Prayer is the basis of our Christian life, the source of our experience of Jesus as the Risen Lord. Yet how few Christians
know how to pray with any depth! For most of us, prayer means little more than standing in the pews for an hour or so on Sunday
morning or perhaps reciting, in a mechanical fashion, prayers once learned by rote during childhood. Our prayer life - and
thus our life as Christians - remains, for the most part, at this superficial level.
THE CHALLENGE OF ST. PAUL
But this approach to the life of prayer has nothing to do with the Christianity of St. Paul, who urges the Christians of first
century Thessalonica to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:1). And in his letter to Rome, the Apostle instructs the Christian
community there to "be constant in prayer" (Rom. 12:12). He not only demands unceasing prayer of the Christians in his care,
but practices it himself. "We constantly thank God for you" (1 Thess. 2:13) he writes in his letter to the Thessalonian community;
and he comforts Timothy, his "true child in the faith" (1 Tim. 1:2) with the words: "Always I remember you in my prayers"
(2 Tim. 1:3). In fact, whenever St. Paul speaks of prayer in his letters, two Greek words repeatedly appear:
PANTOTE (pantote), which means always; and
ADIALEPTOS (adialeptos), meaning without interruption or unceasingly. Prayer is then not merely a part of life which we can conveniently
lay aside if something we deem more important comes up; prayer is all of life. Prayer is as essential to our life as breathing.
This raises some important questions. How can we be expected to pray all the time? We are, after all, very busy people. Our
work, our spouse, our children, our school - all place heavy demands upon our time. How can we fit more time for prayer into
our already overcrowded lives? These questions and the many others like them which could be asked set up a false dichotomy
in our lives as Christians. To pray does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things or to spend
time with God in contrast to spending time with our family and friends. Rather, to pray means to think and live our entire
life in the Presence of God. As Paul Evdokimov has remarked: "Our whole life, every act and gesture, even a smile must become
a hymn or adoration, an offering, a prayer. We must become prayer-prayer incarnate." This is what St. Paul means when he writes
to the Corinthians that "whatever you do, do it for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).
THE JESUS PRAYER
In order to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and to come to grips with St. Paul's challenge to pray unceasingly,
the Orthodox Tradition offers the Jesus Prayer, which is sometimes called the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer is offered
as a means of concentration, as a focal point for our inner life. Though there are both longer and shorter versions, the most
frequently used form of the Jesus Prayer is: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." This prayer, in
its simplicity and clarity, is rooted in the Scriptures and the new life granted by the Holy Spirit. It is first and foremost
a prayer of the Spirit because of the fact that the prayer addresses Jesus as Lord, Christ and Son of God; and as St. Paul
tells us, "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3).
THE SCRIPTURAL ROOTS OF THE JESUS PRAYER
The Scriptures give the Jesus Prayer both its concrete form and its theological content. It is rooted in the Scriptures in
four ways:
- In its brevity and simplicity, it is the fulfillment of Jesus' command that "in praying" we are "not to heap up empty phrases
as the heathen do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them . . . (Matt. 6:7-8).
- The Jesus Prayer is rooted in the Name of the Lord. In the Scriptures, the power and glory of God are present in his Name.
In the Old Testament to deliberately and attentively invoke God's Name was to place oneself in his Presence. Jesus, whose
name in Hebrew means God saves, is the living Word addressed to humanity. Jesus is the final Name of God. Jesus is "the Name
which is above all other names" and it is written that "all beings should bend the knee at the Name of Jesus" (Phil. 2:9-10).
In this Name devils are cast out (Luke 10:17), prayers are answered (John 14:13 14) and the lame are healed (Acts 3:6-7).
The Name of Jesus is unbridled spiritual power.
- The words of the Jesus Prayer are themselves based on Scriptural texts: the cry of the blind man sitting at the side of the
road near Jericho, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me" (Luke 18:38); the ten lepers who "called to him, Jesus, Master,
take pity on us' " (Luke 17:13); and the cry for mercy of the publican, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:14).
- It is a prayer in which the first step of the spiritual journey is taken: the recognition of our own sinfulness, our essential
estrangement from God and the people around us. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer in which we admit our desperate need of a Saviour.
For "if we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth" (1 John 1:8).
THE THREE LEVELS OF PRAYER
Because prayer is a living reality, a deeply personal encounter with the living God, it is not to be confined to any given
classification or rigid analysis. However, in order to offer some broad, general guidelines for those interested in using
the Jesus Prayer to develop their inner life, Theophan the Recluse, a 19th century Russian spiritual writer, distinguishes
three levels in the saying of the Prayer:
- It begins as oral prayer or prayer of the lips, a simple recitation which Theophan defines as prayers' "verbal expression
and shape." Although very important, this level of prayer is still external to us and thus only the first step, for "the essence
or soul of prayer is within a man's mind and heart."
- As we enter more deeply into prayer, we reach a level at which we begin to pray without distraction. Theophan remarks that
at this point, "the mind is focused upon the words" of the Prayer, "speaking them as if they were our own."
- The third and final level is prayer of the heart. At this stage prayer is no longer something we do but who we are. Such prayer,
which is a gift of the Spirit, is to return to the Father as did the prodigal son (Luke 15:32). The prayer of the heart is
the prayer of adoption, when "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit that cries 'Abba, Father!'" (Gal.
4:6).
THE FRUITS OF THE JESUS PRAYER
This return to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit is the goal of all Christian spirituality. It is to be open to
the presence of the Kingdom in our midst. The anonymous author of
The Way of the Pilgrim reports that the Jesus Prayer has two very concrete effects upon his vision of the world. First, it transfigures his relation
ship with the material creation around him; the world becomes transparent, a sign, a means of communicating God's presence.
He writes:
"When I prayed in my heart, everything around me seemed delightful and marvelous. The trees, the grass, the birds, the air,
the light seemed to be telling me that they existed for man's sake, that they witnessed to the love of God for man, that all
things prayed to God and sang his praise."
Second, the Prayer transfigures his relationship to his fellow human beings. His relationships are given form within their
proper context: the forgiveness and compassion of the crucified and risen Lord.
"Again I started off on my wanderings. But now I did not walk along as before, filled with care. The invocation of the Name
of Jesus gladdened my way. Everybody was kind to me. If anyone harms me I have only to think, 'How sweet is the Prayer of
Jesus!' and the injury and the anger alike pass away and I forget it all."
ENDLESS GROWTH
"Growth in prayer has no end," Theophan informs us. "If this growth ceases, it means that life ceases." The way of the heart
is endless because the God whom we seek is infinite in the depths of his glory. The Jesus Prayer is a signpost along the spiritual
journey, a journey that all of us must take.
APPENDIX
The purpose of this pamphlet is merely to introduce the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer cannot be separated
from the sacramental life of the Church and asceticism. The following books are recommended for further study:
The Art of Prayer edited with an introduction by Kallistos Ware (Faber and Faber: London) 1966
The Power of the Name by Kallistos Ware (SLG Press: Oxford) 1974
The Way of a Pilgrim translated by R. M. French (Seabury Press: New York) 1965
Christ is in our Midst by Father John of New Valaamo (St. Vladimirs' Seminary Press: New York) 1980
The Jesus Prayer by Per-Olof Sjogren (Fortress Press: Philadelphia) 1975
Prayer of the Heart by George A. Maloney (Ave Maria Press: Notre Dame) 1980
