Fasting Day 29 of 40 | Fifth Monday of Lent
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2
Philotheos of Sinai was a Christian monk who served as head of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula around the year 900. He wrote “Forty Texts on Watchfulness” to help people devote themselves to prayer. The forty texts survived in the Philokalia, a collection of texts from the Orthodox Christian tradition from the years 300 to 1400.
Philotheos of Sinai writes, “Where humility is combined with the remembrance of God that is established through watchfulness and attention, and also with recurrent prayer inflexible in its resistance to the enemy, there is the place of God, the heaven of the heart in which because of God’s presence no demonic army dares to make a stand.”
Philotheos of Sinai (c.900) in “Forty Texts on Watchfulness” in Philokalia 3.17 (Holy Books) p. 607.
As we think about prayer during Lent, we do well to follow the advice of Philotheos. Start with humility and the remembrance of God. Then we establish ourselves with watchfulness, attentiveness, and prayer. Why?
Many of his forty texts warn us that the evil one attacks in places we least expect or when we have our guard down. His advice helps us stay close to God, dependent on God, and surrendered to God.
God, I devote myself to watchful and thankful prayer. Amen.
What might watchful and thankful prayer look like for you? Talk about it with a friend.
The watchful part relates to spiritual alertness to the attacks of the enemy and attentiveness to abiding with God. The thankful part links to the blessings of complete surrender and trust.
Watchful and thankful prayer serve as the basis for generous living.