Clergy Reflection: Sunday Of The Fourth Week

Fourth Sunday: The Sunday of St. John of the Ladder

From our youth we have certainly learned that prayer is like having a conversation with God. Young people's prayers tend to be petitionary prayers...please give me this and please do this for me. Adult prayer is hopefully more than that. All of our Great Lenten disciplines (one of them being more frequent prayer) are geared to assist us in our "ascent" to heaven, in our awareness and preparedness to resurrect with Christ at Pascha as renewed and better focused Orthodox Christian. The call to more frequent prayer in both our homes and in church has great value, for it is a "ladder" between ourselves and the Lord that enables com- munication. Our Lenten prayers are very reflective and this is helpful for our ascent. Our prayer should be spent examining one's own life, our inner self, so as to judge our life so we can improve ourselves and thereby improve the world around us by our own good living example. Our prayers of thankfulness should then spill into praise, in particular for God's attributes.

Fr. Andrew G. George