One of the most “compact” and most effective appeals to the Lord is the Jesus Prayer, which is only a sentence long. It contains an appeal to the Son of God by name and a request for mercy, that is, for protection and help. A sentence that is easy to remember, but not very easy to repeat daily… Employment, this is our eternal employment, which becomes a huge gulf between God and man! And, mind you, it's not God's fault.
Meanwhile, this prayer phrase contains everything: our confidence, our peace of mind, our happy future. All the blessings that everyone strives for fit into a short prayer. And they are fulfilled, provided that the Jesus Prayer is read correctly.
Text and meaning of the prayer
The Holy Fathers call it a revelation, a confession of faith and a vow. Despite its brevity, the Orthodox Jesus Prayer is very capacious in content, and allows each person who prays to put their own meaning into it.
Saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!”, everyone means the pardon that he needs at the moment. Someone prays for a good day, someone - abouthe alth, someone - about loved ones, someone - about the world, someone - about daily bread. And everyone finds an answer in it - if not today, then in a week, in a year, but it will definitely come if a person has put a lot of soul into prayer work.
Cleansing hearts and giver of divine gifts - this is how this miraculous prayer is characterized.
Where and how to address Jesus
God hears us everywhere and always. There is no such day or time of day when He would refuse his children attention. In order for us to be constantly “in touch”, He gave Christians convenient short prayers. How to pray the Jesus Prayer? As in other prayer appeals, the main instrument is the soul.
God hears sincerity, God responds to love. Indulging in prayer, you need to forget about yourself for a while and love Jesus for sacrifice, for the salvation of the human race, and simply - without conventions - for what He is. And remember that the Son of God, ascending Calvary, did not require special vows from people, did not even force or ask to change unsightly traits of character. Just going to die out of love for who we are.
Doing the Jesus Prayer is allowed anywhere and under any circumstances: at home, at work, on the way anywhere. You can pray while sitting, you can stand, you can do some physical activity (cooking dinner or watering flowers). The main thing is that thoughts should be focused on turning to Jesus Christ, and extraneous fantasies should not interfere with prayer.
Under God's protection
In some regions of Ukraine, the main greeting for several centuries has been the phrase "Glory to Jesus!". By pronouncing it, a person testifies to his respect and faith in the Son of God and wishes the Lord's protection to the one to whom the greeting is addressed.
The protective effect that the Jesus Prayer gives is practically unlimited. After all, pronouncing the name of the Son of God, a person claims that Jesus is the Lord, and calling Him for help, we recognize that God is the center of the Universe, we receive support from Him, that ray of light that every soul needs.
Priests advise, before reading the Jesus Prayer, to repent and start reading with a pure, free heart, ready to contain the Divine power with which it will be filled as it reunites with the Lord.
And one more thing: the Jesus Prayer is able to cleanse from sins, it is only after "have mercy on me" to admit oneself a sinner and add: "judgmental, envious, proud", etc.
How many times to say the Jesus Prayer?
In principle, church canons allow the restriction of the repetition of the Jesus Prayer to a certain number. But what exactly? How to pray the Jesus Prayer and how many times? Everyone determines this for himself: during the pronunciation of the prayer word, you must listen to yourself. When calmness, joy spreads in the soul, everything petty and unsightly dissolves, it means that the appeal to the Son of God has worked.
One needs ten times to achieve this statecreations of prayer, and to others - and hundreds are few.
In order not to be distracted by the calculations and at the same time not to stray from the number, you can use a rosary during the pronunciation of the Jesus Prayer.
What is smart prayer?
In Christianity, smart doing is understood as the maximum concentration of attention and spiritual forces aimed at contemplating God in one's own heart.
For any prayer, even uttered not in bookish, but in your own words, smart doing is very important. The priests always remind about the Jesus Prayer, teaching the parishioners how to pray mentally: it makes it possible to concentrate on the limit of one's strength. With its prolonged pronunciation, the prayer rises one spiritual step, and more understanding of God opens in his mind and heart.
The Clever Jesus Prayer opens up great opportunities in the spiritual world, guiding a person along the path that will bring him only good. But everyone who wants to immediately begin to say this prayer should know: prayer is a feat that must be performed with a pure heart and good thoughts. Otherwise, if there is prayer on the lips, and hatred in the soul, there will be no sense from it, there will be another disappointment, which is already enough in life.
Therefore, priests recommend confessing, taking communion, repenting and, if possible, forgiving all offenders before reading the Jesus Prayer.
The action of prayer
As Metropolitan Anthony said, the Jesus Prayer makes being strong, since focusing on the name of Christ is capable ofgather all the strength of the spiritual, mental and bodily, allowing a person to be more courageous and confident in actions and more likely to achieve their goals.
When a person is without support from above, his nature is very fragmented, he cannot gather himself and, finally, realize all his plans, rushes about, searches, cannot find, cannot believe, and therefore suffers. The Jesus Prayer restores the integrity of the weak human nature.
- Heals the body and helps to improve mental balance.
- Thanks to her, a person can resume control over thoughts and emotions, streamline the sensual sphere of life.
- Prayer takes possession of the entire human being and begins to positively influence all areas of life: the divine light penetrates both the spiritual and the material levels. A person begins to feel obvious help and support in everything.
