THE JESUS PRAYER

The Jesus Prayer


The Power of a Name

It seemed like the most unimaginable idea for a national commemoration: a rectangular granite block with a bunch of names chiseled into it. But it has turned out to be our nation's most moving monument. I'm referring, of course, to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

If you've been there, you know what I mean. It's a typical experience: Someone walks along the wall searching. He stops, runs his finger over the letters of a name, and begins to weep. Such is the power of a name.

We tend to think of names as mere labels. We call the skinny thing we use to write "pen"; we call the thing we sit in "chair"; and we call our newborn "Luke." But it's not quite the same because as ''Luke" grows and interacts with us and others, he creates relationships and memories. It doesn't take long before "Luke" is a history of relationships and memories, and when we say "Luke," something happens inside us, however subtle, so that all this comes back to us, mostly unconsciously.

This is especially true when a certain young woman meets Luke and creates her own history with him. She begins to find herself thinking of Luke often. And there comes a time that whenever "Luke" is mentioned, she is very conscious of what is happening: She is stabbed with that most delirious of feelings that we call being in love.


Names are not labels, at least not with people we know and love. And the mere mention of a loved one's name is enough to remember our love and even to make it grow deeper.

This is the idea behind one of the most venerable prayer practices in the Christian tradition, called the Jesus prayer.

The Way of a Pilgrim

As told in the Russian spiritual classic The Way of the Pilgrim, the story goes that a poor, lame Russian peasant was traveling all over Russia and Siberia, with a knapsack that contained only dried bread, a Bible, and a heart that yearned to discover what the apostle Paul meant when he advised, "Pray without ceasing."

One day this pilgrim met a starets, a spiritual father, who taught him the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." The spiritual father told him to pray it 3,000 times a day. After the pilgrim obliged, the spiritual father told him to do it 6,000 times a day then 12,000.

What happened eventually was this: The pilgrim stopped counting because the prayer had become a part of him, and he prayed it with every breath. Finally, he spoke no words; as he put it, "The lips stopped moving, and the only thing left to do was to listen to the heart speak."

The pilgrim continued on his way, and he met many others peasants, civil servants, landowners who shared his desire for a life of ceaseless prayer. On his journeys, he often faced hunger, thirst, cold, and hostile people. At such times, he said, the prayer saved him:

"When the bitter cold cuts through me, I repeat my prayer with even more fervor, and I feel warmed up. When hunger begins to torture me, I invoke the name of Jesus Christ more often, and I forget that I want to eat. . . . If someone hurts me, I just think, 'How sweet is the Jesus prayer,' and the offense and the resentment fly away and are forgotten."

He then summed up his experience with the Jesus prayer:

"I have nearly lost all feeling; I have no cares; I have no desires; nothing attracts me. The only thing that I desire is to pray, pray without ceasing, and when I pray, I am filled with joy."


It is debated whether this story is fiction or fact, but in either case, it was written to inspire others to learn to pray without ceasing and to introduce them to the centuries-old practice, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, of invoking the name of Jesus in prayer.

The History of Jesus' Name

The idea of praying in or with Jesus' name goes back to Jesus himself, who told his disciples, "You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:13). Early Christians would often chant, "Kyrie eleison," which means "Lord, have mercy.'' Over the centuries this developed into the practice of what are called "ejaculatory prayers," short prayers said many times during the day, and finally into a prayer we know as the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me."

The prayer has always been flexible. Some, like the Russian pilgrim, make it more confessional, adding "a sinner" at the end. Some make it more communal, praying, "have mercy on us." But the basic idea is the same: a repeated invocation of the name of Jesus.

Exploring the Prayer

This prayer is not a magical formula, as if the more times you say it, the more holy you become. But it is like the Lord's Prayer, a prayer that sums up so much of what we long to say. It is also a prayer that, because it invokes the name of Jesus, begins to do something to us without our being aware of it.

The idea here is similar to invoking the name of a loved one now dead. To invoke the name "Ruby" at a Galli family gathering is to invoke memories of my motherland smiles and laughter as we remember her passion, her flair, her dramatics, her energy.

To invoke the name of Jesus is to invoke the memory of the God-man who walked among us, whose story we recall in the Gospels, stories of compassion, wisdom, authority, mercy, and love. But there's one big difference: Jesus is not dead. So to invoke the name of Jesus is also to make us aware of his ongoing presence in our lives. To make the Jesus prayer an integral part of our day is to make the living reality of Jesus an integral part of our day.

This prayer covers a lot of ground.

· Adoration. To begin, we praise Jesus for being "Lord," the one in control of history, who is driving all the apparent chaos of life to a glorious end. In calling him the "Son of God," we imply a prayer to the Father, and thus, to the Holy Spirit, and inadvertently we recognize the mystery of the Trinity. In seeking his mercy, we imply that he is merciful.

· Confession. To seek mercy and especially if we add at the end, " . . .a sinner “is to go before Christ penitent, weak, helpless, in need of his healing touch.


· Thanksgiving. To pray this prayer is to acknowledge that not only can Jesus heal our hearts but that he will do so. As such, this is a prayer of thanksgiving for all the healing he has accomplished in our lives and all the healing he will bring to us in the future.

· Intercession. Some people try to pray the Jesus prayer silently whenever they meet another during the day, some changing it to " . . .have mercy on us." In this way, it becomes a prayer that reaches out to others and pulls us closer to others.

Doing It

There are two principle ways of using this prayer: prayer of the heart and prayer of daily life.

Prayer of the heart has been emphasized by those of the "hesychast" tradition, the mystical tradition within the Eastern Orthodox Church. In this method, the person sits alone, with head bowed and mind focused on the stomach or chest (that is, the "center" of one's being). He empties his mind of all rational thoughts and eliminates every picture or image. Then "without thought of imagination,'' but with concentration, he repeats the Jesus prayer silently. (The Greek hesychia means "silence.")

This method, if practiced faithfully and in the context of participation in the larger life of the church, is said to unite the prayer with God so that she experiences the "uncreated divine Light" and "unspeakable joy of the soul."

Everything I've read on the Jesus prayer firmly states that this practice should never be undertaken without a spiritual director. As Father Thomas Hopko, a leading Orthodox theologian, put it, "To use this method without guidance or humble wisdom is to court spiritual disaster." (For that matter, anyone whose prayer life transports them into more mystical dimensions should seek out a spiritual director. The spiritual is a powerful dimension and can become destructive if not guided by someone with experience and wisdom.)

In the prayer of daily life, the Jesus prayer is said in the normal course of one's prayer and life. You might pray it verbally or silently for a few minutes at the beginning and/or the end of your daily prayer. You might repeat it a few times at lunch or before you retire for the night (saying the Jesus prayer instead of counting sheep!). You can say it silently whenever you meet someone during the day or as you pick up the phone as a way of praying for the person you are about to speak with.

The key in this method, as with any prayer repeated over and over, is to avoid what Jesus himself called "vain repetitions." To pray it unthinkingly, as if it were a good luck charm, is to misuse the prayer. But you can repeat it, over and over, rolling it around in your mind, savoring every part of it, concentrating on one word and then another “enjoying" it as one would a glass of fine wine. That's not "vain repetition," but meaningful immersion in the prayer.


Getting the Most Out of It

One more thing that has already been mentioned but is worth highlighting: This prayer is not the property of the individual. It belongs to the entire church. It arose out of the church's history and will become most meaningful if prayed in the context of the church. That means participating in the worship and life of a local congregation, with people who regularly worship the "Lord Jesus Christ" as the "Son of God," and who together experience his "mercy."

Of course you can pray it by yourself. There's no law against it. But the experience of those who have been most transformed by this prayer suggests that it needs to be balanced with corporate prayer. More of this will be discussed in "Praying with Others."