{"id":6980,"date":"2021-02-03T10:59:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T00:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6980"},"modified":"2021-02-03T10:59:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T00:59:34","slug":"focus-quote-staying-connected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/focus-quote-staying-connected\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus Quote: Staying Connected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">Staying Connected<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">Striving toward a life of Unceasing Prayer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Focus Quote<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><em>\u201cWe are not commanded to work, keep vigil or fast without ceasing, but we are commanded to pray without ceasing. For prayer purifies and strengthens the mind which was created to pray and to fight the demons for the protection of all the powers of the soul.\u201d<\/em><\/p><cite>Evagrius Ponticus&nbsp;<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>St Paul calls us to \u2018unceasing prayer\u2019. How are we to\nunderstand how to do this? Are we always to have a word to God on our lips and\nminds or is this impossible and too hard-line a task? Could, perhaps, prayer\ntake multiple forms?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two traditions for understanding this teaching\n(along with Romans 12:12 \u201cbe constant in prayer\u201d).&nbsp;The first is mentioned by Origen\n(c.184-253 AD):&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cNow, since the performance of actions enjoined by virtue or by the commandments is also a constituent part of prayer, he prays without ceasing who combines prayer with right actions, and becoming actions with prayer. For the saying &#8220;pray without ceasing&#8221; can only be accepted by us as a possibility if we may speak of the whole life of a saint as one great continuous prayer.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Importantly,\nhe also writes \u201cO<em>f such prayer what is\nusually termed \u2018prayer\u2019 is indeed a part.\u201d <\/em>This is to say, that although my\nlife has become a prayer, this doesn\u2019t exonerate me from performing \u2018actual\nprayer.\u2019 In fact, one could perform \u2018actual prayer\u2019 always.&nbsp;This is common among monastics (though we are all called to\nan ascetic life and so this doesn\u2019t exclude lay persons from participating).\nThis is commonly accomplished by constant recitation of a short&nbsp;prayer, the most famous of which is\ncalled the Jesus Prayer: \u201c<strong><em>Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,\na sinner.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Another, made common by St John Cassian (360-435 AD), is <strong><em>\u201cCome\nto my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue.\u201d&nbsp;\n<\/em><\/strong>Both are good interpretations. Perhaps we who are weak should strive to\nlive out the latter interpretation via the former.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Staying Connected Striving toward a life of Unceasing Prayer Focus Quote \u201cWe are not commanded to work, keep vigil or fast without ceasing, but we are commanded to pray without ceasing. For prayer purifies and strengthens the mind which was created to pray and to fight the demons for the protection of all the powers &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/focus-quote-staying-connected\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Focus Quote: Staying Connected&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6980"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6983,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6980\/revisions\/6983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}