St. Ig­naty Bri­an­chani­nov

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sin­ner"

The cor­rect prac­tice of the Jesus Prayer pro­ceeds nat­u­rally from cor­rect no­tions about God, about the most holy name of the Lord Jesus, and about man's re­la­tion­ship to God.

God is an in­fi­nitely great and all-per­fect being. God is the Cre­ator and Re­newer of men, Sov­er­eign Mas­ter over men, an­gels, demons and all cre­ated things, both vis­i­ble and in­vis­i­ble. Such a no­tion of God teaches us that we ought to stand prayer­fully be­fore Him in deep­est rev­er­ence and in great fear and dread, di­rect­ing to­ward Him all our at­ten­tion, con­cen­trat­ing in our at­ten­tion all the pow­ers of the rea­son, heart, and soul, and re­ject­ing dis­trac­tions and vain imag­in­ings, whereby we di­min­ish alert­ness and rev­er­ence, and vi­o­late the cor­rect man­ner of stand­ing be­fore God, as re­quired by His majesty (Ин. 4:23-24; Мф. 22:37; Мк. 12:29-30; Лк. 10:27). St. Isaac the Syr­ian put it mar­velously: "When you turn to God in prayer, be in your thoughts as an ant, as a ser­pent of the earth, like a worm, like a stut­ter­ing child. Do not speak to Him some­thing philo­soph­i­cal or high-sound­ing, but ap­proach Him with a child's at­ti­tude". Those who have ac­quired gen­uine prayer ex­pe­ri­ence an in­ef­fa­ble poverty of the spirit when they stand be­fore the Lord, glo­rify and praise Him, con­fess to Him, or pre­sent to Him their en­treaties. They feel as if they had turned to noth­ing, as if they did not exist. That is nat­ural. For when he who is in prayer ex­pe­ri­ences the full­ness of the di­vine pres­ence, of Life It­self, of Life abun­dant and un­fath­omable, then his own life strikes him as a tiny drop in com­par­i­son to the bound­less ocean. That is what the right­eous and long-suf­fer­ing Job felt as he at­tained the height of spir­i­tual per­fec­tion. He felt him­self to be dust and ashes; he felt that he was melt­ing and van­ish­ing as does snow when struck by the sun's burn­ing rays (Иов. 42:6).

The name of our Lord Jesus Christ is a di­vine name. The power and ef­fect of that name are di­vine, om­nipo­tent and salvific, and tran­scend our abil­ity to com­pre­hend it. With faith there­fore, with con­fi­dence and sin­cer­ity, and with great piety and fear ought we to pro­ceed to the doing of the great work which God has en­trusted to us: to train our­selves in prayer by using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. "The in­ces­sant in­vo­ca­tion of God's name", says Barsanuphius the Great, "is a med­i­cine which mor­ti­fies not just the pas­sions, but even their in­flu­ence. Just as the physi­cian puts med­ica­tions or dress­ings on a wound that it might be healed, with­out the pa­tient even know­ing the man­ner of their op­er­a­tion, so also the name of God, when we in­voke it, mor­ti­fies all pas­sions, though we do not know how that hap­pens" (421st An­swer).

Our or­di­nary con­di­tion, the con­di­tion of all mankind, is one of fal­l­en­ness, of spir­i­tual de­cep­tion, of perdi­tion. Ap­pre­hend­ing - and to the de­gree that we ap­pre­hend, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing - that con­di­tion, let us cry out from it in prayer, let us cry in spir­i­tual hu­mil­ity, let us cry with wails and sighs, let us cry for clemency! Let us turn away from all spir­i­tual grat­i­fi­ca­tions, let us re­nounce all lofty states of prayer of which we are un­wor­thy and in­ca­pable! It is im­pos­si­ble "to sing the Lord's song in a strange land" (Пс. 136:5), in a heart held cap­tive by pas­sions. Should we hear an in­vi­ta­tion to sing, we can know surely that it em­anates "from them that have taken us cap­tive" (Пс. 136:3). "By the wa­ters of Baby­lon" tears alone are pos­si­ble and nec­es­sary (Пс. 136:1).

This is the gen­eral rule for prac­tic­ing the Jesus Prayer, de­rived from the Sa­cred Scrip­tures and the works of the Holy Fa­thers, and from cer­tain con­ver­sa­tions with gen­uine men of prayer. Of the par­tic­u­lar rules, es­pe­cially for novices, I deem the fol­low­ing wor­thy of men­tion.

St. John of the Lad­der coun­sels that the mind should be locked into the words of the prayer and should be forced back each time it de­parts from it (Step 28, ch. 17). Such a mech­a­nism of prayer is re­mark­ably help­ful and suit­able. When the mind, in its own man­ner, ac­quires at­ten­tive­ness, then the heart will join it with its own of­fer­ing - com­punc­tion. The heart will em­pathize with the mind by means of com­punc­tion, and the prayer will be said by the mind and heart to­gether. The words of the prayer ought to be said with­out the feast hurry. even lin­ger­ing, so that the mind can lock it­self into each word. St. John of the Lad­der con­soles and in­structs the coeno­bitic brethren who busy them­selves about monas­tic obe­di­ences and en­cour­ages them thus to per­se­vere in prayer­ful as­ceti­cism: "From those monks who are en­gaged in per­form­ing obe­di­ences", he writes, "God does not ex­pect a pure and undis­tracted prayer. De­spair not should inat­ten­tion come over you! Be of cheer­ful spirit and con­stantly com­pel your mind to re­turn to it­self! For the an­gels alone are not sub­ject to any dis­trac­tion" (Step 4, ch. 93). Being en­slaved by pas­sions, let us per­se­vere in pray­ing to the Lord: for all those who have reached the state of pas­sion­less­ness did so with the help of such in­domitable prayer. If, there­fore, you tire­lessly train your mind never to stray from the words of the prayer, it will be there even at meal­time. A great cham­pion of per­fect prayer has said: "I had rather speak five words with my un­der­stand­ing... than ten thou­sand words in an un­known tongue" (1Кор. 14:19). Such prayer, that is, the grace-given prayer of the mind in the heart, which shuns imag­in­ings, "is not char­ac­ter­is­tic of chil­dren; where­fore we who are like chil­dren, being con­cerned with the per­fec­tion of our prayer", that is, the at­ten­tive­ness which is ac­quired by lock­ing the mind into the words of the prayer, "must pray a great deal. Quan­tity is the cause of qual­ity. The Lord gives pure prayer to him who, es­chew­ing lazi­ness, prays much and reg­u­larly in his own man­ner, even if it is marred by inat­ten­tion" (Step 28, ch. 21).

Novices need more time in order to train them­selves in prayer. It is im­pos­si­ble to reach this supreme virtue shortly after en­ter­ing the monastery or fol­low­ing the first few steps in as­ceti­cism. As­ceti­cism needs both time and grad­ual progress, so that the as­cetic can ma­ture for prayer in every re­spect. In order that a flower might bloom or the fruit grow on a tree, the tree must first be planted and left to de­velop; thus also does prayer grow out of the soil of other virtues and nowhere else. The monk will not quickly gain mas­tery of his mind, nor will he in a short time ac­cus­tom it to abide in the words of the prayer as if en­closed in a prison. Pulled hither and thither by its ac­quired predilec­tions, im­pres­sions, mem­o­ries and wor­ries, the novice's mind con­stantly breaks its salvific chains and strays from the nar­row to the wide path. It prefers to wan­der freely, to stroll in the re­gions of false­hood in as­so­ci­a­tion with the fallen spir­its, to stray aim­lessly and mind­lessly over great ex­panses, though this be dam­ag­ing to him and cause him great loss. The pas­sions, those moral in­fir­mi­ties of human na­ture, are the prin­ci­pal cause of inat­ten­tive­ness and ab­sent­mind­ed­ness in prayer. The more they are weak­ened in a man, the less is he dis­tracted in spirit when pray­ing. The pas­sions are brought under con­trol and mor­ti­fied lit­tle by lit­tle by means of the obe­di­ence, as well as by self-re­proach and hu­mil­ity - these are the virtues upon which suc­cess­ful prayer is built. Con­cen­tra­tion, which is ac­ces­si­ble to man, is granted by God in good time to every strug­gler in piety and as­ceti­cism who by per­sis­tence and ardor proves the sin­cer­ity of his de­sire to ac­quire prayer.

The Russ­ian hi­eromonk Dorotheus, a great in­struc­tor in spir­i­tual as­ceti­cism, who was in this re­spect very much like St. Isaac the Syr­ian, coun­sels those who are learn­ing the Jesus Prayer to re­cite it aloud at first. The vocal prayer, he says, will of it­self turn into the men­tal.

"Men­tal prayer", he con­tin­ues, "is the re­sult of much vocal prayer, and men­tal prayer leads to the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer should not be said in a loud voice but qui­etly, just au­di­bly enough that you can hear your­self". It is par­tic­u­larly ben­e­fi­cial to prac­tice the Jesus Prayer aloud when as­sailed by dis­trac­tion, grief, spir­i­tual de­spon­dency and lazi­ness. The vocal Jesus Prayer grad­u­ally awak­ens the soul from the deep moral slum­ber into which grief and spir­i­tual de­spair are wont to thrust it. It is also par­tic­u­larly ben­e­fi­cial to prac­tice the Jesus Prayer aloud when at­tacked by im­ages, ap­petites of the flesh, and anger; when their in­flu­ence causes the blood to boil. It should be prac­ticed when peace and tran­quil­lity van­ish from the heart, and the mind hes­i­tates, be­comes weak, and - so to speak - goes into up­heaval be­cause of the mul­ti­tude of un­nec­es­sary thoughts and im­ages. The ma­li­cious princes of the air, whose pres­ence is hid­den to phys­i­cal sight but who are felt by the soul through their in­flu­ences upon it, hear­ing as they mount their at­tack the name of the Lord Jesus - which they dread - will be­come un­de­cided and con­fused, and will take fright and with­draw im­me­di­ately from the soul. The method of prayer which the hi­eromonk sug­gests is very sim­ple and easy. It should be com­bined with the method of St. John of the Lad­der: the Jesus Prayer should be re­cited loud enough that you can hear your­self, with­out any hurry, and by lock­ing the mind into the words of the prayer. This last, the hi­eromonk en­joins upon all who pray by Jesus' name.

The method of prayer pro­pounded by St. John of the Lad­der should be ad­hered to even when one is prac­tic­ing the method which was ex­plained by the di­vine St. Nilus of Sora, in the sec­ond homily of his monas­tic con­sti­tu­tion. The di­vine Nilus bor­rowed his method from the Greek Fa­thers, Symeon the New The­olo­gian and Gre­gory of Sinai, and sim­pli­fied it some­what. Here is what St. Nilus says: "Ex­pe­ri­ence will soon con­firm as cor­rect and very ben­e­fi­cial for men­tal con­cen­tra­tion the rec­om­men­da­tion of these holy fa­thers re­gard­ing re­straint in breath­ing, i.e. that one should not breathe with great fre­quency". Some, with­out un­der­stand­ing this method, ex­ag­ger­ate its im­por­tance and re­strain their breath be­yond rea­son­able mea­sure, thereby in­jur­ing their lungs and at the same time in­flict­ing harm upon their souls by as­sent­ing to such a mis­take. All im­pul­sive and ex­treme ac­tions are but ob­sta­cles to suc­cess in prayer, which de­vel­ops only when nur­tured by the tran­quil, quiet and pious dis­po­si­tion of both soul and body. "What­ever is im­mod­er­ate comes from the demons", says St. Pimen the Great.

The novice who is study­ing the Jesus Prayer will ad­vance greatly by ob­serv­ing a daily rule com­pris­ing a cer­tain num­ber of full pros­tra­tions and bows from the waist, de­pend­ing upon the strength of each in­di­vid­ual. These are all to be per­formed with­out any hurry, with a re­pen­tant feel­ing in the soul and with the Jesus Prayer on the lips dur­ing each pros­tra­tion. An ex­am­ple of such prayer may be seen in the "Homily on Faith" by St. Symeon the New The­olo­gian. De­scrib­ing the daily evening prayers of the blessed youth George, St. Symeon says: "He imag­ined that he was stand­ing be­fore the Lord Him­self and pros­trat­ing him­self be­fore His holy feet, and he tear­fully im­plored the Lord to have mercy upon him. While pray­ing, he stood mo­tion­less like a pil­lar and bade his feet and the other parts of his body to stay still, es­pe­cially the eyes, which were re­strained from mov­ing cu­ri­ously in all di­rec­tions. He stood with great fear and trep­i­da­tion and de­nied him­self sleep, de­spon­dency and lazi­ness". Twelve pros­tra­tions suf­fice in the be­gin­ning. De­pend­ing upon one's strength, abil­ity and cir­cum­stances, that num­ber can be con­stantly in­creased. But when the num­ber of pros­tra­tions in­creases, one should be care­ful to pre­serve the qual­ity of one's prayer, so that one not be car­ried away by a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the phys­i­cal into fruit­less, and even harm­ful, quan­tity. The bows warm up the body and some­what ex­haust it, and this con­di­tion fa­cil­i­tates at­ten­tion and com­punc­tion. But let us be watch­ful, very watch­ful, lest the state pass into a bod­ily pre­oc­cu­pa­tion which is for­eign to spir­i­tual sen­ti­ments and re­calls our fallen na­ture! Quan­tity, use­ful as it is when ac­com­pa­nied by the proper frame of mind and the proper ob­jec­tive, can be just as harm­ful when it leads to a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the phys­i­cal. The lat­ter is rec­og­nized by its fruits which also dis­tin­guish it from spir­i­tual ardor. The fruits of phys­i­cal pre­oc­cu­pa­tion are con­ceit, self-as­sur­ance, in­tel­lec­tual ar­ro­gance: in a word, pride in its var­i­ous forms, all of which are easy prey to spir­i­tual de­cep­tion. The fruits of spir­i­tual ardor are re­pen­tance, hu­mil­ity, weep­ing and tears. The rule of pros­tra­tions is best ob­served be­fore going to sleep: then, after the cares of the day have passed, it can be prac­ticed longer and with greater con­cen­tra­tion. But in the morn­ing and dur­ing the day it is also use­ful, es­pe­cially for the young' to prac­tice pros­tra­tions mod­er­ately - from twelve to twenty bows. Pros­tra­tions stim­u­late a prayer­ful state of the mind and mor­tify the body as well as sup­port and strengthen fer­vor in prayer.

These sug­ges­tions are, I be­lieve, suf­fi­cient for the be­gin­ner who is eager to ac­quire the Jesus Prayer. "Prayer", said the di­vine St. Meletius the Con­fes­sor, "needs no teacher. It re­quires dili­gence, ef­fort and per­sonal ardor, and then God will be its teacher". The Holy Fa­thers, who have writ­ten many works on prayer in order to im­part cor­rect no­tions and faith­ful guid­ance to those de­sir­ing to prac­tice it, pro­pose and de­cree that one must en­gage in it ac­tively in order to gain ex­pe­ri­en­tial knowl­edge, with­out which ver­bal in­struc­tion, though de­rived from ex­pe­ri­ence, is dead, opaque, in­com­pre­hen­si­ble and to­tally in­ad­e­quate. Con­versely, he who is care­fully prac­tic­ing prayer and who is al­ready ad­vanced in it, should refer often to the writ­ings of the Holy Fa­thers about prayer in order to check and prop­erly di­rect him­self, re­mem­ber­ing that even the great Paul, though pos­sess­ing the high­est of all tes­ti­monies for his Gospel - that of the Holy Spirit - nev­er­the­less went to Jerusalem where he com­mu­ni­cated to the apos­tles who had gath­ered there the Gospel that he preached to the gen­tiles, "lest by any means", as he said, "I should run, or had run, in vain" (Гал. 2:2).