If you take all the concerns and subjects of the Bible -- things that the Holy Trinity wants us to do and become -- prayer comes out on top. Prayer and love are intertwined. Prayer and freedom cannot be separated. The only way to become a person (rather than a passive object, like a "consumer") is through prayer. It goes without saying that prayer and Orthodox belief are much the same. When one prays, truly, the world is transcended: the sad icy socioeconomic structures of man are surmounted. The mountain Jesus spoke of that is moved and cast into the sea is the mountain of "apparent" determinism -- all the hopelessness and inevitability of a dark age. Orthodoxy produces prayer: if it does not, than it wasn't Orthodoxy. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
Prayer, fasting, and alms-giving (and this includes struggling for justice, BTW): it's a package deal.
Posted by: FrGregACCA | October 22, 2011 at 08:22 AM