True prayer is undistracted, prolonged, performed with a contrite heart and an alert intellect. The vehicle of prayer is everywhere humility, and prayer is a manifestation of humility. For being conscious of our own weaknesses, we invoke the power of God.
Prayer unites one with God, being a divine conversation and spiritual communion with the Being that is most beautiful and highest.
Prayer is a forgetting of earthly things, an ascent to heaven. Through prayer we flee to God.
Prayer is truly a heavenly armor, and it alone can keep safe those who have dedicated themselves to God.
Prayer is the common medicine for purifying ourselves from the passions, for hindering sin and curing our faults.
Prayer is an inexhaustible treasure, an unruffled harbor, the foundation of serenity, the root and mother of myriads of blessings.
St Nectarios of Aegina. From Know Thyself (Το γνωθι σαυτον), p 44. Translated by Constantine Cavarnos, Modern Orthodox Saints, vol. 7, pp 181-182.
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