Today's Bread

True prayer is when we encounter God and speak with Him with confidence, joy, and acceptance. In this prayer, the Holy Spirit will surely descend and become our intercessor. The Church teaches us to never cease asking for the Holy Spirit to descend upon us through daily prayer, not just once in liturgical prayers, but four times: At the third hour (9 a.m. – the hour of His descent upon the disciples), and we also ask for it three times in the midnight prayer, symbolizing the waiting for the coming of the Lord until the third watch of the night, saying: "O heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth, who art everywhere present and fillest all things, treasure of good things, and giver of life, come and dwell in us." We ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon us before the coming of the Lord, because, as the Fathers say, "Wherever Christ comes, the Holy Spirit precedes Him." When our spirit is inflamed in prayer, and when our mental and physical being is kindled as with fire, the mind becomes unusually alert, and words come forth as if from a power beyond itself. Then the person is in a state of the Holy Spirit's indwelling, and this is prayer in the Spirit. Prayer in the Spirit is a state of ascension, an elevator that leads to God. Ascending to God is a transition from knowledge to higher knowledge, from new awareness to deeper awareness, without stopping and without end. What we receive in prayer in this age, we will receive in the age to come with praise like the angels.