Shimo Prayers

Recently I have been trying to be more consistent in my prayer life. I think all of us, no matter how 'advanced' we are as Christians, fall and fail at a consistent prayer cycle. I recently purchased The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian Church and it has been a transforming book. Although I still struggle with consistency, my mind has become more attentive and my prayers more meaningful.

This book encompasses the full prayer cycle, all 7 prayers of the day for each day of the week in the Syrian tradition, which our church follows. Currently I am trying to do a consistent Sapro (morning) prayer for each day. In doing these prayers, I have come to realize the weakness and incompleteness of my own personal prayers.

My typical personal prayers consist of confessing my sins, repentance, praying for friends, family and for the world. All of this however amounts to about 10 minutes... of course the point of prayer is not to make it long and wordy. Jesus admonishes those who pray verbosely for the sake of doing it or to show their holiness to others. My point is that I feel that I owe the creator, the Lord of the Watchers, a bit more of my time and that I have much more to pray about.

Praying for the departed, praying for the church, blessing the Virgin Mother and the saints, remembering the martyrs, even remembering the Old Testament prophets are all included in these prayers. How often do we miss such things when we do our own personal prayers?

Even the language used in this book is full of meaning and makes you have great appreciation for our liturgical life. I will leave you with a couple quotes from the Sapro of Friday.

'The Lord of the Watchers descended and dwelt in the virgin Mary and took pure flesh from her; the heavens are full of him and the earth is too small for his majesty and yet the lap of Mary carried him, halleluia, blessed is he whose mother prays to him, that he may have mercy on the world.'

'On the summit of the cross the Jews made a wine-press and pressed in it the grape of blessing; they pressed it but they did not taste of it; the holy Church received it and every day she takes her pleasure in it, halleluia, and her children drink of it and take their pleasure in it forever.'