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The essentials outlined in this part is to be watchful and prayerful -- being aware that we can easily lose balance and fall spiritually when we least expect it. Watch, therefore, for the temptations of the evil one and for our corrupt tendencies and counter them with prayer. Prayer disarms that which is evil and returns us to face God, in humility, asking for His help. Hiermonk Damascene explains why the Jesus Prayer, the cornerstone of Orthodox prayers, is especially effective in dealing with our anger as it helps us forgive.

Thank-you for this continuing series. The Jesus Prayer really is one of the most powerful tools we have to combat any sort of less than edifying emotion or thought. Keeping Christ and our own sinfulness constantly before the eye of our soul makes it less likely that our thoughts will turn to anger, revenge or resentment.

Just last evening I spent several hours with my spiritual father. At one point in the conversation I mentioned that of late I had been reading +Symeon the New Theologian. For some reason he got the impression I was doing that instead of rather than in addition to prayer. He spoke at length on the futility of reading the Fathers and even the Scriptures if at the same time one didn't have an active and ongoing prayer life within which to live out the teachings of the Fathers and the Scriptures. Good advice for anyone.