Prayer. It’s something that you hear frequently in our society, even if it is significantly less than before the degeneracy that was the 1960s. You often hear about it after a national tragedy such as a natural disaster or mass shooting: “Pray for the victims”, or “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families”. Certainly, we pray for the people of these horrific situations, but most of the time the people saying these phrases do not even understand what prayer means. Frankly, I still struggle to fully comprehend what prayer means.
As someone who grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church attending Divine Liturgy almost every Sunday, serving on the Altar, and winning seven championships in the Greek Basketball League, I never prayed besides the occasional Lord’s Prayer before Pascha (Easter) or Christmas until the last six months or so.
Even still my prayers seemed to lack a true relationship with Christ and it felt as if I was just repeating words from a book. As I returned to campus this fall for a Fifth Year Master’s Program in History, I quickly rekindled my friendships with members of the current senior class who pray daily and have a deep relationship with Christ.
Seeing somebody else with such a relationship with the Lord immediately made me crave that same lifestyle, except I didn’t know where to start my prayer. One of my friends, Miles Shoban, took me and another one of our friends under his wing and taught us how to pray with Scripture.
This includes Reading the daily Epistle and Gospel readings, in addition to passages that are relevant to many of the questions that dominate our minds, three to four times before writing down what we believe the Scripture is telling us. Whether it be discerning marriage and finding women who place that same value in Christ, helping us with sins of gluttony or lust, or to just helping us grow into a better relationship with Christ, all of these ideas can be answered through prayer with Scripture.
One of the biggest hurdles for me was asking Christ for my prayers to be fruitful or for my prayers to be answered, but people forget that Christ WANTS us to ask him for things. Verses such as Matthew 6: 5-15 or Matthew 7: 7-8 are crucial to understanding that Christ wants us dearly to pray for him, and all we have to do is reach out to him for that help. Praying with Scripture has been a revelation (no pun intended) for my relationship with Christ, and I owe that to my friends here at Boston College.
Miles, Rocco, and I hold each other accountable to pray a “Holy Hour” (an hour at least of prayer) daily. We set a time every day to pray, and if I didn’t have them to rely on, I know I couldn’t be as committed to Christ as I want.
At the time of writing this article, it has been approximately one month of consistent Holy Hours, and I tell Rocco and Miles that every day I feel my relationship with Christ truly deepening. It is also crucial for me to have friends in the Orthodox Christian Fellowship Club here at Boston College to rely on for spiritual guidance and prayer.
As the recently chosen Faith and Fellowship Chair of OCF, I feel a sense of duty to set a good example for the other Orthodox Christians here at BC, and I cannot truly personify this role if I am not seeking out a true relationship with Christ. I cannot let down the leadership who chose me for that position, and the general members who might look up to us E-Board members for spiritual guidance and direction, and thus I become even more committed by the day.
Overall, my prayer routine and life have grown immensely in just the first two months of the semester. A friend asked me in September, “Why are you back for a fifth year?” and I answered him with a generic answer about the financial benefits of doing the program in one year versus two years.
He then responded with “I think that’s fine, but I also think God called you back to BC for an extra year for a specific reason. You should find out what that reason is”. That statement has been at the center of my prayer life the last month, determining my true reasoning for being at BC again.
I now believe that the reason is twofold. 1: To meet more Orthodox brothers and sisters at BC. During the first 3.5 years of my undergraduate experience, there was no Orthodox Club at BC, but with the dedication of some current sophomores, the club has been resurrected and an instrumental part of my life as a student at BC. Meeting people I can fully relate to on campus and seeing their dedication to Christ has inspired me to develop my own faith even more.
2: To develop an amazing foundation of prayer life over the next seven months that will prepare me for life after college. I won’t have all my friends on campus with me, nor Catholic or Orthodox clubs to attend every evening. I will have a job (likely in the Trump White House) where politics not religion will be at the center of my daily routine.
The commitment to prayer now will make it such a routine that I will be sure to continue my daily Holy Hours in the next stage of my life. This next stage will at some point hopefully result in marriage and children, all of which will be centered around Christ. From a prayer room with Icons and Incense to Catholic/Orthodox schooling to daily prayers as a family, all of that I cannot imagine living without.
Prayer is an essential part of my daily life, and all it took was the friendships I’ve developed here at BC to push me to desire a true relationship with Christ. In layman’s terms, it is as if a light switch was turned on inside of me and it can never be turned off, which I guess is fitting since Christ does say I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
James “Δημήτριος” Markis is a senior at Boston College studying History, Political Science, and Ancient Civilization. He is a Greek Orthodox Christian, offering a unique perspective from the East on faith, scripture, and liturgical practices. His interests include right-wing politics, Church Fathers, and refuting Protestant heresy. His hobbies include basketball, baseball, and trivia, with the occasional adventure into the arena of chess.
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