The audacity of love

Bishop Theophan the Recluse used to say that praying only with words written by another is like trying to talk in a foreign language using only textbook dialogues. Like many other church fathers, he said that we must look for our own words in order to pray. I suppose that this is truly possible for us (if we dismiss artificially invented prayers of our own) only in moments of desperate need, real anguish, either for ourselves or for others. In such moments we do not "recite" prayers, we simply cry out to God, "Lord! Please come to him and comfort him!" The audacity of prayer is born only in the audacity of love.

Abba Makarios said, "Love gives birth to prayer."

—Sergei Fudel, Light in the Darkness, p. 50.