Psalms 68:6

God makes those of one manner to dwell in a house: those who are of one manner, and are not changed. Since indeed the just man is not changed, because once for all he has resolved to remain in righteousness. But the sinner is changed: "for the fool shall be changed like the moon." In the Hebrew, however, it has "The Lord makes monks to dwell in a house": that is, in those in whom sin does not dwell alongside. Who leads out the bound ones in strength. God himself by his own power leads out those who are bound by the devil in sins: like that woman in the Gospel, who had been bound eighteen years by the devil. Likewise those who provoke him, who dwell in the tombs. God is by nature sweet: but those who lead him to bitterness are sinners, and they make God bitter for themselves. He does not change his own nature, but the sinners themselves make God bitter for themselves. Who dwell in the tombs. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you are like whitewashed tombs." Just as the holy man is a temple of God, so the sinner makes himself a tomb.

Men like this are ravening wolves covered with sheep's clothing, as the Lord calls them. Flee then fickleness and pliability; seek truth, sincerity, simplicity. The serpent is shifty; so he has been condemned to crawl. The just is an honest man, like Job. Wherefore God setteth the solitary in families. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. Yet a wise and marvellous order reigns among these animals. Fish do not always deserve our reproaches; often they offer us useful examples. How is it that each sort of fish, content with the region that has been assigned to it, never travels over its own limits to pass into foreign seas? No surveyor has ever distributed to them their habitations, nor enclosed them in walls, nor assigned limits to them; each kind has been naturally assigned its own home. One gulf nourishes one kind of fish, another other sorts; those which swarm here are absent elsewhere. No mountain raises its sharp peaks between them; no rivers bar the passage to them; it is a law of nature, which according to the needs of each kind, has allotted to them their dwelling places with equality and justice.

Obviously, the time to pray is when we are all praying. Of course, you may pray privately whenever and as often as you choose. But do not, under the pretext of prayer, miss the lesson. You can always pray whenever you will, but you cannot always have a lesson at hand. Do not imagine that there is little to be gained by listening to the sacred lesson. The fact is that prayer is improved if our mind has been recently fed on reading and is able to roam among the thoughts of divine things that it has recently heard. The word of the Lord assures us that Mary, the sister of Martha, chose the better part when she sat at the feet of Jesus, listening intently to the word of God without a thought of her sister. We need not wonder, then, if the deacon in a clear voice like a herald warns all that, whether they are praying or bowing the knees, singing hymns or listening to the lessons, they should all act together. God loves "people of one manner" and, as was said before, "makes them to dwell in his house." And those who dwell in this house are proclaimed by the psalm to be blessed, because they will praise God forever and ever. Amen.