Spring Semester Class #3 January 29, 2013

Proverbs 16:32  He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

 When man first transgressed the commandment the devil covered the soul with darkness. Grace comes and wholly removes the veil. (St. Macarius)

Problem of Ignorance  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6  2 Corinthians 2:11  2 Corinthians 10:4-5  Ephesians 4:17-19

Psalms in Jewish worship  1 Chron. 16:4-9  2 Chron. 5:12-14

Psalms in NT worship  Quoted many times in the NT  Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. Acts 3:1  Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.1 Corinthians 14:26

Psalms in NT worship  speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, Ephesians 5:19  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16

Our Helper See Romans 8:26-27

 The wondrous words set out in the Odes which are appointed in the Holy Church, along with all sorts of other lofty words set out by the Spirit in harmonious chants, all these can fulfill the place of perfect prayer in someone: by being meditated upon, they give birth within us to pure prayers and exalted insights, thus bringing us close to luminosity of mind and wonder at God, as well as to all the other things with which the Lord will enlighten you with wisdom in their due time, as you select those verses that are appropriate and offer them up to your Lord with supplication as your intention, repeating them at length and serenely. St. Isaac the Syrian

Worship through Scripture  See Nehemiah 8:5-6  Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You. Psalm 119:11

 We should consider the labor of reading to be something extremely beneficial; its importance cannot be exaggerated. For it serves as the gate by which the intellect enters into the divine mysteries and takes strength for attaining luminosity in prayer: it bathes with enjoyment as it wanders over the acts of God’s dispensation which have taken place for the benefit of humanity…From these acts prayer is illumined and strengthened — whether it be that they are taken from the spiritual Scriptures, or from things written by the great teachers in the Church on the topic of the divine dispensation; or among those who teach the mysteries of the ascetic life. These two kinds of reading are useful for the man of the spirit… Without reading the intellect has no means of drawing near to God: Scripture draws the mind up and sets it at every moment in the direction of God; it baptizes it from this corporeal world with its insights and causes it to be above the body continually. There is no other toil by which someone can make better progress. Provided that person is reading Scripture for the sake of truth, these sorts of things he will discover from it. St. Isaac the Syrian

Error came when certain people abandoned prayer’s venerable outward forms, turning instead to their own rules and special customs which they had laid down for themselves according to their own whim, and when they completely deprived themselves of the Holy Mysteries, instead despising and scorning them; when they deprived themselves furthermore from the light of the divine Scriptures and failed to study the teaching of the words of the Fathers which give instructions about the stratagems against the demons; and when they gave up the various acts of lowliness, prostrations, continual falling on the ground, a suffering heart and the submissive postures appropriate to prayer, modest hands standing, hands clasped in submissive fashion, or stretched out to heaven, the senses respectful during prayer. Instead, they seized upon various forms of pride, as a result mingling their prayer with insult towards God. St. Isaac the Syrian