Prayer

Psalm 95, 40, 54; Psalm 51
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Hebrews 4:11-16, John 3:22-36

Sometimes we make moving toward God much bigger than it needs to be. Below is a story from the Desert Fathers correcting a heretical sect that believed prayer excluded work.

Questions to draw comments, please pick one or more.
How do you work and pray at the same time?
What tools do you use to help you always be communicating with God?
How might others help you withdraw from a pace that feels like it gets in the way of prayer?


"Some monks called Euchites,1 or “men of prayer,” once came to Abba Lucius in the ninth region of Alexandria. And the old man asked them, “What work do you do with your hands?”

And they said, “We do not work with our hands. We obey St. Paul’s command and pray without ceasing.”

The old man said to them, “Do you not eat?”

They said, “Yes, we eat.”

And the old man said to them, “When you are eating, who prays for you?”

Again, he asked them, “Do you not sleep?”

They said, “We sleep.”

And the old man said, “Who prays for you while you are asleep?” They would not answer him. And he said to them, “Forgive me, brothers, but you do not practice what you say. I will show you how I pray without ceasing though I work with my hands. With God’s help, I sit and collect a few palm leaves, and interweave them and say, ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy: and according to the multitude of your mercies do away with my iniquity.’ ” And he said to them, “Is that prayer, or is it not?”

They said, “It is prayer.”

Sayings of the Fathers 12.9.2

1 Members of a celebrated heretical sect, also known as Messalians.
2 J. Baillie et al., eds. The Library of Christian Classics. 26 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953–1966. 12:142–43*.

Wesselschmidt, Quentin F.: Psalms 51-150. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2007 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture OT 8), S. 2