the prayer rope
The Prayer Rope-Tips on prayer
The prayer rope is the name given to the woollen "chapelet" in Eastern Christianity used for the Jesus' Prayer.
In this page, I will post some tips on the Prayer of the Heart like beads leading you to a deeper experience of intimacy with God (according to His grace!) following the teaching of men and women of prayer both from East and West and my own personal experience.
If you had any question, you may contact me, and I will try to answer.
Poverty of heart
"A broken and contrite heart, you will not despise, O God"
It is impossible to enter the heart before it is broken by truth about ourselves and contrition. Only tears open the heart.
The first work of somebody aspiring to enter into intimacy with God in his heart is to know oneself as naked before God.
As long as the spirit is not humiliated by its failures to pray and the heart pierced through by its unfaithfulness, the door to deep prayer will not open.
picture from the Russian movie "The Island" directed by Pavel Lounguine , 2006 (free on YouTube): I highly recommend watching this movie about repentance, the Jesus prayer and purity of heart to understand the disposition needed to receive the grace of deep prayer and union with God in poverty of heart.
THE FUNDAMENTAL KEYS TO OPEN THE DOOR OF DEEP PRAYER
-POVERTY OF HEART
-DESIRE
-PERSEVERANCE
It is necessary, with all one's heart to devote oneself to the protection of the Mother of God, while constantly turning to her for help and guidance
She is the first guide in the feat of mental prayer.
No one has ascended higher than her in mental prayer.
Archimandrite Iliodore
It is unspeakably hard to acquire true prayer.
The soul who will try will come several times close to the gates of death.
But when prayer will be mastered, it will be like a wound.
Nobody would be able to take it away.
staretz Parthenius of Kiev
Complete and reel prayer comes only when the prayer of word and thought is joined by prayer of feeling
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Prayer of the HEART
Every prayer must come from the heart, and any other prayer is not prayer at all.
Prayer -book prayers, your own prayers, and very short prayers, all must issue forth from the heart to God, seen before you.
St Théophan the Recluse