The “Jesus Prayer” is a spiritual practice associated with our desert mothers and fathers of the 5th century. I tried it out this week, following instructions given by Rishi Sativihari.
“Find a quiet, relaxing place where you will not be disturbed for five minutes. Select two five minute time slots, one in the morning and one in the evening. Then, for one full week, once in the morning and once in the evening, repeat the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, A Sinner”), again and again, for a full five minutes. At the end of each five minute prayer session, write a brief journal entry describing how you felt and what thoughts, if any, came to mind as you were saying the Jesus Prayer.”
Once I got over my hangups around words like “sin” and “sinner” and acknowledged my constant need for healing and meaning, the prayer started to take on a life of its own.
