Jesus Prayer continues

I've now been praying the Jesus Prayer for almost three weeks.  Here's how it's been so far.

At first I really sank into it.  I've been praying it solidly through our noon silent prayer, and then during the day when there is an open space or it came to me while doing something else.  Still not much, maybe 500 times a day.   But significant.  I'm doing it now.

So, at first I loved it.  I found the rhythm keeps running through me even when my mind wanders to other things, and I can come back to it without reproach or feeling that I failed.  In fact, it's much like centering prayer - or how I'd like to be in centering prayer, but am not!  I'm better off with a mantra of some sort.

Lately, though, I've had some trouble with it.  The world is in a shambles, and I'm praying for mercy for "me."  It feels very individualist, as though I can be saved while my community, my country, my world descend into darkness.  So sometimes I've prayed "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us."  But then I remember that my commitment is to do this, this way, for a month.  So I return.

As I write this, I think: asking for mercy for myself need not be an individualist or isolationist response.  I am part of the body of Christ, and I cannot receive the fullness of mercy while others are suffering.  So in praying for mercy for myself, I can indeed be praying for all those to whom I am bound by a common humanity.

The prayer can be individualistic.  If I see myself in isolation as I pray, if I see myself as separate from you, the prayer will lead me there.  But it doesn't have to.

Thanks for reading me in process, for helping me to see this.  If I didn't care about you I wouldn't be writing; and if I weren't writing, my prayer would be stuck.  So you are helping me pray!  I pray that your prayers will be answered as well.

"Show us your mercy, O God, and grant us your salvation" (Ps. 85)

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Lord have mercy!

This month the Companions are reading the Way of the Pilgrim, the Russian classic about the Jesus Prayer.  I've read it before, almost as a novel.  This time I decided to spend the month actually following instructions as well as I can, to see what happens.

The Jesus Prayer is one answer to Paul's admonition to "pray without ceasing."  The words sometimes vary.  The long form is, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  The Way of the Pilgrim shortens that to "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."  I know some people who shorten it even more, breathing in "Jesus" and breathing out "mercy."  The important thing is the name of Jesus, and the prayer for mercy.

I have preferred the long form, though I sometimes rebel against focusing on my sin.  Sometimes I've changed it to, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, thank you for my life."  But this month I'm trying to do it as the book says.  So I'm repeating, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."

In the book, the narrator's teacher tells him to start with 3000 repetitions a day.  Eventually he does 12,000, then he is free to just let it roll around and through him.  I'm not at 3000, and I don't really expect to get there, but I'm working on it.  My first day I was in retreat, and I managed about 500.  Since then I'm not always counting, so I can't be sure.  I've got a prayer rope, and a rosary, and a bead bracelet, so it's not that I can't count; it's that I'm praying it now, for example, while I write.  Hard to count.  I'm praying it during our noonday silent prayer, during walks, during silence, when I move from one room to another.  I'm praying it now.

The book promises joy and delight for those who pray this consistently.  I don't have a lot of experience to report yet, but I do have some glimmers.  This morning I prayed while I walked around the grounds of our land and the monastery next door, and I found myself filled with joy; but that might just be the walk in beauty.  I was reverting to the long form again, I noticed.  It seems to fit my walking and breathing rhythm.  But I'm trying to stick with the recommended version.

So I invite you to join me this month in this experiment.  Would you like to try the Jesus Prayer?  If it doesn't feed you, at least it won't harm you.  We have our reading meeting on November 3, I think.  That gives you three weeks.  I'd love to be able to share your thoughts when we meet.

However you pray, do it wholeheartedly and in the awareness of Christ preceding you into prayer.  Know that you are joined by me and millions at any moment.  Thank you for your faithful life.