Tom Wright & James Dunn: The New Perspective on Paul

Rachmaninov Vespers - 2 Praise the Lord (Greek Chant, Ps. 104)

Rachmaninov Vespers - 1 O Come and Worship

Pray Simply - St John Klimakos

Let there be no studied elegance
in the words of your prayer:
how often the simple and monotonous lispings of little children
make their father give in to them!

Do not launch out into long discourses
that fritter away your mind
in efforts for eloquence.
One word alone
spoken by the Publican
touched God's mercy;
a single word full of faith
saved the Good Thief.

Prolixity in prayer
often fills the mind with images and distracts it,
while often one single word
draws it into recollection.
- St John Klimakos

Ben Harper - Steal My Kisses

Prayer vs. Presumtion - John of Karpathos

12. Sometimes people find themselves brightly illuminated
and refreshed by God's grace for a while,
but then this grace may be taken away,
and they can fall into depression and start grumbling
and even give up dispiritedly
instead of energetically renewing their prayers
to call down again that assurance of salvation.
Such behavior is like an ungrateful beggar
taking alms at the palace door
and then walking off indignantly
because he was not invited in
to dine with the king himself.

- John of Karpathos

Mindfulness of Death - St Philotheos

6. The first gate of entry to the noetic Jerusalem - that is, to attentiveness of the intellect - is the deliberate silencing of your tongue, even though the intellect itself may not yet be still. The second gate is balanced self-control in food and drink. The third, is ceaseless mindfulness of death, for this purifies intellect and body. Having once experienced the beauty of this mindfulness of death, I was so wounded and delighted by it - in Spirit, not through the eye - that I wanted to make it my life's companion, for I was enraptured by its loveliness and majesty, its humility and contrite joy, by how full of reflection it is, how apprehensive of the judgment to come, and how aware of life's anxieties. It makes life-giving, healing tears flow from our bodily eyes, while from our noetic eyes rises a fount of wisdom that delights the mind. This daughter of Adam - this mindfulness of death - I always longed, as I said, to have as my companion, to sleep with, to talk with, and to enquire from her what will happen after the body has been discarded. But unclean forgetfulness, the devil's murky daughter, has frequently prevented this.

- St Philotheos of Sinai, Forty Texts on Watchfulness, The Philokalia Vol. III