monday morning... still cold 🥶 and opted for a micro workout with the AB-wheel--- but the more significant gains occurred last night during prayer:
found another link for me between the physical and the spiritual... I believe I can use a classic bodybuilding protocol to get through the Praysr Rule of the Theotokos through Great Lent! the protocol I have in mind is the 3-day split of push, pull, legs run twice a week for a 6-day cycle = or PPL x 2 ...
very briefly = the Rule is 15 Lord's Prayers, 150 Angelic Salutations, 15 petitions = which breaks down to 1:10:1, repeated along prayer beads or prayer rope (+ opening & closing prayers)... this Rule takes me roughly 90 minutes to complete .
this is intended to be a Night Prayer for me... which means during Lent I will be up a 245 for the extended Morning Prayer, then off to school to spend a day with students 🤣= Night Prayer will occur 930-1030 range depending on Night ... this will not be sustainable for me personally... I have no interest in the recitation of mechanical prayer, but aim for intention and alertness with each word.
therefore enter push, pull, legs! it came to me that I can focus and work through a 3rd of the Rule each night = thus I will get through a completed rule twice during Monday - Saturday = hitting (5) petitions each session . Sundays I attend Church, both Orthros and the Divine Liturgy = 3 hr range, so communal prayer is my morning rule and early Sunday evenings, I can work through the full Rule ... so by Sunday night I will have completed the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos 3 times.
I experimented last night ... this was after a full day and uncaffeinated, when I am.spent 🤣... but Nepsis was present and this time window seems productive.
I have till mid-February till I have to lock-in both a new morning and night rule, but leaning this direction for night 🙏
saturday morning... I found an item in the mailbox I'd been excited about for weeks!! the glorious sisters of the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene, located in Mississippi of all places, sent the prayer beads I'd ordered... check their website out for books, prayer beads and prayer ropes, that they craft at the Convent... I'm in complete awe of these powerful women who leave the World to devote themselves fully to Christ😔🙏
short backstory to explain my child-like excitement to opening the dense brown envelope 🤣... in 2020, I began my return to Christ= slow at first, simply reading my Bible each morning and going back into the New Testament... this sustained me and shifted me into a "cultural Christian" for a few years = reading my Bible, looking into Saints and "referencing" Christ = but by no means oriented toward him nor had I abandoned much of my secular, Liberal, post-Enlightenment World-view --
cut to the beginning of summer of 2025 and as part of my summer break, I had decided to order a book on meditation and try to teach myself to "properly meditate" for the 10th time🤣... as I am doing research, a little voice inside of me said, "Fool, pick up that Rosary 📿 you've carried around in your pocket for the last 20+ years and learn to use it!". (I've been carrying a Rosary since my very early 20s, at the height of my atheism and materialist view of the Universe) So I ordered a beginner's book on the Rosary and taught myself to pray it.
Very much a novice, the practice consisted of about 20--30 minutes once a day. I without a doubt felt odd the first couple of times, but then it suddenly felt very "familiar" and I lost myself in the prayer. I do not remember the exact day, but I remember in an instance one session, that the love of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) washed over my consciousness = I was abe to "see" her for the 1st time, in a way I failed to growing up Protestant = "Mary is the Mother of a God"🤯 it slammed into my awareness so powerfully ... it was at that moment, sitting there, holding the Rosary, I realized this was my first authentic act of Faith = reaching out in a plea to the glorious Panagia! From there prayer was something I cherished with everything in me = it was from the Rosary and The Mother, that I was able to return to the Son ☦
I worked on my Rosary for 3 months, before I returned to Church. I attended a Greek Orthodox Church here in my city, St Sophia🙏, and brought my daughters with me = my second authentic act of Faith ... as I attended Church regularly and began my immersion into Orthodox Christianity = I put down my Rosary and picked up my prayer rope, I moved away from the Catholic Angelic Salutation and drew close to the Orthodox Jesus Prayer... I never abandoned the Theotokos, I will always feel her close to me and she gets her place in an Orthodox Prayer Rule ... but the practice of a rule devoted to her was no more.
Until... I learned of the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos reassembled by Saint Seraphim of Sarov from the 19th century, but can be dated back to the 8th century in the desert Monasteries of Egypt. It is a rule consisting of a 150 Orthodox Angelic Salutations, accompanied by 15 petitions = it can be prayed on 150-knot prayer rope or prayer beads or a 50-knot prayer rope or prayer beads x 3... my heart warmed when I learned of this!
So, I "randomly" learned of the Sisters and their Convent and put an order in🙏 *(i will undoubtedly order more from them in time 🤣)... so I am beyond excited for tonight's prayer! Have my catechism class later this afternoon and parenting after that 🤣... but in the silence of tonight. I will reach for intercession from the Theotokos and sink down within to search for the Kingdom ☦👑
friday morning... prayer🙏 was the practice-- building stamina for Great Lent
The Rule for Today: Akathist to our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God---
followed by: -prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit -the Trisagion Prayers -the Nicene Creed -Psalm 67
...prayer rope/ 100-knots... * The Jesus Prayer x 300 * Most Holy Theotokos x 100 ...prayer rope complete...
- the Angelic Salutation (orthodox) x 3 - Benediction to the Theotokos -prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos x 3 -prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana x 3 -final stanza from Psalm 38 x 3 -the Lord's Prayer **closing prayers
... signs of the cross, fingers along prayer rope, standing, walking, bowing, kneeling, and prostrations were present throughout the practice, in an effort to cultivate nepsis...
thursday morning ... "O God my God, I will rise early to be with you." (Psalm 62)... training fully underway today; for both the physical and the upcoming Great Lent--
Prayer Practice:
-Prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit -The Trisagion Prayers -The Nicene Creed -Psalm 65
...prayer rope = 100-knots... *The Jesus Prayer x 300 *Most Holy Theotokos x 100 ...prayer rope complete...
-The Angelic Salutation (orthodox) x 3 -The Benediction to the Theotokos **Prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos x 3 **Prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana x 3 **final stanza from Psalm 38 x 3 -The Lord's Prayer -closing prayers
wednesday morning... almost like an off-season in the Orthodox World right now🤣, maintaining those Wednesday and Friday fasts, as we approach the start of the fast for Lent in mid-February ... given my oldest daughter's volleyball 🏐 practice in the evening, needed to hit a morning session for training... checked in with core, more as a practice, than going after a PR or anything... prayer followed, with added amplification, after acknowledgement of the veneration of Saint Maximos the Confessor today on January 21st🤯💪☦... now, prep for the workday can start!!
tuesday morning... last night after prayer, I decided to run a trial, at least for today ... up at the normal 3am for cold-brew and study, then some light edification, before the bulk of my early morning ... allowed the prayer rule to take form and it ended up requiring this block of time = bows, kneeling, prostrations were present throughout... thus, I still want to train the physical more intentionally, so going to give a micro workout in the evening a shot, after work... not certain I will adopt this at all... or perhaps adjust, and begin to have a mix of early morning and early evening sessions throughout the week, depending on schedule 🤔
monday morning... overslept some, so family was up as I was waking 😳🤣... thus a brief and intense session out back... followed by applications of 📚= having to sink within🙏, as children's footsteps pattered around upstairs 🤣🤷♂️... I will take advantage of the silence in the night 🌙 prayer-- life of the laity
sunday... inspired by Fr. Seraphim's video, brilliant and such a quality strategy = involves what is referred to as "Prayer of the Body"😔🙏💪🤯
Today's Rule:
Prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit Trisagion Prayers Morning Prayer to the Holy Trinity The Nicene Creed ...prayer rope: 100-knots... The Jesus Prayer x 300 The Angelic Salutation(orthodox) x 27 ...prayer rope complete... Psalm 58 The Lord's Prayer Prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos Prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana Prayer of intercession to the Theotokos Benediction to the Theotokos Prayer for strength against Worldly Temptations Final stanza of Psalm 38 x 3 Closing Prayers
Steve Calamars
monday morning... still cold 🥶 and opted for a micro workout with the AB-wheel--- but the more significant gains occurred last night during prayer:
found another link for me between the physical and the spiritual... I believe I can use a classic bodybuilding protocol to get through the Praysr Rule of the Theotokos through Great Lent! the protocol I have in mind is the 3-day split of push, pull, legs run twice a week for a 6-day cycle = or PPL x 2 ...
very briefly = the Rule is 15 Lord's Prayers, 150 Angelic Salutations, 15 petitions = which breaks down to 1:10:1, repeated along prayer beads or prayer rope (+ opening & closing prayers)... this Rule takes me roughly 90 minutes to complete .
this is intended to be a Night Prayer for me... which means during Lent I will be up a 245 for the extended Morning Prayer, then off to school to spend a day with students 🤣= Night Prayer will occur 930-1030 range depending on Night ... this will not be sustainable for me personally... I have no interest in the recitation of mechanical prayer, but aim for intention and alertness with each word.
therefore enter push, pull, legs! it came to me that I can focus and work through a 3rd of the Rule each night = thus I will get through a completed rule twice during Monday - Saturday = hitting (5) petitions each session . Sundays I attend Church, both Orthros and the Divine Liturgy = 3 hr range, so communal prayer is my morning rule and early Sunday evenings, I can work through the full Rule ... so by Sunday night I will have completed the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos 3 times.
I experimented last night ... this was after a full day and uncaffeinated, when I am.spent 🤣... but Nepsis was present and this time window seems productive.
I have till mid-February till I have to lock-in both a new morning and night rule, but leaning this direction for night 🙏
5 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 3
View 4 replies
Steve Calamars
sunday... sledgehammer and edification 🙏☦
1 day ago | [YT] | 3
View 4 replies
Steve Calamars
saturday morning... I found an item in the mailbox I'd been excited about for weeks!! the glorious sisters of the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene, located in Mississippi of all places, sent the prayer beads I'd ordered... check their website out for books, prayer beads and prayer ropes, that they craft at the Convent... I'm in complete awe of these powerful women who leave the World to devote themselves fully to Christ😔🙏
short backstory to explain my child-like excitement to opening the dense brown envelope 🤣... in 2020, I began my return to Christ= slow at first, simply reading my Bible each morning and going back into the New Testament... this sustained me and shifted me into a "cultural Christian" for a few years = reading my Bible, looking into Saints and "referencing" Christ = but by no means oriented toward him nor had I abandoned much of my secular, Liberal, post-Enlightenment World-view --
cut to the beginning of summer of 2025 and as part of my summer break, I had decided to order a book on meditation and try to teach myself to "properly meditate" for the 10th time🤣... as I am doing research, a little voice inside of me said, "Fool, pick up that Rosary 📿 you've carried around in your pocket for the last 20+ years and learn to use it!". (I've been carrying a Rosary since my very early 20s, at the height of my atheism and materialist view of the Universe) So I ordered a beginner's book on the Rosary and taught myself to pray it.
Very much a novice, the practice consisted of about 20--30 minutes once a day. I without a doubt felt odd the first couple of times, but then it suddenly felt very "familiar" and I lost myself in the prayer. I do not remember the exact day, but I remember in an instance one session, that the love of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) washed over my consciousness = I was abe to "see" her for the 1st time, in a way I failed to growing up Protestant = "Mary is the Mother of a God"🤯 it slammed into my awareness so powerfully ... it was at that moment, sitting there, holding the Rosary, I realized this was my first authentic act of Faith = reaching out in a plea to the glorious Panagia! From there prayer was something I cherished with everything in me = it was from the Rosary and The Mother, that I was able to return to the Son ☦
I worked on my Rosary for 3 months, before I returned to Church. I attended a Greek Orthodox Church here in my city, St Sophia🙏, and brought my daughters with me = my second authentic act of Faith ... as I attended Church regularly and began my immersion into Orthodox Christianity = I put down my Rosary and picked up my prayer rope, I moved away from the Catholic Angelic Salutation and drew close to the Orthodox Jesus Prayer... I never abandoned the Theotokos, I will always feel her close to me and she gets her place in an Orthodox Prayer Rule ... but the practice of a rule devoted to her was no more.
Until... I learned of the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos reassembled by Saint Seraphim of Sarov from the 19th century, but can be dated back to the 8th century in the desert Monasteries of Egypt. It is a rule consisting of a 150 Orthodox Angelic Salutations, accompanied by 15 petitions = it can be prayed on 150-knot prayer rope or prayer beads or a 50-knot prayer rope or prayer beads x 3... my heart warmed when I learned of this!
So, I "randomly" learned of the Sisters and their Convent and put an order in🙏 *(i will undoubtedly order more from them in time 🤣)... so I am beyond excited for tonight's prayer! Have my catechism class later this afternoon and parenting after that 🤣... but in the silence of tonight. I will reach for intercession from the Theotokos and sink down within to search for the Kingdom ☦👑
2 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 6
View 6 replies
Steve Calamars
friday morning... prayer🙏 was the practice--
building stamina for Great Lent
The Rule for Today:
Akathist to our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God---
followed by:
-prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit
-the Trisagion Prayers
-the Nicene Creed
-Psalm 67
...prayer rope/ 100-knots...
* The Jesus Prayer x 300
* Most Holy Theotokos x 100
...prayer rope complete...
- the Angelic Salutation (orthodox) x 3
- Benediction to the Theotokos
-prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos x 3
-prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana x 3
-final stanza from Psalm 38 x 3
-the Lord's Prayer
**closing prayers
... signs of the cross, fingers along prayer rope, standing, walking, bowing, kneeling, and prostrations were present throughout the practice, in an effort to cultivate nepsis...
3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 5
View 5 replies
Steve Calamars
thursday morning ... "O God my God, I will rise early to be with you." (Psalm 62)... training fully underway today; for both the physical and the upcoming Great Lent--
Prayer Practice:
-Prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit
-The Trisagion Prayers
-The Nicene Creed
-Psalm 65
...prayer rope = 100-knots...
*The Jesus Prayer x 300
*Most Holy Theotokos x 100
...prayer rope complete...
-The Angelic Salutation (orthodox) x 3
-The Benediction to the Theotokos
**Prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos x 3
**Prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana x 3
**final stanza from Psalm 38 x 3
-The Lord's Prayer
-closing prayers
*(Psalms extracted from the Septuagint)
4 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 4
View 6 replies
Steve Calamars
wednesday morning... almost like an off-season in the Orthodox World right now🤣, maintaining those Wednesday and Friday fasts, as we approach the start of the fast for Lent in mid-February ... given my oldest daughter's volleyball 🏐 practice in the evening, needed to hit a morning session for training... checked in with core, more as a practice, than going after a PR or anything... prayer followed, with added amplification, after acknowledgement of the veneration of Saint Maximos the Confessor today on January 21st🤯💪☦... now, prep for the workday can start!!
5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 7
View 8 replies
Steve Calamars
tuesday morning... last night after prayer, I decided to run a trial, at least for today ... up at the normal 3am for cold-brew and study, then some light edification, before the bulk of my early morning ... allowed the prayer rule to take form and it ended up requiring this block of time = bows, kneeling, prostrations were present throughout... thus, I still want to train the physical more intentionally, so going to give a micro workout in the evening a shot, after work... not certain I will adopt this at all... or perhaps adjust, and begin to have a mix of early morning and early evening sessions throughout the week, depending on schedule 🤔
6 days ago | [YT] | 12
View 10 replies
Steve Calamars
monday morning... overslept some, so family was up as I was waking 😳🤣... thus a brief and intense session out back... followed by applications of 📚= having to sink within🙏, as children's footsteps pattered around upstairs 🤣🤷♂️... I will take advantage of the silence in the night 🌙 prayer-- life of the laity
1 week ago | [YT] | 12
View 4 replies
Steve Calamars
sunday... inspired by Fr. Seraphim's video, brilliant and such a quality strategy = involves what is referred to as "Prayer of the Body"😔🙏💪🤯
Today's Rule:
Prayer to invoke the Holy Spirit
Trisagion Prayers
Morning Prayer to the Holy Trinity
The Nicene Creed
...prayer rope: 100-knots...
The Jesus Prayer x 300
The Angelic Salutation(orthodox) x 27
...prayer rope complete...
Psalm 58
The Lord's Prayer
Prayer of intercession to Saint Stylianos
Prayer of intercession to Saint Tatiana
Prayer of intercession to the Theotokos
Benediction to the Theotokos
Prayer for strength against Worldly Temptations
Final stanza of Psalm 38 x 3
Closing Prayers
* this was Today's Training
1 week ago | [YT] | 7
View 5 replies
Steve Calamars
saturday evening... catechism class and a glorious Vespers 😔🙏☦
1 week ago | [YT] | 10
View 6 replies
Load more