The Jesus Prayer
22 August 2000 14:46
The mailing of 16th August to this list contained a list of books about Orthodoxy which can be supplied worldwide. John McInnes has forwarded an extract from one of those books, ‘The Jesus Prayer’, and it is copied below.
However, before that extract, a message from Jesus to Vassula about this very prayer is copied also.
THE JESUS PRAYER (Message from Jesus to Vassula)
January 18, 1990
Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on us. Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on us.
I tell you if anyone prays this rosary (The Orthodox rosary) to Me, heaven will open to him and My Mercy shall save him. Make your peace with Me, make your peace with Me. Ask Me every day, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.”
Daughter, teach your brothers (The Catholics) this prayer, teach them to be in solitude and in silence while praying this rosary. Embellish My Church, daughter. Come, advance in purity of heart.
THE JESUS PRAYER, Per Olof Sjogren
There are many forms of wording of the Jesus Prayer. Probably the most common one is:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy upon me.
Sometimes, after ‘have mercy upon me’, ‘a sinner’ is added. Sometimes the words ‘Son of God’ are omitted.
There are also shorter forms of the prayer. It may be limited to the first part, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’, or again to the second, ‘have mercy upon me’, though in that case often with the opening word, ‘Lord’. In that form it appears in practically all Christian liturgies throughout the world.
‘Lord, have mercy upon us’, sometimes three times, sometimes nine times, or even, in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, forty times. The very simplest form of the Jesus prayer is simply the name ‘Jesus. But all these are to be regarded as variations of the longer form. And that is the one that will be dealt with here.
It consists of two sections:
1 Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
2 Have mercy upon me.
Of these two, it is the latter which is the older. It has been used as a prayer since long before the name of Christ was spoken on earth. It is an Old Testament prayer of great antiquity. To pray for mercy is to pray for loving-kindness. The Latin forms, miserere nobis, misericordia, convey the idea of tender-heartedness, a heart that is kind. It is this prayer that lies behind many of the prayers of the Israelites, a cry from the burning, fiery furnace, from the pressure of captivity in Egypt, from the long and painful wanderings through the desert, a cry to God that his heart might be open to them in their need, a cry directed to the heart of God.
It is important right from the beginning to stress that the prayer for mercy is not a prayer for certain gifts of grace from God, nor a prayer for forgiveness, for strength, for help in the changing fortunes of life, nor a prayer for any particular gift from God, but a cry to God himself, a prayer to his heart, implying: the man who is enfolded in the heart of God needs nothing more, as we find expressed in Psalm 73.25: Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee’, or in the words of a well-known hymn: ‘I nothing lack if am his, And he is mine for ever’. It is an additional advantage and benefit to be able to pray for everything needful, but praying for contact with the heart of God includes all kinds of prayer: confession of sin, thanksgiving, intercession, praise, petition.
The first part of the Jesus Prayer is its New Testament part. In its
form, it is a direct invocation, a call. Every prayer begins in this
way. In the Lord’s Prayer, it is the words ‘Our Father’ that form this
invocation. We find it in our various childhood prayers. Many
liturgical prayers begin with ‘Almighty and everlasting God’ or some
similar invocation. In the case of the Jesus Prayer, the interesting
thing is that it is not the Father who is addressed, but the Son.
The Old Testament search for the heart of God finds what it is looking for in Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Those who seek the Father find him in and through the Son. ‘No one comes to the Father, but by me’ (John 14.6). ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14.9). Jesus is the way to the Father, the doorway to the kingdom of heaven. It is evident in the New Testament that when people began to call to him for mercy they believed Jesus to be the Son of God. Bartimaeus, the blind beggar outside the city walls of Jericho, cried out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ (Mark 10.47).
The Canaanite woman up in the district of Tyre and Sidon cried, ‘Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, Son of David’ (Matt. 15.22). The ten lepers in the village on the way between Samaria and Galilee asked, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us’ (Luke 17.13). Here were the beginnings of the idea that prayer for fellowship with the heart of God was to be addressed to Jesus. So it was while Jesus was still walking this earth that the Jesus Prayer began to be prayed to him in this way.
At the same time, however, this cry for mercy is one of the most humble prayers ever uttered. It does not make great claims on God but is satisfied with even the smallest token of his love. This is apparent in the original Greek form. Kyrie eleison is a request for alms from God; our English word alms is actually derived from the Greek eleëmosunë, the noun form of eleison. Those who are praying do not want to make a selfish claim on the heart of God; they would be satisfied with just a crumb of God?s grace, an alms from The Most High.
