Introducing the Jesus Prayer
12.16.2009 | All Blog Posts, The Prayer of the Heart
How do I pray? How can I live more fully into the wonder and sacredness of this moment, this life that is mine? Is it possible to live with greater awareness of both the mystery of God’s holiness and the wonder of my humanness in the midst of the dizzying distractions and competing claims upon my life?
Starting today, I’ll begin to introduce a form of prayer that doesn’t so much answer these kinds of questions as much as it involves you and me in the Answer itself–and that is far better.
The Jesus Prayer is among the oldest forms of prayer aimed at the ultimate goal of the spiritual life–communion with God (John 17.21), where you are alive from the center with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3.19).
12.19.2009
[...] Introducing the Jesus Prayer [...]
12.20.2009
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. ”
The Jesus Prayer is for the Eastern Orthodox one of the most profound and mystical prayers and it is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice. Its practice is an integral part of the eremitic tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo, “to keep stillness”), the subject of the Philokalia (Greek: φιλοκαλείν, “love of beauty”), a collection of fourth to fifteenth century texts on prayer, compiled in the late eighteenth century by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Makarios of Corinth. The monastic state of Mount Athos is a centre of the practice of the Jesus Prayer
3.25.2010
[...] present here and now. Present to each breath, the name and mercy of Jesus attached to each inhalation, each exhalation. To each thought that passes through the mind; present [...]