More tidbits from Anthony Bloom, a Russian Orthodox doctor/priest/monk in Great Britain and Ireland. This comes from page 31-32 of “Beginning to Pray” (Anthony Bloom).
What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love. And so from the outset prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn Godwards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be judgement. And all we can do is to turn to Him with all the reverence, all the veneration, the worshipful adoration, the fear of God of which we are capable, with all the attention and earnestness which we may posses, and ask Him to do something with us that will make us capable of meeting Him face to face, not for judgement, nor for condemnation, but for eternal life.
pat loughery 
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