The Jesus Prayer Part 19 - Contemplative Prayer

Col 4:2
Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

Eph 6:18
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

In this post I am going to write a little about contemplative prayer. The goal of contemplative prayer is to be aware of, focus on, and interact with, and draw closer to God in prayer. To quote a catechism entitled On the Law of God, "Contemplation of God is the description of the spiritual mood in which man intentionally introduces into, maintains in his conscience, the thought of God, of His highest properties, the matter of our salvation and of our eternal future, etc." Prayer is traditionally described as being done on three levels, the physical, the mental, and the heart.

We begin by physically saying the words that we offer up to God. We can start with the words the Lord Himself gave us in the Lord's prayer, the Psalms, or other hymns and prayers of the Church. We offer these words up to God because we know it is right to offer them up to God and that they express how we should relate to God.

We take the words that we are saying and focus on them and make them our own. They cease to be external words that we read and become our own words as they penetrate our mind and become our thoughts. This requires attention and perseverance as outside thoughts try to distract us from prayer. Being told that "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" and "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you", we know we can trust God to reward our struggles in prayer to draw closer to Him and become transformed by the renewing of our mind. In the words of Fr. Thomas Hopko...

When reading or chanting the psalms, the person does not try to think about each word and phrase. Rather he cuts off all reasoning, and opens his heart to the Lord, uniting “his mouth with his mind,” (St Benedict) and allowing the Word of God to be planted within him to blossom in his soul with the fruits of the Spirit. This also is the case with churchly hymnology. It is sung for the glory of God and the edification and expansion of the soul through the contemplation of the Lord in His words and works of salvation, much more than for any intellectual instruction.

The next level of prayer is to penetrate from the mind into the heart. In order to properly pray from the heart, we must have our heart right with God, as Christ said "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God". This means not just saying the words, but meaning them and following God in our daily lives as Christians. We are told that our treasure is where our heart is and that it is from the heart that our actions come, so part of having a positive relationship with God is to love Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as a reflection of our love for God based on the love that we have received from God. This has been expressed in writings like where On the Law of God says "Orthodoxy teaches us that the Christian faith is inseparably bound to love for God. And love always demands a living, personal relationship with the one we love. In our relationship with God, this love is first of all made manifest in prayer." and where These Truths We Hold - The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and Teachings, a book of teachings compiled by a monk at St Tikhon's Monastery, says that "Our prayers will gradually grow more perfect as we improve the manner of our lives and cleanse our hearts of sinful passion. This banishment of sinful ways from our lives brings as its reward our success in prayer. At the same time, we must say that prayer cannot achieve perfection in isolation, but must be accompanied by all the virtues, for as we grow in virtue, so does our prayer grow ever more perfect."

Repetition of the Jesus prayer, along with psalms, hymns, and other short prayers, has traditionally been used as an exercise in  focusing the mind and heart on God. We can reflect on the words themselves of the prayer, as I have done in some of my previous posts. We can take those words and make them our own, and we can put those words into action in our lives as we grow closer to God by keeping Him in constant remembrance in prayer. To quote Fr. Thomas Hopko again...

The use of the Jesus Prayer outside the hesychast method for unceasing prayer is to repeat the prayer constantly and continually, whatever one is doing, without the employment of any particular bodily postures or breathing techniques. This is the way taught by St. Gregory Palamas in his short discourse about how unceasing mental prayer is the duty of all Christians. (see p. 130) Anyone can do this, whatever his occupation or position in life. This also is shown in The Way of the Pilgrim.

The purpose and results of this method of prayer are those generally of all prayer: that men might be continually united with God by unceasing remembrance of His presence and perpetual invocation of His name, so that one might always serve Him and all men with the virtues of Christ and the fruits of the Spirit.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

The Jesus Prayer Part 18 - The Use of Prayer Ropes and Beads

Repetitions of the Jesus Prayer are commonly counted on knots or beads. Other prayers have also been counted in a similar manner throughout the centuries in eastern and western Christian traditions. It is because of this ancient prayer tradition that the word "bead" receives its etymology from the old english word for "prayer" and shares a common root with the english word "bid" (to ask) and the german word "bitte" (please). I'm going to briefly discuss the historical development of tools for counting prayers in this post.

It starts with the ancient Jewish practice of having specific hours set aside during the day for prayers. Christianity as early as the apostles themselves and their immediate disciples continued  this schedule of prayer as they carried it over into their own worship and it can be found to this day within the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, and some Reformed traditions. By the second century, rules of prayer were given as replacements for these prayer services for those who were unable to make it to church and were unable to pray the prayers on their own. These would normally be a number of repetitions of the Lord's Prayer. At the same time, Christian monasticism was forming and the monks would repeat and meditate on the Lord's Prayer, verses from the Psalms, other short prayers, or even just the name of Jesus as they would complete their daily tasks and during time set aside just for prayer.

It was within this early monastic tradition that tools were first used to keep track of the large numbers of prayers that the monks would commit themselves to. The earliest mention of this is of a monk named Paul of Thebes who would keep three hundred pebbles and drop them into a bag to keep count of his prayers. This practice developed into tieing knots in a piece of rope or carving notches into walking sticks that were easier to travel with. The use of ropes and beads grew in popularity and became the normal method for counting prayers.

In eastern Christian traditions, the Jesus Prayer became the normative prayer for contemplation. Ropes made of knotted wool are most common but strands of beads are also used. Prayer ropes can commonly be found with 33, 50, or 100 knots or beads. In the western Christian tradition, the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary became normative for contemplative prayer. The most common devotion that can be found in western Christianity today is the Rosary, even though a number of other devotions and chaplets have grown in the west out of this prayer tradition.

MAKE HASTE, O GOD, TO DELIVER ME; MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, O LORD.

The Jesus Prayer Part 17 - Repetition in the Scriptures

Luke 18:1
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

Eph 5:19-20
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

The Jesus prayer, whether it is recited while accomplishing another task or during time devoted solely to meditating on the name of Jesus, is often repeated multiple times. This post will look at a few places where repetition is mentioned in the scriptures.

In the Old Testament, the book of Leviticus calls for a cleansed leper to be sprinkled with water seven times and oil to be sprinkled seven times before the Lord. On the day of Atonement, a young bullock and a goat are sacrificed to the Lord. The blood of both were sprinkled seven times on the mercy seat and then again seven times on the altar. Joshua circled the city of Jericho once for six days straight and then seven times on the seventh day before the walls fell. Elisha advised Naaman to dip himself seven times in the river Jordan in order to be healed of his leprosy. When Solomon consecrated the Temple to the Lord, the children of Israel sang Psalm 136 with its frequent repetition of "for His mercy endureth forever", and then again after they saw the glory of the Lord fill the Temple. The hymn that the three youths in Daniel sang when they thrown in the furnace repeated the phrase "And sing a hymn to Him, And exult Him beyond measure unto the ages.".

In the New Testament, we find Jesus commanding a cleansed leper to "go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded" that I referenced above. During the agony in the garden, Matthew writes that Jesus prayed to the Father three times "saying the same words". It was through perseverence that the syrophenician woman was granted by Jesus that the devil be cast out of her daughter. In Revelation, we are given a vision of four beasts who, in their worship of the Lord, "rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy...". Jesus also tells a parable of a widow who wins the favor of a judge by repeatedly coming to the judge, and when giving the Lord's prayer in Luke tells a parable of a man who gives his neighbor a loaf of bread because of his persistence in asking. The Apostle Paul also commands us to pray "always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints" and to "Pray without ceasing".

Just as Christ taught the value of perseverence in prayer when teaching the Lord's prayer in Luke, He also gave a warning against "vain repetitions" when teaching the same prayer in Matthew. With the repetition that is commanded and used in both the Old and New Testaments, we can't understand this as an admonition against all repetition, so this must be understood as a warning against vanity in prayer. Prayer is not a magical formula where we simply mouth words and expect things to happen for us. Prayer is an encounter with the one to whom we are praying and must be done with faith in God and for His glory. This is why Christ condemned those who honored God with their lips and not their hearts.

Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.