The Jesus Prayer in your
mind keeps before your every circumstance that key question: ‘What would Jesus
do?’
As I stand by people: the farmer frustrated by the weather, the lady with so much to say it’s hard to get a word in, the sullen youth, the burdened church officer, the lonely old lady - all of these I engage with, while trying to let the Jesus Prayer run in me, and not my own thoughts, so any words I utter will have the Lord’s weight.
As I stand by people: the farmer frustrated by the weather, the lady with so much to say it’s hard to get a word in, the sullen youth, the burdened church officer, the lonely old lady - all of these I engage with, while trying to let the Jesus Prayer run in me, and not my own thoughts, so any words I utter will have the Lord’s weight.
The formal use of the
Jesus Prayer in the first hour of the day effects something of a cleansing of
my psyche. It sets me going for continuous use of the Prayer and, as a tithe of
my day time, puts my later hours more fully in the Lord’s hands. When I
fail to commit to that early prayer I seem set up later to confuse what's most
important for me with what’s merely pressing upon me as urgent.
The future is, like the past, a mental construct which besieges our spirit in the form of anxiety. Of course I am bound to be concerned so as to best provide for things ahead of me, my family or the work of my church but Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that those who follow him are to live without anxiety. Repeating the Jesus Prayer brings me into his joyful freedom, which exists hour by hour and refuses to be locked down by useless fears.
The Jesus Prayer has woven itself through me, around me and into me so that I cannot but witness to it as a timely device from the Lord that centres, simplifies and energises his disciples. There’s a sense in me that I did not choose this Prayer but that it chose me and did so as part of the Lord’s call for me to work towards a life of unceasing prayer.
The future is, like the past, a mental construct which besieges our spirit in the form of anxiety. Of course I am bound to be concerned so as to best provide for things ahead of me, my family or the work of my church but Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that those who follow him are to live without anxiety. Repeating the Jesus Prayer brings me into his joyful freedom, which exists hour by hour and refuses to be locked down by useless fears.
The Jesus Prayer has woven itself through me, around me and into me so that I cannot but witness to it as a timely device from the Lord that centres, simplifies and energises his disciples. There’s a sense in me that I did not choose this Prayer but that it chose me and did so as part of the Lord’s call for me to work towards a life of unceasing prayer.
I cannot be the ultimate
judge but the decision to accept God’s invitation given through prayer, people
and circumstances to use the Jesus Prayer seems to have indeed centred and so
simplified and energised my life.
Thoroughly biblical,
carried forward by the faith of the Church through the centuries, the Jesus
Prayer stands as unique gift and task. Its attractiveness lies in the way it
states simple Christianity and seems to carry within it the momentum of the
Spirit, as well as the way it serves believers struggling to integrate minds
and hearts, so that their will can be enfolded by that of Jesus Christ.
In suggesting that the Prayer has the momentum of the Spirit I am thinking of St Paul’s advice that ‘No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit’. (1 Corinthians 12:3b). Another evidence for the momentum of the Spirit is my experience, and that of others, in seeing how the discipline of repetition is accompanied by many occasions when the Prayer keeps going even when, as in sleep, the human will to pray has failed. As with the Holy Spirit, who prays within believers, it could be said of the Jesus Prayer that it ‘helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought’. (Cf Romans 8:26)
All prayer is through, with and in Jesus Christ, Son of God and the world’s merciful Saviour. Praying the Jesus Prayer is about being caught up with all things, as well as yourself lifting up all things, into God’s merciful love. Just as in the Eucharist we offer Christ’s Sacrifice as well as our own since our life is hidden in him (Colossians 3:3b), when we pray the Jesus Prayer it is the whole Christ, head and members, offering the whole Christ for the glory of God and the transformation of the universe.
In suggesting that the Prayer has the momentum of the Spirit I am thinking of St Paul’s advice that ‘No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit’. (1 Corinthians 12:3b). Another evidence for the momentum of the Spirit is my experience, and that of others, in seeing how the discipline of repetition is accompanied by many occasions when the Prayer keeps going even when, as in sleep, the human will to pray has failed. As with the Holy Spirit, who prays within believers, it could be said of the Jesus Prayer that it ‘helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought’. (Cf Romans 8:26)
All prayer is through, with and in Jesus Christ, Son of God and the world’s merciful Saviour. Praying the Jesus Prayer is about being caught up with all things, as well as yourself lifting up all things, into God’s merciful love. Just as in the Eucharist we offer Christ’s Sacrifice as well as our own since our life is hidden in him (Colossians 3:3b), when we pray the Jesus Prayer it is the whole Christ, head and members, offering the whole Christ for the glory of God and the transformation of the universe.
Prayer and Eucharist,
individual and Christian community, locality and cosmos, will and Holy Spirit
inspiration, past and future - all find a centre in the discipline and gift of
the Jesus Prayer.
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