The Prayer

Two blind men follow Jesus, “crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’” (Matt 9:27). And later they call him “Lord” (9:28). And Jesus opens their eyes. This is one of the scriptural roots of the Jesus Prayer.

Even those of us who can see with the eyes of the body are often spiritually blind. We do not know where we are going in life. We cannot see where God is in all of this. Note that the blind men were blind in body but that they could nonetheless follow Jesus from one place to another (Matt 9:27-28). Following Jesus set them on the right course. First, they followed. Then they could see. It is the same with us. If first we will follow Jesus (even for our whole earthly lives), then we will spiritually see.

Our vision of God’s presence in our lives will be 20/20 if we first live faithfully and then look back upon it. Perhaps we cannot always see where God is in our lives right now, but we know by faith that he is present and, if we follow him, he will give us eyes to see that he was with us all along. I have experienced this already in my own life. Most of the time, I know where God intends me to go only after I get there, like a blind man following him through the streets of the city.

But how can I begin or continue to follow Jesus if I am blind and do not see where he is? It would help then to call out to him, like the blind men do. I promise, it will help us just to call out his holy name – the name of Jesus. Let us pray the Jesus prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.

Can you hear how this is like the prayer of the blind men? “Have mercy on us, Son of David,” they pray. This is, as I say, one of the scriptural roots of the Jesus Prayer. There are also others:

• Another blind man sits outside of Jericho and similarly calls out to Jesus: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47; Luke 18:38; cf Matt 20:30–31).
• The publican (unlike the Pharisee in Jesus' parable) shows us how to pray when he bows his head, beats his breast, and says, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13).
• In a village between Samaria and Galilee, ten lepers stand at a distance, lift up their voices and say, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13).

From these examples, I think we can see that the prayer of Jesus has been with us from the very beginning of Christianity. From these scriptural roots, the prayer developed further.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers of Egypt would frequently repeat short and simple prayers like these – “arrow prayers” we sometimes call them because, as St. Augustine observed, “the brethren of Egypt offer prayers that are frequent but very brief and suddenly shot forth” – rather like arrows meant to pierce heaven.

Of these short prayers, St. Diadochus recommends we constantly repeat the utterly simple prayer, “Lord Jesus.” The frequent repetition of the divine name of Jesus serves as a constant reminder of his divine presence with us and helps us fulfill St. Paul’s instruction that we pray unceasingly (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

We are beset constantly by distracting thoughts and temptations, which threaten to remove remembrance of God from our minds and hearts. A short and simple prayer like this, that can be called upon at any moment and for any need, is a powerful tool against these thoughts and temptations. The prayer must be as constant as are the thoughts. It must be unceasing.

There are many ways to approach unceasing prayer. The Jesus Prayer is not the only way, but it is a great help and it may be the best way.

A benefit of constantly repeating this prayer is that it then enters into the unconsciousness and you begin to find it there behind the noise of life. It joins with your breathing and the beating of your heart – the rhythms of life itself – and helps us in this way to approach unceasing prayer and the constant remembrance of the presence of God.

Pray it at home and in church and in your car. Pray it a few times first thing in the morning and throughout the day as often as you can think of it and again before you go to bed. Pray the prayer while you do the dishes or the laundry. It was a great aid to my wife Pani Katie while she was in labor. There is no time when it is not a good time to pray the Jesus prayer.

Sit quietly and pray it slowly again and again for 5 minutes or for thirty minutes. Use a chotki or don’t use a chotki. A chotki can be a helpful aid – a physical reminder to persist with the prayer when we become distracted by intrusive thoughts and imaginings. If you don’t have a chotki, get one. Some have 33 knots - one for each year of Jesus’ earthly life, others have 100 , or others 300. On each knot, you pray the Jesus Prayer. Simple.

There’s more than one way to say the Jesus Prayer. The formula of the Jesus prayer as we know it now –

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner

– is good and was pretty well set already by the seventh century, but this is not to bind us and it’s not the only way. There’s no need to change it – all its elements are already there in the scriptural roots of the prayer, which I listed – but at the same time we may find other ways helpful.

We may want to pray as simply as St. Diadochus recommends: “Lord Jesus.” The holy name of Jesus itself is a saving cry.  It means “the Lord saves” or “the Lord is a cry for salvation”. Or, you can add to it, as do some of the nuns at our Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, saying “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” Or, we can simplify it a bit and pray “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” as do many of the monks on Mount Athos. Or, we may wish to pray for others as well as ourselves and so pray “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us” – in the plural. (In this case, I personally recommend that we omit the word “sinners” because, while we accuse ourselves of sin, I find it better not to accuse others of sin while we pray). All this is to say that there are many good ways of praying the Jesus prayer. Pray it whichever way you will pray it. The important thing is to pray it.

The Jesus Prayer is the central private prayer of our spiritual tradition. So much so that some simply call it “the prayer.” It is profound, versatile, and life-changing. This is due above all to the holy name of Jesus, which is the name above every other name (Philippians 2:9). St. Theophan the Recluse says “The Jesus Prayer is like any other prayer. It is stronger than all other prayers only in virtue of the all-powerful name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.” In his name and by his name, we find salvation. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

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Much information was provided by Kallistos Ware, “Foreword,” in On the Prayer of Jesus (Boston, Mass.: New Seeds, 2006)

Prayer in the Temple

The recent confluence of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and the Great Feast of the Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ with Simeon and Anna is rare. (I think it’s even cooler than the fact that it fell on the date of 02/02/2020, which is a palindrome to boot!) In any case, it struck me as an unusual and difficult challenge to try to say something about both of these very different themes. That is, until I read the gospels (Luke 18:10-14 & Luke 2:22-40). The gospels have a way of bringing everything together.

Jesus begins his parable saying, “Two men went up to the temple to pray” (Luke 18:10).

And Simeon, “inspired by the Spirit…, came into the temple” and there, when he met Jesus, he “blessed God” and prayed to the Lord (Luke 2:27-29).

And the prophetess Anna, “did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37).

You see the theme here? Here are four examples of prayer in the temple – three with something to teach us of how to pray in the temple and one with something to teach us of how not to.

But first of all, a question: What does praying in the temple have to do with us? Do we pray in the temple? Remember, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 23). Now, the temple is in Jerusalem, so to say that we’re no longer to worship the Father in Jerusalem but in the Spirit is to move our prayer away from the Jerusalem temple, isn’t it? So what does praying in the temple have to do with us?

It’s true that we no longer limit our spiritual sacrifice either to the place of the mountain, as the Samaritans do, or to the temple in Jerusalem, as the Jews did. But still we do go up to the temple to pray in the Spirit. Because the Word became flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, our bodies have become the temples of the Holy Spirit and the place that we worship God (John 1; 1 Cor 6:19). So, yes, we still go up to the temple to pray and, yes, we have much to learn about it from the gospels.

Now, the embodied temple is always with us, making possible the unceasing prayer to which we are called and which is modeled also for us especially by the prophetess Anna (1 Thess 5:17).  She “did not depart from the temple” (Luke 2:37). Now, all who are in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit never depart from the temple of our bodies. We are like Anna in this. Let us also be like her “with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37). Let us also imitate her devotion in coming to the place of prayer. She was always in the temple, let us come constantly to church.

The church, understand, is the gathering of God’s people together in worship of him. Gone is the place of the Jerusalem temple as the exclusive or preeminent place for that worship and prayer, but not gone is the gathering of the people of God. Where two or three of us gather in Jesus’ name, there he is in our midst! Contrariwise, if we do not gather in his name, he will not be in our midst. If we do not come often to the church, like Simeon and Anna went often to the temple, we will not be here to meet Jesus.

It was probably not a Sabbath when Simeon and Anna came to the temple that day. Simeon came to the temple that day not because it was his habitual time to come, but because he was inspired to do so by the Spirit (Luke 2:27). Let us like Simeon listen to the Spirit’s inspiration to come and gather and pray to the Lord here with our fellow believers, even if it’s not a Sunday or a holy day of so-called “obligation.” Come because the Spirit moves you to - which is not the same thing as coming when you feel like, but it’s also not the same things as coming because you think you have to. Come in the freedom of the Spirit. When you come in the Spirit, like Simeon, you will meet the Lord Jesus here and bless God his Father.

Come constantly like Anna. Because she was constantly in the temple, she was there to meet the Lord when he came. Let’s take advantage of any free time we have and offer that time to the Lord in prayer – more time to Lord and less to the endless distractions our culture has on offer. I’m preaching here also to myself. When you retire, or if you have already retired from a full-time schedule of work, consider whether some greater offering of your time belongs to the Lord. The truth is, it all belongs to the Lord. Anna understands this and so went constantly to the temple, not only on the Sabbath and Holy Days.

The Spirit descends upon us in our parish churches even on weekdays, you know. And that Spirit makes present to us the very Lord God Jesus Christ there even when it’s an ordinary day. Even when there really are only two or three of us. Even when all we do is gather in his name to pray. We don’t need to limit our participation to those days highlighted on our calendars. Are we more motivated to go to church by the colorful shading of the calendar date on our wall calendars from the Byzantine Seminary Press than we are by the presence there of Jesus Christ our God? Jesus is there waiting for us every day. Don’t you yearn to be there with him? Doesn’t your heart ache to return when you must stay away? Let’s stir up the fervor in our hearts by prayer and fasting night and day, like Anna.

Whenever we do go up to the temple to pray, spiritually speaking, whether it is in the church or alone in our prayer corners, let us do so with humility like the publican, and without judging others in any way. The publican can teach us how to pray: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Notice something else about the publican’s prayer: he does not mention the Pharisee at all. The Pharisee mentions the publican – saying, “God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican.” But the publican makes no comparison at all – not even in an inverse way. He does not say, “O Lord, this Pharisee is so much holier that I am,” or any such thing. Even that is a judgment we are not fit to make. The publican does not compare himself at all. Comparison to others may not be the best way, when it is time to pray. The publican says only and simply, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Humbling yourself is not the same thing as tearing yourself down or beating yourself up or demeaning yourself. Those things are an insult to the God who made you and made you his good image. Humility, rather, is truth. A recognition in the presence of the Lord of what we really are – his children made in his image – and what we have done. We are sinners, it is true – all of us – and if we acknowledge this in our prayer, crying out to God for mercy, he will justify us, as a father who longs to reunite with his child.

When we go up to pray in the temple, therefore, let our prayer be humble like the publican’s, constant like Anna’s, and filled with the Spirit like Simeon’s. In this way, we will encounter the Lord Jesus in our prayer and give thanks and praise to God his Father.