Prayer for One Who Has Shameful Thoughts

A Prayer for One Who Has Shameful Thoughts

O Master, Lord my God, in whose hands is my destinty: help me according to Thy mercy, and leave me not to perish in my transgressions, nor allow me to follow them that place desires of the flesh over those of the spirit.  I am Thy creation; disdain not the work of Thy hands.  Turn not away, be compassionate and humiliate me not, neither scorn me, O Lord, as I am weak.  I have fled unto Thee as my Protector and God.  Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee; save me for Thy mercy's sake, for I have cleaved unto Thee from my youth; let me who seek Thee not be put to shame by being rejected by Thee for unclean actions, unseemly thoughts, and unprofitable remembrances.  Drive away from me every filthy thing and excess of evil.  For Thou alone art holy, alone mighty, and alone immortal, in all things having unexcelled might, which, through Thee, are given to all that strive against the devil and the might of his armies.

     For unto Thee is due all glory, honor and worship: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.

From The Great Book of Needs, Vol. 3 (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon's Monastery, 2002), 47.

St. Luke the Surgeon on Science and Religion

St. Luke of Simferpol and Crimea served as a bishop, scientist, medical doctor, surgeon, professor of medicine, and author.  His Notes on Purulent Surgery, first published in 1934, may be considered his most significant literary contribution to the surgical arts.  You can read about the life of St. Luke, called "the Blessed Surgeon," on the Full of Grace and Truth blog.  Information is also available on Orthodoxwiki.  The book, The Blessed Surgeon (2nd edition), provides a relatively detailed account of his life.


In an article on "Science and Religion," St. Luke commented on the relationship between science and Orthodox spirituality, true religion. The words of the Blessed Surgeon are relevant today for Orthodox Christians who work in scientific, academic, and/or medical environments steeped in secularism, wherein there is much ignorance regarding the limitation of science and the distinction between scientific knowledge of the rational mind and the theological knowledge of the heart.


St. Luke wrote, 


"We are certain that apart from the material world there is an infinite and incomparably superior spiritual world. We believe in the existence of spiritual beings that have higher intellect than us humans. We believe wholeheartedly that above this spiritual and material world there is the Great and Almighty God.

What we doubt is the right of science to research with its methods the spiritual world. Because the spiritual world cannot be researched with the methods used to research the material world. Such methods are totally inappropriate to research the spiritual world.

How do we know that there is a spiritual world? Who told us that it exists? If we are asked by people who do not believe in the Divine revelation, we shall answer them thus: 'Our heart told us'. For there are two ways for one to know something, the first is that which is spoken by Haeckel, which is used by science to learn of the material world. There is however another way that is unknown to science, and does not wish to know it. It is the knowledge through the heart. Our heart is not only the central organ of the circulation system, it is an organ with which we know the other world and receive the highest knowledge. It is the organ that gives us the capability to communicate with God and the above world. Only in this we disagree with science.

Praising the great successes and achievements of science, we do not doubt at all its great importance and we do not confine the scientific knowledge. We only tell the scientists "You do not have the capability with your methods to research the spiritual world, we however can with our heart.

There are many unexplainable phenomena which concern the spiritual world that are real (as are some type of material phenomena). There are therefore phenomena that science will never be able to explain because it does not use the appropriate methods.

Let science explain how the prophecies appeared on the coming of the Messiah, which were all fulfilled. Could science tell us how the great prophet Isaiah, some 700 years before the birth of Christ, foretold the most important events in His life and for which he was named the evangelist of the Old Testament? To explain the far sighted grace possessed by the saints and to tell us with which physical methods the saints inherited this grace and how they could understand the heart and read the thoughts of a person they had just met for the first time? They would see a person for the first time and they will call him by his name. Without waiting for the visitor to ask, they would answer on what troubled him.

If they can, let them explain it to us. Let them explain with what method the saints foretold the great historical events which were accurately fulfilled as they were prophesied. Let them explain the visitation from the other world and the appearance of the dead to the living.

They shall never explain it to us because they are too far from the basis of religion- from faith. If you read the books of the scientists who try to reconstruct religion, you will see how superficially they look at things. They do not understand the essence of religion yet they criticize it. Their criticism does not touch the essence of faith, since they are unable to understand the types, the expressions of religious feeling. The essence of religion they do not understand. Why not? Because the Lord Jesus Christ says 'No one can come to me unless My Father who sent Me draws him to Me.' (John 6:44)

So it is necessary that we be drawn by the Heavenly Father, it is necessary that the grace of the Holy Spirit enlighten our heart and our mind. To dwell in our heart and mind through this enlightenment, the Holy Spirit and the ones who were found worthy to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, those in whose heart lives Christ and His Father, know the essence of faith. The others, outside the faith cannot understand anything."




Source of quote here.  The image is from Orthodoxwiki.  This icon was authored by Father Daniel from the Holy Hesychastirio of Daniel the Katounakian, Mount Athos and is kept at the Holy Church of St. Paraskevi, Koropi, Attica of Greece.  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

A Prayer of Healing for the Soul

Make me whole, O Lord, and I will become whole!  On only wise and merciful Physician, I beseech Thy benevolence: heal the wounds of my soul and enlighten the eyes of my mind that I may understand my place in Thine eternal design!  And inasmuch as my heart and mind have been disfigured, may Thy grace repair them, for it is as true salt.

     What shall I say to Thee, O Knower of the heart who searchest the heart and inner workings of men?  Indeed, Thou knowest that, like a waterless land, my soul thirsts after Thee and my heart longs for Thee.  And Thy grace has always sated those that love Thee.

     Thus, as Thou has always heard me, so now do not scorn my prayer.  For Thou seest that my mind, like a prisoner, seeks Thee, the Only true Savior.

     Send Thy grace, that it may satisfy my hunger and quench my thirst.  For insatiably do I desire Thee, O my Master!  And who can have enough of Thee if he truly loves Thee and thirsts for Thy truth?

     O Giver of light!  Fulfill my supplications and grant me Thy gifts according to my prayer; impart to my heart just one drop of Thy grace, that the flame of Thy love may begin to burn in my heart; and, like a fire, may it consume evil thoughts like thorns and thistles!

     Give me all this in abundance; grant it to me as God unto man, as the King to His subjects, and increase it as a kind Father.

- A prayer by St. Ephraim the Syrian

Psalm 3 in A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God, Excerpted by Bishop Theophan the Recluse from the Works of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian Arranged in the Manner of the Psalms of David, trans. by Antonia Janda, (Liberty, TN: St. John of Kronstadt Press, 2004), 17.  

Dr. Engelhardt: Orthodox Christian Bioethics

"The Search for Global Morality: 

Bioethics, Moral Diversity, and the Collapse of Consensus"

(This presentation is from the University of Chicago's 28th Annual Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar Series: Global Health and Medical Ethics.)         

Also, A video of a presentation on "Moral Pluralism and the Crisis of Secular Bioethics: Why Orthodox Christian Bioethics has the Solution" is available on the website of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Cambridge, England).

Paraklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos

The Paraklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos is a supplicatory service chanted in Orthodox churches to honor the Theotokos and ask for her intercessions on behalf of the living.  The service is chanted during the Dormition Fast in August and may be chanted at other times as needed. The text of the Small Paraklesis, authored by Theosterictus the Monk in the 9th century, is available on the Greek Archdiocese of America website. More information on the Paraklesis is published on Orthodoxwiki.

Here is a selection from the service (Ode 6):

"I pour out my supplication before the Lord, and I speak of my sorrows before Him.  For my soul has been filled with evils, and my life has approached Hades.  Wherefore, I supplicate Thee like Jonah, crying out: 'Raise me up from corruption, O my God.'

Most Holy Theotokos, save us!

Intercede with thy Son and God, O Virgin, who by delivering Himself to death, He saved from death and corruption, our nature overtaken by death and corruption, that He may deliver me from the evil harm of the enemies.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us!

We have known thee to be an intercessor for our lives, a sound protection, a remover of different trespasses, and a vanquisher of the wiles of demons, O Virgin.  Wherefore, we beseech thee ceaselessly, to deliver us from the corruption of our passions.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!

We have possessed thee as a wall of refuge, O Maiden, and as a complete salvation for our souls, and a comfort from distress.  We always rejoice in thy light.  Wherefore deliver us now, O Lady, from passions and sufferings.

Both now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen!

Since we lie now on the bed of infirmities, and there is no healing for our bodies. O thou who didst give birth to God, the Savior of the world, and Remover of sicknesses, we beseech thee, O righteous one, to raise us from the corruption of ills."

(The above selection from the Paraklesis service (Ode 6) has been taken from the translation used in our parish.)