Elder Ioanichie Bălan: Let’s Teach Ourselves with Prayer

Let’s teach ourselves with prayer. Whatever may happen, the one who prays has only to gain. He who talks loses. He who talks much loses much.

1. First, pray and then begin any activity. If you have not prayed much, you will not succeed much that day. Try this out. 

2. If you pray more, you become eternal. Do you want to make a major contribution to your family and the nation in which God brought you forth? Then pray more. 

3. The deification of man [becoming like God] begins with prayer and ends with prayer. You start with Our Father and end with the prayer of the heart, or with the prayer of fire and tears which pour without you knowing how and when, and which do not cease.

4. Perseverance in prayer is the greatest work because everything comes from it.

5. If you have learned to pray, then you know all theology.

Let’s teach ourselves with prayer. Whatever may happen, the one who prays has only to gain. He who talks loses. He who talks much loses much.

—Elder Ioanichie Bălan