Prayer Corner

Prayer to Our Lord by Monk Antiochus of Pandectis

Grant us, O Master, repose of body and soul as we go to sleep, and preserve us from the gloomy sleep of sin and from every dark and passionate pleasure of the night.  Quell the attacks of the passions; quench the fiery darts of the veil one which are treacherously directed against us.  Put down the rebellions of our flesh, and lull to sleep our every earthly and material thought.  And grant us, O God, a wakeful mind, a chaste thought, a sober heart, and gentle sleep, free from every satanic fantasy.  Raise us up at the hour of prayer, confirmed in Your commandments and having with ourselves a steadfast remembrance of Your judgments. Grant us to hymn Your glory all the night long, that we may sing, bless and glorify Your most honorable and majestic Name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever.  Amen.

Let us first consider what peace is. Surely it is nothing else but a loving disposition towards one's neighbor. But what is held to be the opposite of love? It is hate and wrath, anger and envy, harboring resentment as well as hypocrisy and the calamity of war. Do you see for how many different diseases this single word is an antidote? For peace is equally opposed to every one of the things mentioned, and wipes out these evils by its own presence. Just as illness vanishes when health supervenes, and as no darkness is left when light begins to shine, so also when peace appears, all the passions connected with its opposite are eliminated

- St. Gregory of Nyssa, from On the Beatitudes, Sermon 9: Blessed are thepeacemankers, for thy shall be called sons of God