On the Practical Use of the Jesus Prayer

Павел Викторович Рыженко. Послушник

A monk of the East­ern church (Archi­man­drite Lev Gillet)

1. The form of the prayer.

The Byzan­tine East, as we have seen, has some­what in­ad­e­quately des­ig­nated by the term "Jesus Prayer" every kind of in­vo­ca­tion cen­ter­ing upon the ac­tual name of the Sav­ior. This in­vo­ca­tion has as­sumed var­i­ous spe­cific forms ac­cord­ing to whether the name was used alone or in­serted into more or less de­vel­oped for­mu­las. It rests, how­ever, with each in­di­vid­ual to de­ter­mine his or her own form of the in­vo­ca­tion of the name. In the East the in­vo­ca­tion be­came crys­tal­lized in the for­mula "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sin­ner", but this for­mula has never been and is not the only one. Every re­peated in­vo­ca­tion, in which the name of Jesus forms the core and mo­tive force, is au­then­ti­cally the Jesus Prayer in the Byzan­tine sense. One may say, for ex­am­ple, "Jesus Christ" or "Lord Jesus". The old­est, the sim­plest, and in our opin­ion the eas­i­est for­mula is the word "Jesus" used alone. It is with this last pos­si­bil­ity in mind that we shall speak here of the Jesus Prayer.

This type of prayer may be pro­nounced or merely thought. Its place is thus on the bound­ary be­tween vocal and men­tal prayer, be­tween prayer of med­i­ta­tion and prayer of con­tem­pla­tion. It may be prac­ticed at all times and in any place: church, bed­room, street, of­fice, work­shop, and so on. We can re­peat the name while walk­ing. Be­gin­ners, how­ever, will do well to bind them­selves to a cer­tain reg­u­lar­ity in their prac­tice of the Prayer, choos­ing fixed times and soli­tary places. Yet this sys­tem­atic train­ing does not ex­clude a par­al­lel and en­tirely free use of the in­vo­ca­tion of the name.

Be­fore be­gin­ning to pro­nounce the name of Jesus, we should try first of all to put our­selves in a state of peace and rec­ol­lec­tion, and then im­plore the help of the Holy Spirit in whom alone we can "say that Jesus is the Lord" (1Кор. 12:3). Every other pre­lim­i­nary is su­per­flu­ous. In order to swim one must first throw one­self into the water; sim­i­larly we must in one leap cast our­selves into the name of Jesus. Hav­ing begun to pro­nounce the name with lov­ing ado­ra­tion, all that we have to do is to at­tach our­selves to it, cling to it, and to re­peat it slowly, gen­tly and qui­etly. It would be a mis­take to "force" this prayer, to raise our voice in­wardly, to try to in­duce in­ten­sity and emo­tion. When God man­i­fested him­self to the prophet Eli­jah, it was not in a strong wind, nor in an earth­quake, nor in a fire, but in the gen­tle, whis­per­ing breeze that fol­lowed them (1Цар. 19:11-12). Lit­tle by lit­tle we are to con­cen­trate our whole being around the name, al­low­ing it like a drop of oil silently to pen­e­trate and im­preg­nate our soul. When in­vok­ing the name, it is not nec­es­sary to re­peat it con­tin­u­ally. Once spo­ken, the name then may be "pro­longed" for sev­eral min­utes of re­pose, of si­lence, of purely in­te­rior at­ten­tion, much as a bird al­ter­nates be­tween the flap­ping of its wings and glid­ing flight.

All ten­sion and haste are to be avoided. If fa­tigue comes upon us, the in­vo­ca­tion should be in­ter­rupted and taken up again sim­ply when one feels drawn to­wards it. Our aim is not a con­stant, lit­eral rep­e­ti­tion but a kind of la­tent and qui­es­cent pres­ence of the name of Jesus in our heart. "I sleep, but my heart keeps vigil" (Песн. 5:2). Let us ban­ish all spir­i­tual sen­su­al­ity, all pur­suit of emo­tion. No doubt it is nat­ural to hope to ob­tain re­sults that are in some mea­sure tan­gi­ble, to want to touch the hem of the Sav­ior's gar­ment and not to give up until he has blessed us (Мф. 9:21). But let us not think that an hour dur­ing which we have in­voked the name with­out "feel­ing" any­thing, re­main­ing ap­par­ently cold and arid, has been wasted and un­fruit­ful. This in­vo­ca­tion that we thought ster­ile will be, on the con­trary, highly ac­cept­able to God, since it is chem­i­cally pure, if we may put it that way, be­cause stripped of all pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with spir­i­tual de­lights and re­duced to an of­fer­ing of the naked will. At other times in his gen­er­ous mercy the Sav­ior often en­folds his name in an at­mos­phere of joy, warmth and light: "Thy name is as oil poured forth... draw me" (Песн. 1:3-4).

2. Episode or Method?

For some the in­vo­ca­tion of the name will be an episode on their spir­i­tual jour­ney; for oth­ers it will be more than an episode, it will be one of the meth­ods they ha­bit­u­ally use, yet with­out being the method; for yet oth­ers it will be the method around which their whole in­te­rior life is or­ga­nized. To de­cide by ar­bi­trary choice, by some whim, that this last case will be ours, would be like con­struct­ing a build­ing which then col­lapses wretchedly. We do not choose the Jesus Prayer. We are called to it, led to it by God, if he thinks it right. We de­vote our­selves to it out of obe­di­ence to a very spe­cial vo­ca­tion, pro­vided that other obe­di­ences do not have prior right. If this form of prayer does not stand in the way of the other forms to which we are com­mit­ted by virtue of our state in life, if it is ac­com­pa­nied by a press­ing at­trac­tion, if it pro­duces in us fruits of pu­rity, char­ity and peace, if our ap­pointed spir­i­tual guides en­cour­age us to prac­tice it, there is in all this, if not the in­fal­li­ble signs of a vo­ca­tion, then at least in­di­ca­tions which de­serve to be humbly and at­ten­tively con­sid­ered.

The "way of the name" has been ap­proved by many East­ern monas­tic Fa­thers and also by sev­eral saints of the West. It is there­fore le­git­i­mate and re­mains open as a pos­si­bil­ity for all. But we should avoid all in­dis­creet zeal, all un­timely pro­pa­ganda. We should not cry out with an ill-in­formed fer­vor, "It is the best prayer", much less, "It is the only prayer". We should keep hid­den in their se­cret place the mys­ter­ies of the King. Those who are bound to a com­mu­nity or to a rule will dis­cern to what ex­tent the way of the name is com­pat­i­ble with the meth­ods to which they owe obe­di­ence; the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties will help them in this task of dis­cern­ment. We are not re­fer­ring here to litur­gi­cal prayer; for this could not enter into con­flict with the kind of inner prayer that we are dis­cussing. In par­tic­u­lar we would not wish to sug­gest to those whose ex­ist­ing prayer is an au­then­tic di­a­logue with the Lord, nor to those who are es­tab­lished in the deep si­lence of the con­tem­pla­tive life, that they should aban­don their way of prayer in order to prac­tice the Jesus Prayer. We do not de­pre­ci­ate the value of any form of prayer. For in the final analy­sis the best prayer for each per­son is the one, whichever it may be, to which each is drawn by the Holy Spirit, by par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances, and by prop­erly ap­pointed spir­i­tual di­rec­tion.

What we may say with sober­ness and truth on be­half of the Jesus Prayer is that it helps to sim­plify and unify our spir­i­tual life. When com­pli­cated meth­ods dis­si­pate and weary the at­ten­tion, this "one-word prayer" pos­sesses the power of uni­fi­ca­tion and in­te­gra­tion, as­sist­ing the frag­mented soul that finds its name and its sin to be "le­gion" (Мк. 5:9). The name of Jesus, once it has be­come the cen­ter of our life, brings every­thing to­gether. But let us not imag­ine that the in­vo­ca­tion of the name is a "short-cut" that dis­penses us from as­cetic pu­rifi­ca­tion: The name of Jesus is it­self an in­stru­ment of as­ceti­cism, a fil­ter through which should pass only thoughts, words and acts com­pat­i­ble with the di­vine and liv­ing re­al­ity which this name sym­bol­izes. The growth of the name in our soul im­plies a cor­re­spond­ing diminu­tion of our sep­a­rated self, a daily death to the self­cen­tred­ness from which all sin is de­rived.

3. The first steps. Ado­ra­tion and sal­va­tion.

There are many lev­els in the Jesus Prayer. It grows deeper and broader as we dis­cover each new level in the name. It should begin as ado­ra­tion and a sense of pres­ence. Then, this pres­ence is ex­pe­ri­enced specif­i­cally as that of a Sav­ior (for such is the mean­ing of the word "Jesus"). The in­vo­ca­tion of the name is a mys­tery of sal­va­tion in the sense that it brings with it de­liv­er­ance. In ut­ter­ing the name, we al­ready re­ceive what we need. We re­ceive it here and now in Jesus who is not only the giver but the gift; not only the pu­ri­fier, but all pu­rity; not only the one who feeds the hun­gry and gives drink to the thirsty, but who is him­self our food and drink. He is the sub­stance of all good things (if we do not use this term in a strictly meta­phys­i­cal sense).

His name gives peace to those who are tempted: in­stead of ar­gu­ing with the temp­ta­tion, in­stead of think­ing about the rag­ing storm-that was Peter's mis­take on the lake after his good be­gin­ning-why not look at Jesus alone and go to him walk­ing on the waves, tak­ing refuge in his name? Let the per­son tempted gather him­self to­gether gen­tly and pro­nounce the name with­out anx­i­ety, with­out fever­ish­ness; then his heart will be filled by the name and in this way pro­tected against vi­o­lent winds. If a sin has been com­mit­ted, let the name serve as a means of im­me­di­ate rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. With­out hes­i­ta­tion or delay, let it be pro­nounced with re­pen­tance and per­fect char­ity, and it will be­come at once a token of par­don. In an al­to­gether nat­ural way Jesus will take his place again in the life of the sin­ner, just as after his Res­ur­rec­tion he came back and sat in such a sim­ple man­ner at table with the dis­ci­ples who had de­serted him, and then of­fered him fish and honey (Лк. 24:41-42). Of course we do not in­tend to re­ject or un­der­es­ti­mate the ob­jec­tive means of re­pen­tance and ab­so­lu­tion which the Church of­fers to the sin­ner; we are speak­ing here only of what hap­pens in the hid­den places of the soul.

4. In­car­na­tion.

The name of Jesus is more than a mys­tery of sal­va­tion, more than help in time of need, more than par­don after sin. It is a means by which we can apply to our­selves the mys­tery of the In­car­na­tion. Be­yond his pres­ence, it brings union. By pro­nounc­ing the name, we en­throne Jesus in our hearts, we put on Christ; we offer our flesh to the Word so that he may as­sume it into his Mys­ti­cal Body; we cause the in­te­rior re­al­ity and the power of the word "Jesus" to over­flow into our mem­bers that are sub­ject to the law of sin. In this way we are pu­ri­fied and con­se­crated. "Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm" (Песн. 8:6). But the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus does more than en­able us to ap­pre­ci­ate the mean­ing of the mys­tery of the In­car­na­tion for our­selves per­son­ally. Through this prayer we also catch a glimpse of the "full­ness of him who fills all in all" (Еф. 1:23).

5. Trans­fig­u­ra­tion.

The name of Jesus is an in­stru­ment and method of trans­fig­u­ra­tion. When we utter it, it helps us to trans­fig­ure - with­out any pan­the­is­tic con­fu­sion - the whole world into Jesus Christ.

This is true even of inan­i­mate na­ture. The ma­te­r­ial uni­verse, which is not only the vis­i­ble sym­bol of the in­vis­i­ble di­vine beauty, but which turns with "groan­ing" to­ward Christ (Рим. 8:22), and whose mys­te­ri­ous move­ment el­e­vates all that comes into being to­wards the Bread and Wine of sal­va­tion, this uni­verse mur­murs se­cretly the name of Jesus: "...even the stones will cry out..." (Лк. 19:40). It be­longs to the priestly min­istry of each Chris­t­ian to give a voice to this as­pi­ra­tion, to pro­nounce the name of Jesus upon the el­e­ments of na­ture, stones and trees, flow­ers and fruit, moun­tains and sea, and so to bring to ful­fill­ment the se­cret of things, to pro­vide an an­swer to that long, silent and un­con­scious ex­pec­ta­tion.

We can also trans­fig­ure the an­i­mal world. Jesus, who de­clared that not a spar­row is for­got­ten by his Fa­ther (Лк. 12:6) and who dwelt in the desert "with the wild beasts" (Мк. 1:13), did not leave the beasts out­side the sphere of his good­ness and in­flu­ence. Like Adam in Par­adise we are to give a name to all the an­i­mals. What­ever the name that sci­ence gives to them, we shall in­voke upon each one of them the name of Jesus, thereby giv­ing back to them their prim­i­tive dig­nity which we so often for­get, and re­mem­ber­ing that they are cre­ated and loved by the Fa­ther in Jesus and for Jesus.

But it is es­pe­cially in re­la­tion to our fel­low hu­mans that the name of Jesus helps us to ex­er­cise a min­istry of trans­fig­u­ra­tion. Jesus, who after his Res­ur­rec­tion chose sev­eral times to ap­pear to his dis­ci­ples "in an­other form" (Мк. 16:12) - the un­known trav­eler on the road to Em­maus, the gar­dener near the tomb, the stranger stand­ing on the shore of the lake - con­tin­ues to meet us in our daily life in a veiled way and to con­front us with this all-im­por­tant as­pect of his pres­ence: his pres­ence in man. What we do to the least of our brethren, we do to him. Under the faces of men and women we are able, with our eyes of faith and love, to see the face of the Lord; by at­tend­ing to the dis­tress of the poor, of the sick, of sin­ners, of all men, we put our fin­ger on the place of the nails, thrust our hands into his pierced side, and ex­pe­ri­ence per­son­ally the Res­ur­rec­tion and the real pres­ence (with­out any con­fu­sion of essence) of Jesus Christ in his Mys­ti­cal Body; and so we can say with St Thomas, "My Lord and my God" (Ин. 20:28).

The name of Jesus is a con­crete and pow­er­ful means of trans­fig­ur­ing men into their most pro­found and di­vine re­al­ity. Let us reach out to­ward the men and women whom we pass in the street, the fac­tory or the of­fice - and es­pe­cially to­ward those who seem to us ir­ri­tat­ing or an­tipa­thetic - with the name of Jesus in our heart and on our lips. Let us pro­nounce silently over them his name, which is their very own name; let us call them by this name in a spirit of ado­ra­tion and ser­vice. Let us de­vote our­selves to them in a prac­ti­cal way, if that is pos­si­ble, or at all events by an in­te­rior as­pi­ra­tion, for in them we are re­ally de­vot­ing our­selves to Jesus Christ. By rec­og­niz­ing and silently ador­ing Jesus im­pris­oned in the sin­ner, in the crim­i­nal, in the pros­ti­tute, we re­lease in some way both these poor jail­ers and our Mas­ter. If we see Jesus in every­one, if we say "Jesus" over every­one, we will go through the world with a new vi­sion and a new gift in our own heart. In this way, as far as lies in our power, we can trans­form the world and make our own the words that Jacob spoke to his brother: "I have seen thy face, and it is as though I had seen the face of God" (Jn. 33:10).

6. The Body of Christ.

The in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus has an ec­cle­sial as­pect. In this name we meet all those who are united with the Lord and in the midst of whom he stands. In this name we can em­brace all those who are en­closed within the Di­vine Heart. To in­ter­cede for an­other is not so much to plead on his be­half be­fore God, but rather to apply to his name the name of Jesus and to unite our­selves to the in­ter­ces­sion of our Lord him­self for his loved ones.

Here we touch upon the mys­tery of the Church. Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Church. The name of Jesus is a means of unit­ing us to the Church, for the Church is in Christ. In him the Church is un­sul­lied. It is not that we seek to dis­so­ci­ate our­selves from the ex­is­tence and the prob­lems of the Church on earth, or to close our eyes to the im­per­fec­tions and dis­unity of Chris­tians. We do not wish to sep­a­rate or op­pose the vis­i­ble and in­vis­i­ble as­pects of the Church. But we know that what is im­plied in the name of Jesus is the spot­less, spir­i­tual and eter­nal as­pect of the Church which tran­scends every earthly man­i­fes­ta­tion and which no schism can de­stroy. When Jesus speaks to the Samar­i­tan woman about the hour that "comes and now is" (Ин. 4:23) in which the true wor­shipers will wor­ship the Fa­ther, no longer in Jerusalem or on Garizim, but in spirit and truth, there is an ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion in his words. How can the hour al­ready have come and yet still be com­ing? The para­dox is ex­plained by the fact that the Samar­i­tan woman was stand­ing at that mo­ment be­fore Jesus. Cer­tainly the op­po­si­tion be­tween Jerusalem and Garizim still ex­isted, and Jesus, far from min­i­miz­ing it, had de­clared that sal­va­tion comes from the Jews: there­fore the hour was still to come. But, be­cause Jesus was there and in his per­son Jerusalem and Garizim are in­fi­nitely tran­scended, the hour had al­ready come. When we in­voke the name of the Sav­ior we are in an anal­o­gous sit­u­a­tion. We can­not be­lieve that di­ver­gent in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the Gospel are all equally true or that di­vided Chris­tians all pos­sess the same mea­sure of light; but we do be­lieve that those who, in pro­nounc­ing the name of Jesus, try to unite them­selves to their Lord by an act of un­con­di­tional obe­di­ence and per­fect char­ity, tran­scend human di­vi­sions, par­tic­i­pate in some way in the su­per­nat­ural unity of the Mys­ti­cal Body of Christ and are, if not vis­i­ble and ex­plicit, at least in­vis­i­ble and im­plicit mem­bers of the Church. And thus the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus, made with an up­right heart, is a way to­wards Chris­t­ian unity.

It also helps us meet again, in Jesus, the faith­ful de­parted. To Martha who pro­fessed her faith in the fu­ture Res­ur­rec­tion, Jesus replied: "I am the Res­ur­rec­tion and the Life" (Ин. 11:25). This means that the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead is not merely a fu­ture event; that the per­son of the risen Christ is al­ready the res­ur­rec­tion and the life of all the re­deemed; and that in­stead of seek­ing, ei­ther through prayer or by the mem­ory and the imag­i­na­tion, to es­tab­lish a di­rect spir­i­tual con­tact be­tween our de­parted and our­selves, we should try to reach them in Jesus, where their true life now is, link­ing the name of Jesus to their own names. These de­parted, whose life is hid­den in Christ, are within the heav­enly Church that forms the most nu­mer­ous part of the eter­nal and total Church.

In the name of Jesus we meet the saints who bear "his name on their fore­heads" (Отк. 22:4), and also the an­gels, one of whom said to Mary, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus" (Лк. 1:31), as well as Mary her­self. Let us in the Spirit seek to hear and to re­peat the name of Jesus as Mary heard it and re­peated it!

7. The sup­per of the Lord.

The name of Jesus can be­come for us a kind of Eu­charist. Just as the mys­tery of the Upper Room was a sum­ming up of the Lord's whole life and mis­sion, so also a cer­tain "eu­charis­tic" use of the name of Jesus brings to­gether and unites all the as­pects of the name con­sid­ered thus far.

The sacra­men­tal Eu­charist does not fall within the lim­its of our theme. But our soul is also an upper room where Jesus de­sires to eat the Passover with his dis­ci­ples, and where the Lord's Sup­per can be cel­e­brated at any mo­ment what­ever in an in­vis­i­ble way. In this purely spir­i­tual Last Sup­per, the name of the Sav­ior can take place of the bread and wine of the sacra­ment. We can make of the name of Jesus an of­fer­ing of thanks­giv­ing-and this is the orig­i­nal mean­ing of the word "eu­charist" - the sup­port and sub­stance of a sac­ri­fice of praise ren­dered to the Fa­ther. In this in­te­rior and in­vis­i­ble of­fer­ing, we pre­sent to the Fa­ther, by pro­nounc­ing the name of Jesus, a lamb sac­ri­ficed, a life given, a body bro­ken, blood poured out. The sa­cred name, when used in this sac­ri­fi­cial way, be­comes a means of ap­ply­ing to our­selves here and now the fruits of the per­fect obla­tion of­fered once for all on Gol­go­tha.

There is no Lord's Sup­per with­out com­mu­nion. Our in­vis­i­ble Eu­charist im­plies what tra­di­tion has called "spir­i­tual com­mu­nion", that is, the act of faith and de­sire by which the soul is nour­ished on the Body and Blood of Christ with­out mak­ing use of the vis­i­ble el­e­ments of bread and wine. Noth­ing could be fur­ther from our mind than to di­min­ish or un­der­es­ti­mate the sacra­ment of the Eu­charist, as prac­ticed by the Church, which we can­not sim­ply iden­tify with spir­i­tual com­mu­nion. But we be­lieve that we are within the Church's au­then­tic tra­di­tion in af­firm­ing the re­al­ity of a con­stant, in­vis­i­ble, purely spir­i­tual ap­proach to the Body and Blood of Christ, an ap­proach which is dis­tinct from the gen­eral draw­ing-near to his per­son, for it im­plies a spe­cial kind of re­la­tion be­tween our­selves and the Sav­ior, who is con­sid­ered in this in­stance as both the feeder and the food of our souls. The name of Jesus can be used as the form, sup­port and ex­pres­sion of this ap­proach. It can be for us a spir­i­tual food, a shar­ing in the Bread of Life. "Lord, give us al­ways of this bread" (Ин. 6:34). In his name, in this bread we are united to all the mem­bers of the Mys­ti­cal Body of Christ, to all those who sit down at the ban­quet of the Mes­siah, we who "being many, are one bread, one body" (1Кор. 10:17).

And since the Eu­charist pro­claims "the death of the Lord, until he come" (1Кор. 11:26), since it is an an­tic­i­pa­tion of the eter­nal king­dom, the "eu­charis­tic" use of the name of Jesus also pos­sesses an "es­cha­to­log­i­cal" mean­ing. It pro­claims the "end" and the Sec­ond Com­ing, it is an ar­dent yearn­ing, not only for the oc­ca­sional "break­ings-in" of Christ into our earthly life, but for that de­fin­i­tive com­ing of Christ to us which will be the mo­ment of our death. There is a cer­tain way of say­ing the name of Jesus which con­sti­tutes a prepa­ra­tion for death, a leap­ing of our heart be­yond the bar­rier, a last gen­eral ap­peal to the Bride­groom "whom, with­out hav­ing seen, you love" (1Пет. 1:8). To say "Jesus" is there­fore to re­peat the cry of the Apoc­a­lypse: "Come, Lord Jesus" (Отк. 22:20).

8. The Name and the Spirit.

When we read the Acts of the Apos­tles, we see what a cen­tral place the name of Jesus oc­cu­pied in the mes­sage and ac­tion of the apos­tles. Through them "the name of the Lord Jesus was mag­ni­fied" (Деян. 19:17); in this name mirac­u­lous signs were per­formed and lives were changed. After Pen­te­cost the apos­tles be­came ca­pa­ble of pro­claim­ing the name "with power". Here we have a "pen­te­costal" use of the name of Jesus, a use which is not the mo­nop­oly of the apos­tles, but which re­mains open to all be­liev­ers. Only the weak­ness of our faith and char­ity pre­vents us from re­new­ing in the name of Jesus the fruits of Pen­te­cost, from dri­ving out dev­ils, from lay­ing hands on the sick and cur­ing them. Saints con­tinue to act in this way. The Spirit writes the name of Jesus in fiery let­ters upon the hearts of his elect. This name is a burn­ing flame within them.

But there also ex­ists, be­tween the Holy Spirit and the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus, an­other link more in­te­rior than the "pen­te­costal" min­istry of the Chris­t­ian. By pro­nounc­ing the name of our Sav­ior, we can ob­tain a cer­tain "ex­pe­ri­ence" - this word being used with all the nec­es­sary reser­va­tions - of the re­la­tion be­tween the Son and the Spirit. We can make our­selves co­in­cide with the de­scent of the dove upon our Lord; we can unite our heart - in so far as a crea­ture can unite it­self to a di­vine ac­tiv­ity - to the eter­nal move­ment of the Spirit to­wards Jesus. "Oh that had wings like a dove" (Пс. 55:6), not only to take flight far from earthly cares but to alight upon him who is all my good! 0 if only I knew how to hear the "voice of the tur­tle­dove" (Песн. 2:12), as she speaks with "sighs too deep for words" (Рим. 8:26) the name of the Beloved! Then the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus would be an ini­ti­a­tion into the mys­tery of the re­la­tion­ship of love be­tween Christ and the Spirit.

Con­versely, we may strive to co­in­cide - al­ways re­spect­ing the proper lim­its - with the re­verse re­la­tion­ship, Jesus' at­ti­tude to­wards the Holy Spirit. Con­ceived by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, Jesus showed the most hum­ble docil­ity to­wards the Breath of the Fa­ther. While pro­nounc­ing the name of Jesus let us unite our­selves, in so far as this is given to hu­mans, to the com­plete sur­ren­der that Jesus made of his life to this di­vine Breath.

Let us also see in the name of Jesus a hearth whence the Spirit ra­di­ates, let us see in Jesus the point of de­par­ture whence the Spirit is sent to men, the mouth whence the Spirit is breathed upon us. The in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus, unit­ing us with these var­i­ous mo­ments - Jesus being filled by the Spirit, the send­ing of the Spirit to men by Jesus, and also Jesus' yearn­ing for the Fa­ther - will make us grow in knowl­edge of, and union with, the one whom Paul calls "the Spirit of his Son" (Гал. 4:6).

9. To­wards the Far­ther.

There is the Son. And there is the Fa­ther. Our read­ing of the Gospel will re­main su­per­fi­cial as long as we see in it only a life and a mes­sage di­rected to men. The heart of the Gospel, the mys­tery of Jesus, is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Fa­ther and the only-be­got­ten Son.

To utter the name of Jesus is to utter the Word which "was in the be­gin­ning" (Ин. 1:1), the Word which the Fa­ther ut­ters from all eter­nity. The name of Jesus, we might even say with a cer­tain an­thro­po­mor­phism (eas­ily cor­rected), is the only human word which the Fa­ther ut­ters as he begets the Son and gives him­self to him. To utter the name of Jesus is to draw near the Fa­ther, to con­tem­plate the love and the gift of the Fa­ther which is con­cen­trated upon Jesus; it is to feel, to a lim­ited ex­tent, some­thing of that love and to unite our­selves to it from afar; it is to hear the Fa­ther's voice de­clar­ing, "Thou art my beloved Son" (Лк. 3:22), and humbly to re­spond "yes" to this de­c­la­ra­tion.

To utter the name of Jesus is, on the other hand, to enter, as much as a crea­ture is able, into Christ's fil­ial con­scious­ness. After find­ing in the word "Jesus" the Fa­ther's ten­der ap­peal "My Son"!, it is also to find in it the Son's ten­der re­sponse, "My Fa­ther"! It is to rec­og­nize in Jesus the per­fect ex­pres­sion of the Fa­ther, to unite our­selves to the eter­nal ori­en­ta­tion of the Son to­wards the Fa­ther, to the total of­fer­ing of the Son to his Fa­ther. To utter the name of Jesus - if it is per­mis­si­ble to speak in this way - is in a cer­tain fash­ion to join the Son to the Fa­ther and to glimpse some re­flec­tion of the mys­tery of their unity. It is to find the best ap­proach to the Fa­ther's heart.

10. Jesus in his to­tal­ity.

We have con­sid­ered var­i­ous as­pects of the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus. We have arranged them in a kind of as­cend­ing lad­der, per­haps ped­a­gog­i­cally use­ful, but ar­ti­fi­cial, be­cause in point of fact the var­i­ous steps in­ter­min­gle and "God does not give the Spirit by mea­sure" (Ин. 3:34). At var­i­ous stages in the prac­tice of the in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus, it can be good, even nec­es­sary, to con­cen­trate our at­ten­tion upon one or other par­tic­u­lar as­pect of the di­vine name. But a mo­ment comes when such spe­cial­iza­tion grows weari­some, dif­fi­cult, and some­times even im­pos­si­ble. The con­tem­pla­tion and in­vo­ca­tion of the name of Jesus then be­comes all-em­brac­ing. Every im­pli­ca­tion of the name be­comes si­mul­ta­ne­ously, al­though ob­scurely, pre­sent to our mind. We say "Jesus", and we rest in a plen­ti­tude and to­tal­ity that can no longer be taken from us. The name of Jesus then be­comes a bearer of the whole Christ. It brings us into his total pres­ence.

In this total pres­ence are found all the re­al­i­ties to­wards which the name has served as a means of ap­proach: sal­va­tion and par­don, the In­car­na­tion and the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion, the Church and the Eu­charist, the Spirit and the Fa­ther. All things then ap­pear to us "gath­ered to­gether in Christ" (Еф. 1:10). The total pres­ence is all. The name is noth­ing with­out the Pres­ence. He who has at­tained the Pres­ence has no longer any need of the name. The name is only the sup­port of the Pres­ence. At the end of the road, we are to be­come free from the ac­tual name, free from every­thing ex­cept from Jesus, from the liv­ing and in­ef­fa­ble con­tact with his per­son.

A ray of light brings to­gether the var­i­ous col­ors which the prism scat­ters. Thus the "total name", the sign and bearer of the total Pres­ence, acts as a lens which re­ceives and con­cen­trates the white light of Jesus. This lens helps us to light the fire of which it was said: "I am come to cast fire on the earth" (Лк. 12:49). If we cling to the name of Jesus, we shall re­ceive the spe­cial bless­ing that Scrip­ture promises, "Have mercy on me as is thy cus­tom to­ward them that love thy name" (Пс. 119:132). And may the Lord be pleased to say of us what he said of Saul: "He is a cho­sen ves­sel of mine, to bear my name" (Деян. 9:15).