Some Christians complain that they struggle to pray regularly and yet they don’t manage to attain the level of a heated, spiritual prayer. Their prayer dissipates, their heart remains cold, without feelings and thus their prayer has no effect. Then, they ask themselves: what’s the purpose of such a prayer?

With this type of concerns, some Christians went to the famous abbot of Optina, St. Hieroschemamonk Joseph, descendant of the famous St. Ambrose of Optina and received the following answer: “Keeping always our mind in prayer is not possible for us, the sinners, but still we need to try and focus our mind onto the words of prayer. We don’t have to trouble too much about the spiritual cold, but we need to focus on prayer and be humble”.

If our prayer is cold, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t like it. Sometimes, this type of prayer is considered to be a form of asceticism, if the man is humble in front of God.

(Translated from Arhimandritul Serafim Alexiev, Călăuza rugătorului ortodox, traducere de Gheorghiță Ciocioi, Editura Sophia, București, 2015, pp. 12-13)