BOOK OF PRAYER

Tenets of Prayer Prayer 1 Prayer 2 Prayer 3 Prayer 4 Prayer 5 Prayer 6
Prayer 7 Prayer 8 Prayer 9 Prayer 10 Prayer 11 Prayer 12 Prayer 13 Prayer 14
Prayer 15 Prayer 16 Prayer 17 Prayer 18 Prayer 19 Prayer 20 Prayer 21 Prayer 22
Prayer 23 Prayer 24 Prayer 25 Prayer 26 Prayer 27 Prayer 28 Prayer 29 Prayer 30
Prayer 31 Prayer 32 Prayer 33 Prayer 34 Prayer 35 Prayer 36 Prayer 37 Prayer 38
Prayer 39 Prayer 40 Prayer 41 Prayer 42 Prayer 43 Prayer 44 Prayer 45 Prayer 46
Prayer 47 Prayer 48 Prayer 49 Prayer 50 Prayer 51 Prayer 52 Prayer 53 Prayer 54
Prayer 55 Prayer 56 Prayer 57 Prayer 58 Prayer 59 Prayer 60 Prayer 61 Prayer 62
Prayer 63 Prayer 64 Prayer 65 Prayer 66 Prayer 67 Prayer 68 Prayer 69 Prayer 70
Prayer 71 Prayer 72 Prayer 73 Prayer 74 Prayer 75 Prayer 76 Prayer 77 Prayer 78
Prayer 79 Prayer 80 Prayer 81 Prayer 82 Prayer 83 Prayer 84 Prayer 85 Prayer 86
Prayer 87 Prayer 88 Prayer 89 Prayer 90 Prayer 91 Prayer 92 Prayer 93 Prayer 94
Prayer 95 Colophon

Prayer 44

Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart

Boundless God, genuine son of God, inexplicable,
creator of everything, Christ King,
light for the darkened hearts of the unknowing,¹
light who took human form like us,
but are in essence like him who sent you,
whose form is miraculously revealed through ours.
Blessed by your heavenly Father,
who sent you and with whom
you share glory for creation.
You care enough for my salvation, an exiled slave,
that you delivered yourself to evil men²
and without resorting to your divinity
drank from the cup of death for me, a sinner,
according to the plan of your divine economy,
with true humanity and perfect divinity.
And the Holy Ghost is also of the same essence as you and the Father,
equal in honor with the Son and the Father,
one perfect trinity in three persons indivisible,
without beginning or time,
benefactor to all, life giver of all, peacemaker of all,
creator of existence and shaper of all things,
glorified with one indivisible nature.

For the sake of my transgressions for which
I am condemned to death,
the merciful Father, heavenly, almighty, one of
the divine essence,
has offered the only son of his bosom.
His beloved son, his equal in honor he did not spare,³
but willingly gave him to death by the arms of
his tormentors,
as foretold by the prophet Zechariah:
“For raise the sword upon the shepherd,
and strike down the keeper of the flock,
and the flock shall disperse.”⁴
The Old Testament also gives another example⁵
of vows at the altar and the blood of the offering in
the story of Abraham’s sacrifice,⁶
which described to me how you wished
to save the wretched.
So now, why do you grieve, my soul?⁷
You are not destroyed by God
but by your own doing.
And why am I upset,
my mind reeling with satanic despair?
I should trust in God, confess to him
and he will care for me,
as David wrote in the Psalms,
and the Prophet counseled.⁸

The ways of the creator surpass
the understanding of angels and mortals.
If I were to try ten thousand times, my words
could not capture it,
for his good works are beyond comprehension
and description.
One of the blessed trinity
sent another of the trinity
and to please the will of the sender,
he died. And the third, according to
the wishes of the other two
worked together for the same good
with the same will.
As the soul is for the living beings and
thought for the rational beings,
as radiance is for glory, and form for substance,
as caring for life, and mindfulness for mercy,
as giving in charity, and resolve in salvation,
as abundance in generosity, flow in continuity,
as fullness for perfection, richness in inexhaustibility,
as long in forbearance, exalted in unreachableness,
they are one perfect trinity, of three persons,
blessed forever.
Amen.

___________________
1. 2 Pet. 1:19.
2. Jn. 3:16.
3. Rom. 8:32.
4. Zech. 13:7.
5. Ex. 17:11-12.
6. Heb. 9:19-21, Gen. 22:1-19.
7. Ps. 42:6.
8. Ps. 41:6-7, 12, 42:5; Is. 40:1, 31; Lam. 3:24-25; Nah. 1:7.

Acknowledgements:

Source: St. Gregory of Narek
Provided by: Thomas J. Samuelian