ability, and the Holy Spirit will come and will teach

you how to use them. Sometimes you may need to alternate them,

and you may make quicker prostrations or quicker bows than you would like

simply because you are all dried up inside and your soul,

your mind doesn't serve you, or you are just doing them quicker because you want

to fight sleep, for example, but then when

sleep is away, you may go back and you may do your fewer,

but more careful prostrations as your soul asks you to do.

As you approach prayer by night, it is absolutely vital that you don't rush

through these first few months. It all depends on you

acquiring the discipline to keep yourself

awake: this is all you are aiming for in the beginning. All you want is to keep

yourself awake; all you want is to offer this

deprivation of sleep as an offering to Christ, and this is your prayer. Don't

even think about any other sort of prayer; in

fact, it helps if you just disregard prayer

entirely in the beginning, because we have such

deformed understandings of what prayer is, we have such high

expectations of prayer, because we've formed those expectations,

not so much based on our own pitiful experience,

but based on the readings we've done and the stories we've read

about the Holy Fathers and the Saints of the Church,

so we all hope, we all wish that their experiences would become ours as

well. And I'm not here to tell you that that

is not possible--- anything is possible with God---

but I am here to tell you that those Saints

did not just acquire the sort of prayer about which we read simply---like that,

because they've started prayer one evening:

Behind those drops of divine light, behind those few

moments of direct contemplation of the Divinity,

behind those revelations of God Himself, there are

thousands and thousands of empty nights, of nights when they did exactly what I'm

asking you to do now as we begin to approach

prayer by night, they were just offering their bodily

sacrifice, their bodily tiredness, their act of

simply depriving themselves of sleep, they are

offering this as prayer, as a sacrifice for Christ.

The other kind of prayer follows only when

God wants it to follow, but this beginning, this opening up

to receiving God's gift is in our power, and this is why I'm telling you that for

months at the beginning, you need to simply

think of yourself in bodily, physical terms:

Keep yourself awake; make your body offer itself, offer its

suffering, offer its effort as a sacrifice for Christ. If you compare

prayer by night with fasting, for example, another form of

physical, ascetical fighting, it might help us,

because with fasting the same thing happens:

Initially we just fast because this is the tradition of the Church

and we do it as an obedience to the Church,

but as we begin fasting as an exclusively

physical, ascetical struggle, you eat less

or you eat at different times of the day or you don't eat certain foods and so on,

this physical struggle slowly moves inside by the grace of God and it

changes things on the inside, and before you know it

what used to be a physical fight becomes a spiritual fight, what used to

be just a physical sacrifice becomes a spiritual

sacrifice that is well received before God, and

indeed, very often what happens is that at the

beginning of a fasting period we are so focused on the fasting that all we

perceive is the physical aspect of it, but towards

the end of the fasting period, it's almost as if we are not fasting

any more, because we forget that there are foods that we

don't eat or we forget that we used to eat so much

more than we are eating now, but on the inside

that physical struggle has caught roots and now this flower, this fruit is

beginning to show. The same happens with vigil by night,

the same happens when you begin to pray by night,

initially it is all a physical struggle and many of us give up because of that,

because we don't think that our struggle is worth anything,

but trust the Holy Fathers of the Church and

trust someone as pitiful and sinful as myself:

It is worth fighting this fight, it is worth

trying at least to acquire the habit of praying by night.

This struggle to keep yourself awake, this

humble, pitiful struggle to keep your eyes open and

not to fall asleep, this need to fight your

body's control over your mind and to just oppose your

body, to oppose your nature and to redirect your body,

redirect your mind, redirect your nature, so instead of just

following the fallenness of the world, it can

at least try to follow the upwards, the spiritual direction of

Christ's commandments: this is enough. Don't consider,

don't even consider now purely contemplative prayer,

don't consider now prayer in silence, don't consider now a complete

prostration before the Lord with you lying down on

the floor and praying in silence, don't even think about the Prayer of the

Heart or the Jesus Prayer at this point--- at this point in your

development as a prayerful Christian at night, all you need to do

is to keep yourself awake, and to learn about yourself,

so that you acquire the best tools, the best ways

to keep yourself awake. In a few months, when getting up and staying up

for 15 minutes is no longer an issue---in a few months,

things will change and we'll talk about it later on in a different video;

but for the time being, it is important to understand this,

because if you don't understand this and if you don't allow yourself

to be a beginner such as you are and I am, then you are going to aim for

something that is unattainable at this level, and because

you cannot get what you hope to get, you will grow despondent

and you will just abandon, and this is this is where I think 90% of us fail:

we abandon because we don't get to that sort of prayer that we aim to

get, we abandon because we don't see the

results that we see in the prayer of the Holy Fathers and we forget about

the thousands and thousands of empty nights,

dry nights, nights when they simply fought themselves the way you begin to

fight yourself now. It is important to keep yourself

humble and to remind yourself that fruit of any kind doesn't come

two days or three days after you've planted a flower or a

fruit tree in the ground, it takes months from spring to autumn and sometimes it

takes years and years for that tree to grow up,

until you can finally reach out and taste the first

fruit of that tree. If you just plant that tree and you look at it for

a day or a week or a month and you see, 'Hmm... Nothing's changing;

I don't even see a new leaf, let alone a fruit',

and you just abandon that tree, then the tree will die

and you will never taste the fruit of it. Patience, patience and humility,

patience and humility: these are the sun and the water that will

feed the roots of that tree and will eventually

allow you to taste that fruit. Of course, that

as you struggle to keep yourself awake, your mind has to work as well,

and this is the time when you can learn to give weight

to your physical struggle, this is a time when you can take

these simple, humble actions and give them the weight of a spiritual

action, and this is something that once you've learned how to do,

you can take with you into the day, you can

carry on this new skill with you into your day and that will

completely, totally change your spiritual life.

Basically if your gesture before the Lord

is to just keep yourself awake or just drink a cup of water, you need to

give a weight to that action, you need to give a new understanding to

that action so that while you do the physical struggle, while

you keep yourself awake, you also teach your

mind, you train your mind to look at that simple,

physical action as a spiritual sacrifice. Let me give you just a few examples and

maybe that will make things a bit clearer:

for example, as you struggle to keep yourself

awake in the middle of the night, in the darkness,

think back on the countless times when you have fallen into your sin,

whatever your sin may be, because you have not been able

to keep vigil over your mind, over your thoughts,

so that you can perceive the attack coming

in order for you to fight it back so that you don't fall:

you can learn to see your physical night

vigil as an offering to Christ so that in return Christ may give you

the grace to keep this spiritual vigil

over your thoughts and over your mind so you can fight your passions,

and you can present this offering to Christ

in this way, you can speak the words to Christ

and ask Him to receive this humble effort of your body so that He may in

turn give you the grace of spiritual vigil

over your mind, and then you can complete that prayer by making a

few bows or a few prostrations before the Lord,

and even those bows and prostrations can become

a spiritual or at least mental offering as well---you may for instance

think of a certain Saint, you may think of

St Moses the Black, for example, if you're fighting

violence in your heart or anger, you may think of St Mary of Egypt

if you're fighting lust---just select a Saint which is

more relevant to your particular struggle, your particular passion,

and then make three bows or three prostrations

in prayer to that particular Saint; or another example,

think back of the time the years that you've kept yourself in the

darkness of sin by not returning to Christ, by not

returning to the Church, think of all those years and think of

the world and the people in the world that are still

caught up in the darkness: well, here you are in

the dead of night---you may stand as an offering, as a sacrifice on behalf

for all these people who are still caught up in the darkness,

in the dead of their own sinfulness; you may make a few prostrations for them,

you may make, I don't know, nine bows or nine prostrations for example,

you being the one Samaritan who has returned to give thanks to the Lord

for the fact that the Lord has healed you, and you give thanks to the Lord

not only for your own healing, but also for the healing of those

nine who are still in the dark or who have not

returned to say thank you to the One who healed them. The Holy

Spirit and Christ will teach you how to approach

this sort of conversion of your simple, humble, physical offering

into a spiritual or at least mental sacrifice, and as

you learn this new skill, you can then take this skill from the middle of the

night into the day, so that every action you do

during the day, you can see it from this new perspective,

and that will change your spiritual life completely: you can say a prayer

as you sip a drink of water or as you prepare food for your family or

as you enter your office or as you make a phone

call or as you write an email--- you can turn anything into an act

of prayer and an offering before the Lord,

and prayer by night, because of its special grace, is ideal to teach us how

to do that. But at the beginning, all you

want for the first few months of your prayer at night, all

you want is to acquire the discipline and the control over your mind and your

body to wake up and to stay awake

not more than 10-15 minutes. This will be a time when

your prayer will sound very much like a monologue, and

again it shouldn't scare you, it shouldn't put you off:

it is only normal that it should be that way---think of yourself

as having offended someone very dear to you, your best

friend or someone whom you love dearly, and this is when you

go back and you approach that person whom you've offended

in order to ask for forgiveness for your offence:

it's not going to be a dialogue, is it? Initially it will be a monologue,

when you just acknowledge your mistake, you acknowledge the way

in which you've harmed that particular person, you've

sinned against that particular person, you explain to that person and to

yourself the way in which you've harmed them, the

way in which you've harmed yourself by

harming them, you explain to them and to yourself why

that has happened, you ask for their forgiveness in

humility and in patience--- in the beginning, this re-connection

is not a dialogue but pretty much a monologue,

and the same happens when we reapproach Christ

in prayer, because initially it is all about

us asking for forgiveness, us becoming aware of our own falls

and our own sinfulness, and us actually working

through our own sinfulness and understanding us, because God already

understands, it's more about us understanding why

we've behaved the way we have behaved and why we've

fallen the way we have fallen; and as you do these things, as you slowly regain

control over your mind and over your body

so you can get yourself awake and keep yourself awake

for 10 or 15 minutes, as you deepen your own understanding of

why we've fallen and what this sinfulness means for our spiritual life

as we acquire this new skill of looking at

our physical, active prayer as a mental and even

spiritual prayer--- as we do these things, slowly,

without us fully realizing it, that breath of life of the Holy Spirit

will descend upon us and this new kind of prayer, this new kind of

life will open up to us---but it

takes time: it takes time and humility and patience.

Think of that tree: you've planted it---now that you've

started to wake up, now that you've started to force yourself

to do violence to yourself for the Kingdom of God

and you keep yourself awake for a few minutes every night,

now that you've started, don't expect the fruit of that tree

to be immediately available to you; it takes months or years

or decades---the more valuable the fruit, the more rare and exquisite

that spiritual fruit, the more time, patience, humility,

and struggle it will take, not because God

begrudges His gifts and He doesn't want to give

us everything, because He has already given us

everything, but because He wants us to be able to sustain those

gifts and not lose them and

instead of gaining salvation for ourselves,

getting ourselves even further from Him. Water the tree of your prayer

with humility and patience, and Christ will bless you

beyond your wildest hopes. May we all be blessed, dear ones.

Amen.