We need to be watchful and pray. One helps the other as a hand helps the other hand. Attention brings prayer and prayer brings watchfulness. Prayer needs to be done incessantly, even if we pray out loud or in our mind. Ceasing to pray and being indifferent is like a man who is caught off guard by those who seek to murder him.

By reading spiritual prayers, you hit the enemy in his head, in his limbs. Through the prayer of the mind you hit him in the heart, and this is why he reacts so vehemently! Prayer needs to be done incessantly, day and night, with the tongue, the mind or the heart. Do not leave your mind free so that it be kept busy with prayer or contemplation because otherwise, the enemy uses all his power in order to destroy your watchfulness. Say this prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” because it sanctifies the man and the place where it is said. Since the work of our mind is little, our prayers are not fulfilled and we seek to make them come true through exterior manifestations!

(Translation from: Avva Efrem Filotheitul, Sfaturi duhovniceşti, traducere de Părintele Victor Manolache, Editura Egumeniţa, Alexandria, 2012, pp. 41-42)