"The Jesus prayer", should you pray it?

[The Liturgist]

From what we were told at the time I don't think there was any more to it than "a prayer short enough you could say it in one exhalation," not that you were supposed to actually say it in one exhalation or control your breathing in any way.

Ok. Still, it sounds close enough to hesychasm that as I see it, if one is going to take that approach, you might as well just go for Hesychasm, as it would be safer with that level of intensity (since one risk with breath prayers identified by the Hesychasts is them losing their semantic meaning; there is a famous story of a monk who thought he had attained the Unceasing Prayer of the Heart, but the other monks determined he had inadvertently fallen into prelest and what he was actually doing, according to St. Ambrose of Optina, was meowing like a cat. Письма преподобного Амвросия Оптинского. Оптина Пустынь (in an older Russian dialect I believe, but one can translate this into English; I suggest using ChatGPT because it is quite a bit better than Google Translate).

Since obviously we don’t want that, and since hesychasm is possible for laity, and is of spiritual benefit, I would just suggest pursuing it in fullness, since if the idea of breath prayers attracts you, and you liked The Way of the Pilgrim, just saying the Jesus Prayer, which anyone can do in complete safety, is probably not going to cut the mustard as far as your spiritual desire and potential.

By the way, I would love to PM with you some time, as I am very much interested in exploring Methodist Orthodoxy and the interesting history of the connection between John Wesley and the Eastern Orthodox. And while the current problems in the UMC make this harder, there are some Methodist churches such as Epworth Chapel on the Green in Boise, Idaho that are doing splendid liturgies along the lines of what St. John Wesley favored. I also have an icon of Saints John and Charles Wesley, who I venerate )unofficially). Interestingly the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia venerates as martyrs St. Jan Hus and St. Jerome of Prague, as it believes they were killed for basically trying to reintroduce practices that the locals had enjoyed before their forced conversion from Orthodoxy to the Roman Rite of Catholicism when Austria conquered Prague in the 1200s (you might recall in the 1200s, the Roman Church tried to Latinize the parishes in Constantinople when it was occupied by the Venetian Republic in the Fourth Crusade; it was not until the Union of Brest that gave rise to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that the first Eastern Catholic churches using the Byzantine Rite came into existence, and it became forbidden to convert Byzantine Rite communities that fell under the control of Catholic governments or which desired union with Rome, in either case thus becoming Roman Catholic to the Roman Rite or other Western Rite liturgies (including even the Galgolithic Mass, which remained in use in a region of what is now Croatia and Herzegovina). At any rate, they founded the Unitas Fratrum, of which only a small fragment survived, in exile in Germany, where it was heavily influenced by the Pietist Count von zinzendorf, but John Wesley was very positively influenced by them, in particular, his Aldersgate Experience occurred in a Moravian chapel in Aldersgate, although he found his time spent at the Moravian settlement in North America frustrating and I believe that prompted him to move away from pietism and from an excess of emotion in worship, which Zinzendorf had cultivated.

 

[The Liturgist]

Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
— John 13:10

We are not sinners if we are completely clean. We do need our feet washed, however. But not for justification.

The Jesus Prayer is not a prayer said expressly as a means of justification, although interestingly it is a portmanteau of two prayers from the Gospels which did have a salvific effect. Rather, it is a prayer for the mercy of God, which is something we can continually benefit from, in our secular as well as spiritual lives, since there are innumerable dangers that threaten us, but God is always willing to bless us, and also as a prayer it inculcates humility (consider that one function of prayer is to effect a change on the person making the prayer) and also consists of an apology to God for our continued sinning. It is not regarded as a substitute for initial conversion, Baptism, Chrismation or the Eucharist, which are in Orthodox soteriology the primary ways by which one obtains salvific grace through the action of the Holy Spirit, including justification through the salvific passion of Christ. Likewise the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that our salvation is predicated upon our willingness to forgive others, since if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us. Now, in Calvinism and Reformed theology, the belief, in contrast to Orthodoxy and other synergistic denominations, is that God has already decided who he will save, or at least that he knows who will pursue faith and thus be saved, but as I often argued when I was in a Reformed denomination, that does not excuse us from the continued pursuit of virtue, since if we were to act as though we had been certainly saved and there was nothing that could change this, and thus just sin and refuse to forgive people, this obviously would indicate we did not have a living faith, but a dead faith, according to the Epistle of James, and would be numbered among the reprobates.

Indeed Calvin, who viewed iconography as idolatry and thus as sinful, and likewise objected to the celebration of holy days* did so in as one of many acts he took, or rather persuaded the Geneva City Coucil to undertake (alas they sometimes did not listen to him, when, for example, against his wishes they burned Servetus at the stake rather than executing him in a more humane manner as Calvin had advocated, although I myself don’t think Servetus should have been executed at all and regard the whole episode as something of a blemish in Calvin’s career).

*Calvin’s iconoclasm and opposition to the keeping of Holy Days other than Sunday I regard as a major theological error on his part which was fortunately later rectified by most Reformed Christians with a few exceptions, like the Covenanting Reformed Presbyterian Church**, largely thanks to the principle of semper reformanda, which allowed for the implementation of the liturgical approach of the early Reformers like Boucher, Calvin, and so on in the Presbyterian Church which had historically resisted it in favor of books of church order that only provided generic instructions, as well as the implementation of the celebration of feast days, and a general upgrade of the liturgy to match the contemporary upgrades of Anglican and Lutheran liturgies, in the 19th century under Mercersburg Theology, Scoto-Catholicism and Reformed Catholicism, which we see reflected in the very excellent Devotional Services for Public Worship compiled by Rev. John Hunter of the King’s Weigh House in London, which continues to influence Congregationalist and other Protestant and Reformed liturgies even at present (it even provided the once nice aspect to the otherwise very unpleasantly liberal 1993 UCC Book of Worship, in the form of his much quoted communion service).

** I actually like the RPCNA and other Covenanters because of the beauty of their a capella exclusive psalmody, and I have a copy of the RPCNA’s Psalter, which I regard as useful for the congregational singing of the Psalms, which I believe should be done, even though I do not believe that the psalms should be sung exclusively, but should rather be accompanied by hymns and spiritual songs, the latter of which I interpret as consisting of the Evangelical Canticles and other Biblical canticles and choral anthems such as those by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Healey Willan, Herbert Howells, George Dyson, T. Tertius Noble, and other composers, including JS Bach, and also the metrical psalmodies of St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Jacob of Sarugh and certain other early church fathers, some of which are still sung in the Syriac churches, including the Assyrian Church of the East (who used, and I believe still use to some extent, despite moving away from Nestorianism, metrical homilies by Mar Narsai rather than St. Jacob of Sarugh, Mar Narsai being an actual Nestorian, whereas St. Jacob is Oriental Orthodox), the various Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions, and the Syriac Catholic and Malankara Catholic churches, and others of which were being sung in the Maronite Catholic Church at least until their disastrous liturgical reforms in imitation of the liturgical reform of the Roman Rite by the Concilium, the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969.

 

[Hammster]

The Jesus Prayer is not a prayer said expressly as a means of justification, although interestingly it is a portmanteau of two prayers from the Gospels which did have a salvific effect. Rather, it is a prayer for the mercy of God, which is something we can continually benefit from, in our secular as well as spiritual lives, since there are innumerable dangers that threaten us, but God is always willing to bless us, and also as a prayer it inculcates humility (consider that one function of prayer is to effect a change on the person making the prayer) and also consists of an apology to God for our continued sinning. It is not regarded as a substitute for initial conversion, Baptism, Chrismation or the Eucharist, which are in Orthodox soteriology the primary ways by which one obtains salvific grace through the action of the Holy Spirit, including justification through the salvific passion of Christ. Likewise the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that our salvation is predicated upon our willingness to forgive others, since if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us. Now, in Calvinism and Reformed theology, the belief, in contrast to Orthodoxy and other synergistic denominations, is that God has already decided who he will save, or at least that he knows who will pursue faith and thus be saved, but as I often argued when I was in a Reformed denomination, that does not excuse us from the continued pursuit of virtue, since if we were to act as though we had been certainly saved and there was nothing that could change this, and thus just sin and refuse to forgive people, this obviously would indicate we did not have a living faith, but a dead faith, according to the Epistle of James, and would be numbered among the reprobates.

Indeed Calvin, who viewed iconography as idolatry and thus as sinful, and likewise objected to the celebration of holy days* did so in as one of many acts he took, or rather persuaded the Geneva City Coucil to undertake (alas they sometimes did not listen to him, when, for example, against his wishes they burned Servetus at the stake rather than executing him in a more humane manner as Calvin had advocated, although I myself don’t think Servetus should have been executed at all and regard the whole episode as something of a blemish in Calvin’s career).

*Calvin’s iconoclasm and opposition to the keeping of Holy Days other than Sunday I regard as a major theological error on his part which was fortunately later rectified by most Reformed Christians with a few exceptions, like the Covenanting Reformed Presbyterian Church**, largely thanks to the principle of semper reformanda, which allowed for the implementation of the liturgical approach of the early Reformers like Boucher, Calvin, and so on in the Presbyterian Church which had historically resisted it in favor of books of church order that only provided generic instructions, as well as the implementation of the celebration of feast days, and a general upgrade of the liturgy to match the contemporary upgrades of Anglican and Lutheran liturgies, in the 19th century under Mercersburg Theology, Scoto-Catholicism and Reformed Catholicism, which we see reflected in the very excellent Devotional Services for Public Worship compiled by Rev. John Hunter of the King’s Weigh House in London, which continues to influence Congregationalist and other Protestant and Reformed liturgies even at present (it even provided the once nice aspect to the otherwise very unpleasantly liberal 1993 UCC Book of Worship, in the form of his much quoted communion service).

** I actually like the RPCNA and other Covenanters because of the beauty of their a capella exclusive psalmody, and I have a copy of the RPCNA’s Psalter, which I regard as useful for the congregational singing of the Psalms, which I believe should be done, even though I do not believe that the psalms should be sung exclusively, but should rather be accompanied by hymns and spiritual songs, the latter of which I interpret as consisting of the Evangelical Canticles and other Biblical canticles and choral anthems such as those by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Healey Willan, Herbert Howells, George Dyson, T. Tertius Noble, and other composers, including JS Bach, and also the metrical psalmodies of St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Jacob of Sarugh and certain other early church fathers, some of which are still sung in the Syriac churches, including the Assyrian Church of the East (who used, and I believe still use to some extent, despite moving away from Nestorianism, metrical homilies by Mar Narsai rather than St. Jacob of Sarugh, Mar Narsai being an actual Nestorian, whereas St. Jacob is Oriental Orthodox), the various Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions, and the Syriac Catholic and Malankara Catholic churches, and others of which were being sung in the Maronite Catholic Church at least until their disastrous liturgical reforms in imitation of the liturgical reform of the Roman Rite by the Concilium, the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969.

Um…okay.

 

[The Liturgist]

Um…okay.

Forgive me my friend, I do realize my reply was not exactly notable for its brevity or singular focus, to put it mildly, and I found your reply amusing. It’s a bit of a dangerous thing when the subject matter of our discussions manages to transect several of my areas of personal interest.

I suppose if we had gotten into passenger rail, urban transit systems or the history of the airline industry, especially some of the more glamorous ones like TWA or Braniff, I would still be typing away!

 

[Hammster]

Forgive me my friend, I do realize my reply was not exactly notable for its brevity or singular focus, to put it mildly, and I found your reply amusing. It’s a bit of a dangerous thing when the subject matter of our discussions manages to transect several of my areas of personal interest.

I suppose if we had gotten into passenger rail, urban transit systems or the history of the airline industry, especially some of the more glamorous ones like TWA or Braniff, I would still be typing away!

I get I here to have discussions. Trying to respond to treatises is cumbersome , which only lead to more cumbersome posts.

Brevity is my friend.

 

[HTacianas]

What are your thoughts of "the Jesus prayer"? It's a repetitive prayer. You repeat the words: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner". It can be done both in words and mind. Should you pray it, yes or no? Why, why not?

This is in fact the Jesus Prayer:

Mat 9:27 When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, “Son of David, have mercy on us!”

Mat 15:22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!

Mat 20:30 And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”

Mat 20:31 Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”

It comes also and primarily from the prayer of the tax collector at the temple:

Luk 18:13 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’

Jesus himself said of constant prayer:

Luk 18:5 ‘yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”

Paul said of continuous prayer:

1Th 5:17 pray without ceasing,

The Jesus Prayer is a plea for mercy, probably the only thing anyone should ask for oneself. And by our continual coming through prayer without ceasing God hears us and grants us what we pray for. The prayer should be said by everyone, but someone mentioned above Hesychasm. Hesychasm is not a thing anyone should attempt without a spiritual father to guide them. It can lead to insanity.

 

[zoidar]

This is in fact the Jesus Prayer:

Mat 9:27 When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, “Son of David, have mercy on us!”

Mat 15:22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!

Mat 20:30 And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”

Mat 20:31 Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”

It comes also and primarily from the prayer of the tax collector at the temple:

Luk 18:13 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’

Jesus himself said of constant prayer:

Luk 18:5 ‘yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”

Paul said of continuous prayer:

1Th 5:17 pray without ceasing,

The Jesus Prayer is a plea for mercy, probably the only thing anyone should ask for oneself. And by our continual coming through prayer without ceasing God hears us and grants us what we pray for. The prayer should be said by everyone, but someone mentioned above Hesychasm. Hesychasm is not a thing anyone should attempt without a spiritual father to guide them. It can lead to insanity.

This is the first time I have heard about Hesychasm. If it can lead to insanity I am concerned the whole idea is wrong. Prayer should always be a blessing, not something that can make you ill.

Btw, I sometimes pray my own version of the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners!" It feels less egocentric than "me".

 

[HTacianas]

This is the first time I have heard about Hesychasm. If it can lead to insanity I am concerned the whole idea is wrong. Prayer should always be a blessing, not something that can make you ill.

Btw, I sometimes pray my own version of the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners!" It feels less egocentric than "me".

The whole idea is not wrong. It is meditation.

Act 10:9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour.

Act 10:10 Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance

Act 10:11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.

We can read it in the Psalms:

Psa 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God;

To be still is to remain motionless in silence. That motionless silence can lead some to know God. But for a layman to attempt it without a spiritual father for guidance can lead to the wrong visions. Keep in mind that we live in a spiritual world. There are good spirits and there are bad spirits. And God is not merely a character in a book. He is alive and among us.

Jhn 14:21 ...And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

 

[zoidar]

The whole idea is not wrong. It is meditation.

Act 10:9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour.

Act 10:10 Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance

Act 10:11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.

We can read it in the Psalms:

Psa 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God;

To be still is to remain motionless in silence. That motionless silence can lead some to know God. But for a layman to attempt it without a spiritual father for guidance can lead to the wrong visions. Keep in mind that we live in a spiritual world. There are good spirits and there are bad spirits. And God is not merely a character in a book. He is alive and among us.

As much as I agree it's a spiritual world we live in and that God is alive and among us, I think there is a danger with meditations that are somewhat similar to the practice of Buddhist meditation. We are not to seek God within us, but to seek God outside of us.

Jhn 14:21 ...And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

 

[Mark Quayle]

There is always a need for more mercy.



Your argument has a major problem, in that according to it, the majority of Reformed Christians who regularly pray the Lord’s Prayer are in error, since this prayer requests the forgiveness of God, which is an act of mercy, and there is no scriptural indication it is only to be prayed one.

What is more a great many Calvinist churches use the prayer Lord Have Mercy in their liturgy, since Kyrie Eleison is the most common and ancient prayer next to the Lord’s Prayer and historically has been widely used in the original Greek, and a few languages have translated it, it being translated into East Syriac (but not West Syriac, where it remains in the Greek form and is often said following another Greek import “Stomen Kalos” so the result is “Stomenkaloskurie-eleison”, and in Church Slavonic “Gospodi Pomuli”, with the Copts also retaining the original Greek.

Not only that, but during my years in a Reformed denomination, the view was that we absolutely remain sinners, since we continue to sin, but that our regeneration by the Holy Spirit gives us hope of salvation.

I feel compelled to ask my Calvinist friends @bbbbbbb and @Mark Quayle to comment, as well as my Lutheran friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis since if I recall Lutheranism is somewhat monergistic.

For what it is worth, I consider myself Calvinistic —not so much Calvinist. I call myself, (at this point in my life), a monergist. But yes, I do defend Calvinism, (as well as I can), as it closely resembles what I believe.

"Sinners" and "continue to sin" are a bit iffy to me as terms for those who love the Lord, as in scripture we are told that the believer does not continue to sin. I don't mean that we never sin, but to say that we "continue to sin" can too easily be taken to mean, "we continue in sin." But in the end, God will judge, and only those he has chosen to begin with, will end up being his elect.

I'm not sure what you would like my comments on, as I haven't reviewed the thread, but the sound of this particular part of it —that there is no need to continue to ask for mercy or forgiveness— I am happy to comment on.

"God have mercy on me" is something I don't pray by rote, except in attendance to any congregation that does so by rote. I DO however, upon review of my life, ask for mercy many times a day, and forgiveness, according to 1 John 1:9, which shows, —though some "experts" deny the Greek indicates this— as one expert I would trust with my life says, that it could well be translated, "If we are confessing our sins, he is faithful and just to have already forgiven us our sins..." —the forgiveness contingent on the confessing, yet already completely accomplished at the cross.

 

[The Liturgist]

For what it is worth, I consider myself Calvinistic —not so much Calvinist. I call myself, (at this point in my life), a monergist. But yes, I do defend Calvinism, (as well as I can), as it closely resembles what I believe.

"Sinners" and "continue to sin" are a bit iffy to me as terms for those who love the Lord, as in scripture we are told that the believer does not continue to sin. I don't mean that we never sin, but to say that we "continue to sin" can too easily be taken to mean, "we continue in sin." But in the end, God will judge, and only those he has chosen to begin with, will end up being his elect.

I'm not sure what you would like my comments on, as I haven't reviewed the thread, but the sound of this particular part of it —that there is no need to continue to ask for mercy or forgiveness— I am happy to comment on.

"God have mercy on me" is something I don't pray by rote, except in attendance to any congregation that does so by rote. I DO however, upon review of my life, ask for mercy many times a day, and forgiveness, according to 1 John 1:9, which shows, —though some "experts" deny the Greek indicates this— as one expert I would trust with my life says, that it could well be translated, "If we are confessing our sins, he is faithful and just to have already forgiven us our sins..." —the forgiveness, contingent on the confessing, yet already completely accomplished at the cross.

Indeed, this seems consistent with the Reformed faith I was engaged in. The only difference would be that in your approach you are using the word sinner in the same way we used reprobate or unregenerate.

There is of course no longer a singular Calvinism, although there is the historic faith or John Calvin that can be constructed, but this has been supplanted by what one might call Calvinisms, that is to say, various forms of Reformed Theology building on his work and there are even non-Calvinist branches of Reformed Christianity, such as Zwinglianism which is popular among some Baptists whose theological approach is more like that of the Particular Baptists than the General Baptists. And I think also the neo-Orthodoxy of Karl Barth is sufficiently different from Calvin, being based on a newer and more detailed systematic theology documented in the ponderous Church Dogmatics (which is more expansive than even the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas) that gave much less weight to Patristics and Church Tradition than John Calvin’s systematic theology as expressed in his Institutes of the Christian Religion and in other writings and the praxis of the Reformed Church in Geneva.

The Orthodox famously dislike systematic theology, but we love dogmatic theology, as found in the Exact Exposition of tne Orthodox Faith, but of a larger work called The Fount of Knowledge (which includes a heresiological section that quotes the Panarion of St. Epiphanius), The Faith, by St. Epiphanius, which is attached to the Panarion, which in turn quotes St. Irenaeus who if I recall also wrote dogmatic theology; and also On The Incarnation by St. Athanasius. More recent works include the brilliant Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky of ROCOR, translated into English by Fr Seraphim Rose, and the somewhat more polemical The Teachings of the Orthodox Church by the Old Calendarist Fr. Michael Azkoul of HOCNA (this particular work, and indeed most things written by the Old Calendarists, I do not recommend, due to the extreme sectarianism of many of them and their contempt for the canonical Orthodox churches, or “world orthodox” as they call us), finally there are the classics The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, which along with Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, which is kind of an encyclopedic reference to the Eastern Orthodox faith, I highly recommend. Unfortunately there is not as much on Oriental Orthodoxy translated into English.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

There is always a need for more mercy.



Your argument has a major problem, in that according to it, the majority of Reformed Christians who regularly pray the Lord’s Prayer are in error, since this prayer requests the forgiveness of God, which is an act of mercy, and there is no scriptural indication it is only to be prayed one.

What is more a great many Calvinist churches use the prayer Lord Have Mercy in their liturgy, since Kyrie Eleison is the most common and ancient prayer next to the Lord’s Prayer and historically has been widely used in the original Greek, and a few languages have translated it, it being translated into East Syriac (but not West Syriac, where it remains in the Greek form and is often said following another Greek import “Stomen Kalos” so the result is “Stomenkaloskurie-eleison”, and in Church Slavonic “Gospodi Pomuli”, with the Copts also retaining the original Greek.

Not only that, but during my years in a Reformed denomination, the view was that we absolutely remain sinners, since we continue to sin, but that our regeneration by the Holy Spirit gives us hope of salvation.

I feel compelled to ask my Calvinist friends @bbbbbbb and @Mark Quayle to comment, as well as my Lutheran friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis since if I recall Lutheranism is somewhat monergistic.

No there’s not.

<SNIP>. But the publican went away…wait for it…justified.

While you state that we are all justified by faith (which indeed we are), sanctification is a life long process because as you posted elsewhere, we continue to sin.

I can not imagine how the idea that we have enough mercy, such is why God has not limited the means of grace; rather, we are admonished to read, learn and digest His Word, we are commanded to pray... Why pray? While God does not need our prayers, we need to pray for us. Pray, praise and give thanks; Pray without ceasing.

As long as we live, we will sin; as long as we continue to sin we need God's mercy; while we are justified, we are not fully sanctified until we are received into heaven with the rest of the faithful departed.

I need mercy, you need mercy, we all need mercy.

We are talking about the Jesus Prayer; here is another prayer from antiquity; the short litany from Evening Prayer; Lutheran Service Book:

Or the Grate Litany also from LSB

 

[FenderTL5]

Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
— John 13:10

We are not sinners if we are completely clean.

..wait for it:

We do need our feet washed, however..

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on us.

 

[The Liturgist]

We are not to seek God within us, but to seek God outside of us.

More precisely, we are to reject pantheism, the idea that God is everything and there is no distinction between creation and creator. Now for Christians, God the Holy Spirit is, to quote the beginning of the daily liturgical prayers of the Orthodox Church, He who is “everywhere present, and fllls all things.” Thus we are not seeking God in our own selves, but rather are seeking to develop our relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost through prayer to the Son, who sits on the right hand of the Father in Heaven, in the hopes that God will grant us Mercy, both through the indwelling Holy Spirit (who dwells within Christians who have been received into the Church), and through the ministrations of His angels.

And furthermore, the goal of Hesychasts is to see the uncreated light of Tabor, which the Holy Apostles Peter, James and John beheld at the Transfiguration of our Lord.

On the other hand, the Orthodox actively reject and warn against all other forms of meditation, such as those practiced by Buddhists, and the various forms of Hindu meditation, because not only are they based on errors of nontheism in the case of Buddhism and pantheism in the case of Hinduism, but also involve “putting the mind into neutral” to use a phrase from one great Orthodox writer, it may have been Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damick of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese. We regard this as as extremely dangerous (for this reason, we also oppose the use of marijuana and other psychedelic drugs such as LSD), because when the mind is in such an altered state, it becomes more vulnerable to demonic influences. It is considered imperative that Hesychasts maintain nepsis, (alertness or wakefulness, not to be confused with mindfulness, which is something else altogether, a dangerous Buddhist concept) by focusing on the actual meaning of the words, and not turning the prayer into a mantra to be chanted like in Hinduism and other heathen religions to have originated on the Indian subcontinent, such as Buddhism.*

We Orthodox also try to avoid using the visual imagination in prayer, and our iconography helps in this respect. The Roman Catholic approach to the rosary, in which one is encouraged to imagine the different mysteries, is considered dangerous; in Orthodoxy, we do also use the Hail Mary prayer, but when we do so, we focus on the words and do not use the visual imagination.**

*Transcendental Meditation is, for example, a dangerous cult, that involves the chanting of a mantra, and I suspect it has done David Lynch more harm than good (his films are beautiful works of art, but at times they lose their focus and can become confused on a narrative level, with the narrative structures of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive being extremely complex, and that of Season Three of Twin Peaks being outright inscrutable, more of an exposition on Lynch’s philosophy of the nature of reality than an actual narrative, despite the existence of a definite story written by his screenwriter and collaborator Mark Frost, but one which Lynch has deprecated as Frost’s interpretation, as opposed to a definite meaning of the story. Indeed Lynch is notoriously coy about what his films mean, and in the case of Inland Empire, he completely lost the plot, and his entire professional career has been under the influence of transcendental meditation, and given that he is both extremely creative and by all accounts a thoroughly decent guy, I cannot help but feel his work would have been more popular without sacrificing its artistic value had he not been ensnared by transcendental meditation, which causes one to lose Nepsis (wakefulness) even as it sells itself on the lie that life is a dream that it helps one wake up from.

**In fact the wording of the Eastern Orthodox version is very similiar to that of the Roman Catholic version, differing only slightly, because it was likely translated from Church Slavonic (it is most heavily used with the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov, where a lestovka (a leather or vinyl device that was traditionally used in the Russian and Ukrainian churches instead of the Prayer Rope, the prayer rope having a fixed number of knots and being a common, but entirely optional, accessory for praying the Jesus Prayer), with a fixed number of counters is used to repeatedly pray the Hail Mary (the Lestovka is also used in a different configuration the Russian Old Rite for counting the number of times one has said the Jesus Prayer, as well as the Kyrie Eleison, the Prayer of St. Ephraim during Lent, and certain other prayers.

The wording of the Syriac Orthodox version is English is the same as the Roman Catholic version; presumably the Syriac, Arabic and Malayalam are close enough that the use of shared vernacular translations is not viewed as a problem. In general the Syriac Orthodox seem more comfortable using Roman Catholic resources for ancilliary functions than the Eastern Orthodox, who understandably prefer to do things their own way. The same is also true of the Assyrian Church of the East, perhaps moreso, in that the Assyrian Church of the East uses vestments of almost entirely Western manufacture (and has done so since the 1890s, when High Church Anglican ladies associations began donating vestments for them due to the extreme poverty of the Assyrian people at the time), whereas the Syriac Orthodox make their own vestments, which are beautiful and colorful, at various firms in India.

 

[The Liturgist]

This is the first time I have heard about Hesychasm. If it can lead to insanity I am concerned the whole idea is wrong. Prayer should always be a blessing, not something that can make you ill.

Btw, I sometimes pray my own version of the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners!" It feels less egocentric than "me".

Hesychasm is not the same as saying the Jesus Prayer. It involves much more; it is a series of practices which include the breath prayers you mentioned.

I would say Hesychasm, when done properly, is infinitely safer than praying the Rosary or using the visual imagination in prayer, which most Christians do, unfortunately, and which is actually always dangerous and runs the risk of spiritual delusion. I myself in my childhood experienced prelest as a result of imagining God the Father as this elderly bearded man against the background of a blue sky with clouds, very stereotypical and actually based more on the Greco-Roman deities such as Zeus and Poseidon than on Christian theology; indeed in Orthodoxy we assert that no one has seen the Father at any time, and many Orthodox argue that the depiction of the Father in iconography is forbidden (this point is disputed, and there is also a workaround, which is based on the understanding that St. Isaiah the Prophet saw Jesus Christ as the Ancient of Days in his vision). And this prelest did cause me some distress. But alas, growing up Protestant, there was no one to warn me not to pray like that!

Christians do routinely develop mental health problems, and it seems likely that some of those mental health problems are the result of engaging in dangerous forms of prayer.

Among Orthodox monastics, it is extremely rare for a professed monastic (a stavrophore, who has made final vows of chastity, stability and so on) to lose their mind, and it has usually involved prelest, and it has in most cases been healed (novices on the other hand are frequently mentally ill, and this comes out during the discernment process, and unfortunately in some cases it makes them unsuitable for the monastic life, but in other cases it can be treated or a deliverance from it obtained, and there are a diverse range of mental illnesses and personality disorders).

The Orthodox Church is all about safety. And finally, just saying the Jesus Prayer by itself, without breath techniques or certain postures or other practices associated with Hesychasm is completely harmless, provided one pays attention to the words of the prayer and doesn’t mindlessly chant it as a mantra (this is by the a much greater danger with praying in tongues, which we regard as particularly unsafe) or visually imagine it. The way to do this is to not try to say it too fast, which is a common beginner mistake, which is why almost any books you read on the Jesus Prayer urge not saying it too fast. In particular, avoid trying to say it with the ridiculous speed some Church Slavonic or English cantors in churches of Slavonic heritage like most of the OCA, and ROCOR, and the UOCNA, intone “Lord have mercy” “Kyrie Eleison” or “Gospodi Pomuli.” That is done to get through the liturgy of the hours quickly, and I would argue is occasionally being done too quickly; I think the Coptic Orthodox do a better job, indeed, the best job, of any Eastern church, when it comes to chanting Kyrie Eleison, and do so congregationally as well. The only better examples are from the Gregorian Rite litanies at the beginning of the traditional Latin mass in the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, and some high church Anglican services, and also polyphonic settings of those liturgies by various Lutheran, Anglican and Roman Catholic composers, including JS Bach, who did five settings of the Latin Mass* (Humbert doing a particularly splendid job with his Mass in D Minor).

*Interestingly, the basic hymns of the Latin Mass are the same whether it is being celebrated by Lutherans or Roman Catholics; the main difference is in the much simpler prayers, for example, the omission of the Roman Canon by most Lutheran churches, although if I recall, the very high church Archbishop of Uppsala, the first prelate of the Church of Sweden, did retain a version of the Roman Canon In the Swedish liturgy in the 16th century. And I do feel that Martin Luther’s opposition to the Roman Canon was one of his theological mistakes.

 

[Hammster]

I need mercy, you need mercy, we all need mercy.

Do you need to ask for mercy in order to receive it?

 

[Hammster]

..wait for it:

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on us.

We already have mercy…wait for it…which is why we know He will was our feet.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Do you need to ask for mercy in order to receive it?

Yes we do. We have an example set forth in the Psalms; frequent requests for mercy in many forms such as help, strength, patience guidance, defense, protection. In the Lord's prayer we also ask for mercy in the form of provision for daily needs, forgiveness, mercy towards others, guidance away from temptation, and protection from evil. The whole thing is a plea for specific mercies, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself commanded us to do so.

Now, if you feel you don't need your share, feel free to ask that any surplus mercy be directed my way. I can always use what ever mercy our Lord wills to shower down on myself and my family and friends.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes we do. We have an example set forth in the Psalms; frequent requests for mercy in many forms such as help, strength, patience guidance, defense, protection. In the Lord's prayer we also ask for mercy in the form of provision for daily needs, forgiveness, mercy towards others, guidance away from temptation, and protection from evil. The whole thing is a plea for specific mercies, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself commanded us to do so.

Now, if you feel you don't need your share, feel free to ask that any surplus mercy be directed my way. I can always use what ever mercy our Lord wills to shower down on myself and my family and friends.

I think you are missing the point @Hammster is trying to make.

God gives mercy unrequested. Very much so, as shown in Christ's life and sacrifice, and in God's choice of those particular "objects of his mercy" (Romans 9:22-24), and, particularly, in his work of regeneration of those he chose, quite without regard to any intrinsic (nor earned) virtue.

 

[Hammster]

Yes we do. We have an example set forth in the Psalms; frequent requests for mercy in many forms such as help, strength, patience guidance, defense, protection. In the Lord's prayer we also ask for mercy in the form of provision for daily needs, forgiveness, mercy towards others, guidance away from temptation, and protection from evil. The whole thing is a plea for specific mercies, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself commanded us to do so.

Now, if you feel you don't need your share, feel free to ask that any surplus mercy be directed my way. I can always use what ever mercy our Lord wills to shower down on myself and my family and friends.

It looks like mercy is just a placeholder for other things.