Short Prayers Throughout the Day
Standing before the icon and a lit candle, make the sign of the cross and make a prostration, or as many as you wish, then:
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O LORD Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!
O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere present, filling all things, treasury of blessings and giver of life, come and abide in us and cleanse us from every impurity and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, haver mercy on us. [3x]
Glory … now and ever …
O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us,
O LORD, cleanse us from our sins,
O Master, pardon our transgressions,
O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy Name’s Sake.
LORD, have mercy [3x]
Glory … now and ever …
Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this Day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen!
Then:
When rising from Sleep:
Make the sign of the cross and make a prostration:
Having risen from sleep we bow down and worship Thee, O Most Holy Trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God, through the prayers of the Theotokos, have mercy on us!
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
At the Third Hour (between 9 am and 12 Noon)
Cross yourself and make a prostration:
O LORD who at the Third Hour didst send down Thy Holy Spirit upon Thine apostles, take Him not from us, O Good One, but renew Him in us.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right Spirit within me.
At the Sixth Hour (between 12 Noon and 3 pm)
Cross yourself and make a prostration:
O LORD, who at the Sixth Hour was crucified for us, forgive us through Thy great love for us.
Before Thy Cross we bow down and worship, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection we glorify.
At the Ninth Hour (between 3 pm and 6 pm)
Cross yourself and make a prostration:
O LORD, who at the Ninth Hour didst destroy the power of death by Thy death, make us worthy to share in Thy victory and life everlasting!
I shall take the Cup of Salvation and call on the Name of the LORD. The LORD is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?
Evening (between 6 pm and bedtime)
Make the sign of the cross and make a prostration:
Vouchsafe, O LORD, to keep us this night without sin. Blessed art Thou, O God of our fathers, and praised and glorified is Thy Name forever.
LORD, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy WORD, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people, Israel.
When going to bed:
Make the sign of the cross and make a prostration:
Into Thy hands, O LORD, I commend my soul and my body. Do Thou Thyself bless me and have mercy on me, and grant me eternal life.
O my holy Guardian Angel and holy [patron saint], well-pleasing to God, I fervently entreat you who are the sure help and intercessor for my soul.
Prayer of the Hours
O Thou who at every season and every hour, in heaven and on earth, art worshipped and glorified, who art long-suffering, merciful and deeply compassionate, who lovest the just, and shows mercy to the sinner, calling all men to salvation through the promise of blessings to come, do Thou the same LORD receive at this present hour our supplications and direct our lives according to Thy commandments. Sanctify our souls, hallow our bodies, sanctify our minds, cleanse our thoughts. Deliver us from every calamity, wrath and distress. Encompass us round about with Thy holy angels that guided and guarded by their host, we may attain to the unity of the faith and to the comprehension of Thine incomprehensible glory, for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.
It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure and the Mother of our God, more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, without corruption, thou gavest birth to God the WORD, true Theotokos, we magnify thee!
The Liber Graduum, is a Latin title given to an anonymous work of the fourth century Syriac Christian Church. Translated, Liber Graduum means, Book of Steps, or Book of Degrees or Ascents. It is a fourth century formulation of an ancient motif of ‘ascent’ going back into the OT—e.g. Jacob’s Ladder, Gen 28.12, (cf. Jn 1.51), the many ascents up a mountain—and found in the NT (for example, 2 Pt 4-8ff). St John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent, and St Isaac of Nineveh’s reference to the ladder found in the closet of one’s heart (Hom 2) are not patristic inventions but simply the application of an ancient biblical theme. The biblical teaching of an inner ascent of the soul to the heart (the place in us where we are ‘deep, beyond all things, and which is our true self’ (Jer 17.9 LXX), but which also has become so desperately corrupt that no one but God can know it (Jer 17.9 Hebrew Masoretic text), two translations which, taken together, form a trenchant prophecy of the LORD’s Holy Pascha and burial in the New Tomb) also may well be the theological vision ‘hidden’ in the call of the LORD to Israel and to the Gentiles many times in the OT prophets to come to and ‘ascend His Holy Mountain.’
It was not without purpose that Our LORD and His preachers, of old and in more recent times, established this Church, Altar and Baptism which can be seen by the body’s eyes. The reason was this: by starting from these visible things (cf. Rm 1.20), and provided our bodies become temples and our hearts altars, we might find ourselves in their heavenly counterparts which cannot be seen by eyes of flesh, migrating there and entering in while we are still in this visible Church with its priesthood and its ministry acting as fair examples for all those who imitate there the vigils, fasting and endurance of Our LORD and of those who have preached Him. Let us both do and teach this. Then, once we have attained to humility and have shown honor to everyone great and small, the Heavenly Church and the Spiritual Altar will be revealed to us, and on the Altar we shall make a sacrifice of Thanksgiving in the prayer of our hearts and in the supplication of our bodies, believing all the time in this visible altar, and assured in this priesthood ministering there. For everything that exists in this [visible] Church has been established in the likeness of that Hidden Church.
If, however, we should have doubts and despise this visible Church with its visible Altar and visible Priesthood, and this Baptism that brings forgiveness, then our body will not become a temple, neither will our heart become an altar or a well-spring of praise. Nor shall we have revealed to us that Church on High with its Altar, its Light and its Priesthood, where are gathered all the saints who are pure in heart, who dwell in its Glory, exulting in its Light, seeing that they do not despise this Blessed Nurse who daily gives birth and brings up fair wards whom she sends on to that Great Church on High.
This visible Church can be seen by everyone: its altar, baptism and priesthood were instituted by Our LORD; for in it Our LORD prayed, and His apostles were both baptized in it and they sacrificed His Body and Blood in it, truly serving as priests. It is the Church in Truth, and the blessed Mother who brings up everyone as children. Likewise that body and heart in which Our LORD dwells—also because the Spirit resides there—is in truth a temple and an altar, seeing that Our LORD resides there, as it is written: ‘Your bodies are temples of the LORD and Christ dwells in your inner man’ (1 Cor 6.19).
As for the Church in Heaven, all that is good takes its beginning from there, and from there Light has shone out upon us in all directions. After its Likeness the Church on earth came into being, along with its priests and its altar, according to the pattern [cf. Ex 25.9&40, Heb 8.5] of its ministry the body ministers outwardly, while the heart acts as priest inwardly. Those who are diligent in this visible Church become like that Heavenly Church as they follow after it. This is why the visible Church is supremely important, being the Mother of all those who are baptized; but in particular it is because the Face of Our LORD shines upon her and illumine her.
…Accordingly, we should not despise the visible Church which brings up everyone as children. Nor should we despise this Church of the heart, seeing that she strengthens all who are sick. And we should yearn for the Church on High, for she makes perfect all the saints.
…By striving in this visible Church, one will find himself in the Church of the heart and in the Church on High, just as when someone is baptized in visible water, he receives from it baptism in Fire and in the Spirit, neither of which is seen; or, just as, once someone has had faith, he will come to love, and once he has loved he will be made perfect, and once he is made perfect, he will reign. Without this visible baptism no one is baptized in Fire and in Spirit, and without this visible Church no one will be in either the Church of the heart or in the Church on high.
Book of Steps I.12.2-4, pp. 46-50 in Brock
