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Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, ἐλέησόν με.
Kyrie Jesu Christe, eleison me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Kyrie Jesu Christe, eleison me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
During the Shalem time, another "Shalemite" told me how he prays the Jesus Prayer in Greek every morning and has done so for the past five years. He eventually told me that it resounds in him during his daily life, kind of like a prayer wheel. That is when it has become the Prayer of the Heart.
I brought my prayer rope with me to the Shalem gathering, in hopes that I would pray the Jesus Prayer, which still comes to me in English. TB told that he found that he could pay more attention to the Greek words than the English, so I thought I would try that. Back at home, I am trying to do this sporadically.
Albert S. Rossi at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary's site of Saying the Jesus Prayer writes this:
"We don't say the Jesus Prayer, or enter wordless contemplation, to get "some benefit." We don't pray to reduce our stress, or strengthen our immune system, or lose weight, or add years to our life. On the contrary, we enter prayer to follow Christ, to become open to Him."
God brings about our prayer. My former priest and spiritual director always said that the Holy Spirit prompts the Jesus Prayer (and prayer of any kind)--not for "benefits" but for Love. Guess that's why I call my blog "Yearning for God."
I brought my prayer rope with me to the Shalem gathering, in hopes that I would pray the Jesus Prayer, which still comes to me in English. TB told that he found that he could pay more attention to the Greek words than the English, so I thought I would try that. Back at home, I am trying to do this sporadically.
Albert S. Rossi at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary's site of Saying the Jesus Prayer writes this:
"We don't say the Jesus Prayer, or enter wordless contemplation, to get "some benefit." We don't pray to reduce our stress, or strengthen our immune system, or lose weight, or add years to our life. On the contrary, we enter prayer to follow Christ, to become open to Him."
God brings about our prayer. My former priest and spiritual director always said that the Holy Spirit prompts the Jesus Prayer (and prayer of any kind)--not for "benefits" but for Love. Guess that's why I call my blog "Yearning for God."
9 comments:
Thank you, Jan! I love it when people write of the Jesus Prayer, and especially when they quote any of my favourite writings, like Albert S Rossi's really excellent article...
Blessings
Mike
Wow. This is a beautiful post, Jan. Thank you.
Our society is so results-oriented, so focused on achieving and getting, that it is difficult to realize the truth, that the spiritual life is not about achieving or getting. Thank you for this.
you wrote: ...not for "benefits" but for Love. Guess that's why I call my blog "Yearning for God."
Jan, that is awesome!!!
Thank you for this. I have gotten away from God, though I was close to Him for many years. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say I remember the days when we were close that when He was teaching me something it would come up again and again. He is teaching me about praying without ceasing, and here it is again. God is so good, and beyond words. Our hearts yearn for Him, as your blog name states, if we let them. I am so humbled by my ineptitude, by my own simple laziness, by my humanity in the face of His holiness. I forget that I can pray for self-discipline!
I agree with gartenfische, it is not about achieving or getting, but about being with Him, growing closer to Him every day. I am still so far from that, but it is all in the journey.
I am so glad I read this, thank you for posting.
Jan, thank you for this. I've prayed the Jesus prayer, sometimes often and sometimes not at all ...
In one of the articles you're linked to, it says it's all right to do the Jesus prayer without a starets to guide you, as long as you make no effort to link the prayer with the body's rhythms. Anyone know why?
Thanks in advance.
Probably other people know more about the Jesus Prayer than I do, though I've read various books about it. I believe that it can only get uncertain and/or dangerous if you're trying to modulate your breathing to the words in a continuous fashion. I've never worried about it, because I don't try to do anything connected with my breathing when I pray the Jesus Prayer.
I'll second your point about not worrying about the breathing, Jan. I've been praying the Prayer (more or less) faithfully for a long time now, and have had a couple of wise people to talk to in that time. Their view has been that our Western danger is that, given a technique to work with, we seem to think that if we do the technique right, then something is going to "work for us."
Of course the Jesus Prayer doesn't "work": it's a prayer, not a trick. That's why I, and people like Br. Ramon SSF, dislike people calling it a "mantra" - not out of religious prejudice, but because it's misleading to think of the Prayer that way.
The breathing techniques, in any case, are as I understand them, designed merely to help us interiorised the Prayer more quickly, so we can pray in the heart and not the head. As we in the West tend to begin by repeating the Prayer silently, rather than aloud, we have a bit of a start there anyway!
In the Eastern literature of the Prayer, as Kate has discovered, you'll sometimes find warnings about damaging your health by messing with the breathing. That may be a risk, but as Jan says, it's best just to leave all that alone, and concentrate on why we're praying the Prayer, and to whom.
Jan's post set me thinking, and I've written a bit more about the Prayer here.
Mike
Jan - this is lovely, very moving and contemplative.
I actually know Al Rossi although I have not seen him in about 15 years.
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