How to Pray an Akathist or Canon at Home
I will admit it: I want to pray something at home to "replace" a service at church that I cannot attend, but it is hard. I am scared of how long it will take. It is harder to think about 45 minutes of prayer at home than it is to go to church and pray for that same 45 minutes. If it is any encouragement, I offer this... First, it does not have to be 45 minutes. Second, if it is, all the more grace you receive for toughing it out.
Here are some examples of what can be done, probably only needing your prayer book:
A Vespers service that you usually attend at church can very appropriately be replaced with Small Compline, since that is also an evening service, and that is easy to just read straight through in the prayer book.
You could also read one of the akathists or canons available in the back of your prayer book. Those can be prayed by themselves, if you are not too liturgically adventurous, and that is fine. It is prayer!
If you want to put a canon or akathist into a context, there are two ways. One, in the Small Compline service, just after the Symbol of Faith (Creed), you will see a note that an akathist or canon can be inserted. That is the first way. Two, if it is not evening (and thus, the evening-oriented Compline service is not completely fitting), or if you are just looking for the shortest way, you can use the beginning and ending to your Morning Prayers: start Morning Prayers and pray through "Our Father...", then Psalm 50, skip over to the canon or akathist you want, then return to the end of Morning Prayers at "It is truly meet..." and pray to the end. That beginning and ending is probably only five minutes in addition to the canon or akathist. It is not much time commitment and adds a nice transition into and out of the core of your prayer time.
That all sounds much more difficult than actually doing it, though we all stumble around at first. When in doubt, read the Psalter. The meat to almost all Orthodox services is Psalms, anyway. It can be incredibly edifying to set aside ten minutes, and just pray the Psalms aloud. Then, when you feel like you need it again, pick up where you left off, and pray for another ten minutes. Maybe read a chapter from the Gospels after prepping your soul with the Psalter.
Akathists tend to be a little longer than a canon. Take that any way you want: sometimes we want longer; sometimes we need shorter. Tonight, we prayed only the minimal opening prayers, the Small Supplicatory Canon to the Theotokos, and dismissal; and it was really nice to have a quick, twenty (or so) minute prayer time. Somehow, knowing it was going to be short helped me to slow down a little and pray better.
Here are some examples of what can be done, probably only needing your prayer book:
A Vespers service that you usually attend at church can very appropriately be replaced with Small Compline, since that is also an evening service, and that is easy to just read straight through in the prayer book.
You could also read one of the akathists or canons available in the back of your prayer book. Those can be prayed by themselves, if you are not too liturgically adventurous, and that is fine. It is prayer!
If you want to put a canon or akathist into a context, there are two ways. One, in the Small Compline service, just after the Symbol of Faith (Creed), you will see a note that an akathist or canon can be inserted. That is the first way. Two, if it is not evening (and thus, the evening-oriented Compline service is not completely fitting), or if you are just looking for the shortest way, you can use the beginning and ending to your Morning Prayers: start Morning Prayers and pray through "Our Father...", then Psalm 50, skip over to the canon or akathist you want, then return to the end of Morning Prayers at "It is truly meet..." and pray to the end. That beginning and ending is probably only five minutes in addition to the canon or akathist. It is not much time commitment and adds a nice transition into and out of the core of your prayer time.
That all sounds much more difficult than actually doing it, though we all stumble around at first. When in doubt, read the Psalter. The meat to almost all Orthodox services is Psalms, anyway. It can be incredibly edifying to set aside ten minutes, and just pray the Psalms aloud. Then, when you feel like you need it again, pick up where you left off, and pray for another ten minutes. Maybe read a chapter from the Gospels after prepping your soul with the Psalter.
Akathists tend to be a little longer than a canon. Take that any way you want: sometimes we want longer; sometimes we need shorter. Tonight, we prayed only the minimal opening prayers, the Small Supplicatory Canon to the Theotokos, and dismissal; and it was really nice to have a quick, twenty (or so) minute prayer time. Somehow, knowing it was going to be short helped me to slow down a little and pray better.
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