Kallis­tos (Ware) Bishop of Diok­leia

The In­vo­ca­tion of the Name is a prayer of the ut­most sim­plic­ity, ac­ces­si­ble to every Chris­t­ian, but it leads at the same time to the deep­est mys­ter­ies of con­tem­pla­tion. Any­one propos­ing to say the Jesus Prayer for lengthy pe­ri­ods of time each day - and, still more, any­one in­tend­ing to use the breath­ing con­trol and other phys­i­cal ex­er­cises in con­junc­tion with the Prayer - un­doubt­edly stands in need of a starets, of an ex­pe­ri­enced spir­i­tual guide. Such guides are ex­tremely rare in our day. But those who have no per­sonal con­tact with a starets may still prac­tise the Prayer with­out any fear, so long as they do so only for lim­ited pe­ri­ods - ini­tially, for no more than ten or fif­teen min­utes at a time - and so long as they make no at­tempt to in­ter­fere with the body’s nat­ural rhythms.

No spe­cial­ized knowl­edge or train­ing is re­quired be­fore com­menc­ing the Jesus Prayer. To the be­gin­ner it is suf­fi­cient to say: Sim­ply begin. "In order to walk one must take a first step; in order to swim one must throw one­self into the water. It is the same with the In­vo­ca­tion of the Name. Begin to pro­nounce it with ado­ra­tion and love. Cling to it. Re­peat it. Do not think that you are in­vok­ing the Name; think only of Jesus him­self. Say his Name slowly, softly and qui­etly".

The out­ward form of the prayer is eas­ily learnt. Ba­si­cally it con­sists of the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me". There is, how­ever, no strict uni­for­mity. We can say "...have mercy on us", in­stead of "on me". The ver­bal for­mula can be short­ened: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me", or "Lord Jesus", or even "Jesus" alone, al­though this last is less com­mon. Al­ter­na­tively, the form of words may be ex­panded by adding "a sin­ner" at the end, thus un­der­lin­ing the pen­i­ten­tial as­pect. We can say, re­call­ing Peter’s con­fes­sion on the road to Cae­sarea Philippi, "...Son of the liv­ing God...". Some­times an in­vo­ca­tion of the Mother of God or the saints is in­serted. The one es­sen­tial and un­vary­ing el­e­ment is the in­clu­sion of the di­vine Name "Jesus". Each is free to dis­cover through per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence the par­tic­u­lar form of words which an­swers most closely to his or her needs. The pre­cise for­mula em­ployed can of course be var­ied from time to time, so long as this is not done too often: for, as St. Gre­gory of Sinai warns, "Trees which are re­peat­edly trans­planted do not grow roots".

There is a sim­i­lar flex­i­bil­ity as re­gards the out­ward cir­cum­stances in which the Prayer is re­cited. Two ways of using the Prayer can be dis­tin­guished, the "free" and the "for­mal". By the "free" use is meant the recita­tion of the Prayer as we are en­gaged in our usual ac­tiv­i­ties through­out the day. It may be said, once or many times, in the scat­tered mo­ments which oth­er­wise would be spir­i­tu­ally wasted: when oc­cu­pied with some fa­mil­iar and semi-au­to­matic task, such as dress­ing, wash­ing up, mend­ing socks, or dig­ging in the gar­den; when walk­ing or dri­ving, when wait­ing in a bus queue or a traf­fic jam; in a mo­ment of quiet be­fore some es­pe­cially painful or dif­fi­cult in­ter­view; when un­able to sleep, or be­fore we have gained full con­scious­ness on wak­ing. Part of the dis­tinc­tive value of the Jesus Prayer lies pre­cisely in the fact that, be­cause of its rad­i­cal sim­plic­ity, it can be prayed in con­di­tions of dis­trac­tion when more com­plex forms of prayer are im­pos­si­ble. It is es­pe­cially help­ful in mo­ments of ten­sion and grave anx­i­ety.

This "free" use of the Jesus Prayer en­ables us to bridge the gap be­tween our ex­plicit "times of prayer" - whether at church ser­vices or alone in our own room - and the nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ties of daily life. "Pray with­out ceas­ing", St. Paul in­sists (1Фес. 5:17): but how is this pos­si­ble, since we have many other things to do as well? Bishop Theo­phan in­di­cates the method in his maxim, "The hands at work, the mind and heart with God". The Jesus Prayer, be­com­ing by fre­quent rep­e­ti­tion al­most ha­bit­ual and un­con­scious, helps us to stand in the pres­ence of God wher­ever we are - not only in the sanc­tu­ary or in soli­tude, but in the kitchen, on the fac­tory floor, in the of­fice. So we be­come like Brother Lawrence, who "was more united with God dur­ing his or­di­nary ac­tiv­i­ties than in re­li­gious ex­er­cises". "It is a great delu­sion", he re­marked, "to imag­ine that prayer-time should be dif­fer­ent from any other, for we are equally bound to God by work at work-time as by prayer at prayer-time".

The "free" recita­tion of the Jesus Prayer is com­ple­mented and strength­ened by the "for­mal" use. In this sec­ond case we con­cen­trate our whole at­ten­tion on the say­ing of the Prayer, to the ex­clu­sion of all ex­ter­nal ac­tiv­ity. The In­vo­ca­tion forms part of the spe­cific "prayer time" that we set aside for God each day. Nor­mally, along with the Jesus Prayer, we shall also use in our "set" time other forms of prayer taken from the litur­gi­cal books, to­gether with Psalm and Scrip­ture read­ings, in­ter­ces­sion, and the like. A few may feel called to an al­most ex­clu­sive con­cen­tra­tion upon the Jesus Prayer, but this does not hap­pen with most. In­deed, many pre­fer sim­ply to em­ploy the Prayer in the "free" man­ner with­out using it "for­mally" in their "set" time of prayer; and there is noth­ing dis­qui­et­ing or in­cor­rect about this. The "free" use may cer­tainly exist with­out the "for­mal".

In the "for­mal" usage, as in the "free", there are no rigid rules, but va­ri­ety and flex­i­bil­ity. No par­tic­u­lar pos­ture is es­sen­tial. In Or­tho­dox prac­tice the Prayer is most usu­ally re­cited when seated, but it may also be said stand­ing or kneel­ing - and even, in cases of bod­ily weak­ness and phys­i­cal ex­haus­tion, when lying down. It is nor­mally re­cited in more or less com­plete dark­ness or with the eyes closed, not with open eyes be­fore an icon il­lu­mi­nated by can­dles or a vo­tive lamp. Starets Silouan of Mount Athos (1866 - 1938), when say­ing the Prayer, used to stow his clock away in a cup­board so as not to hear it tick­ing, and then pull his thick woollen monas­tic cap over his eyes and ears.

Dark­ness, how­ever, can have a so­porific ef­fect! If we be­come drowsy as we sit or kneel recit­ing the Prayer, then we should stand up for a time, make the Sign of the Cross at the end of each Prayer, and then bend from the waist in a deep bow, touch­ing the ground with the fin­gers of the right hand. We may even make a pros­tra­tion each time, touch­ing the ground with our fore­head. When recit­ing the Prayer seated, we should en­sure that the chair is not too rest­ful or lux­u­ri­ous; prefer­ably it should have no arms. In Or­tho­dox monas­ter­ies a low stool is com­monly used, with­out a back. The Prayer may also be re­cited stand­ing with arms out­stretched in the form of a cross.

A prayer-rope or rosary (komvoschoin­ion, tchotki), nor­mally with a hun­dred knots, is often em­ployed in con­junc­tion with the Prayer, not pri­mar­ily in order to count the num­ber of times it is re­peated, but rather as an aid to con­cen­tra­tion and the es­tab­lish­ment of a reg­u­lar rhythm. It is a wide­spread fact of ex­pe­ri­ence that, if we make some use of our hands as we pray, this will help to still our body and to gather us to­gether into the act of prayer. But quan­ti­ta­tive mea­sure­ment, whether with a prayer-rope or in other ways, is on the whole not en­cour­aged. It is true that, in the early part of The Way of a Pil­grim, great em­pha­sis is laid by the starets on the pre­cise num­ber of times that the Prayer is to be said daily: 3,000 times, in­creas­ing to 6,000, and then to 12,000. The Pil­grim is com­manded to say an exact num­ber, nei­ther more nor less. Such at­ten­tion to quan­tity is al­to­gether un­usual. Pos­si­bly the point here is not the sheer quan­tity but the inner at­ti­tude of the Pil­grim: the starets wishes to test his obe­di­ence and readi­ness to ful­fil an ap­pointed task with­out de­vi­a­tion. More typ­i­cal, how­ever, is the ad­vice of Bishop Theo­phan: "Do not trou­ble about the num­ber of times you say the Prayer. Let this be your sole con­cern, that it should spring up in your heart with quick­en­ing power like a foun­tain of liv­ing water. Expel en­tirely from your mind all thoughts of quan­tity".

The Prayer is some­times re­cited in groups, but more com­monly alone; the words may be said aloud or silently. In Or­tho­dox usage, when re­cited aloud it is spo­ken rather than chanted. There should be noth­ing forced or laboured in the recita­tion. The words should not be formed with ex­ces­sive em­pha­sis or inner vi­o­lence, but the Prayer should be al­lowed to es­tab­lish its own rhythm and ac­cen­tu­a­tion, so that in time it comes to "sing" within us by virtue of its in­trin­sic melody. Starets Par­fenii of Kiev likened the flow­ing move­ment of the Prayer to a gen­tly mur­mur­ing stream.

From all this it can be seen that the In­vo­ca­tion of the Name is a prayer for all sea­sons. It can be used by every­one, in every place and at every time. It is suit­able for the "be­gin­ner" as well as the more ex­pe­ri­enced; it can be of­fered in com­pany with oth­ers or alone; it is equally ap­pro­pri­ate in the desert or the city, in sur­round­ings of rec­ol­lected tran­quil­lity or in the midst of the ut­most noise and ag­i­ta­tion. It is never out of place.