The ceaseless repetition of the name Jesus is Jesus
The common form of the Jesus Prayer is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
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I do not even know if it is possible to verbalize what actually takes place in the body-heart as a result of the ceaseless repetition of the name “Jesus.”
And, though I am aware that my personal experience in this regard will add nothing essential to the long and holy history of the Jesus Prayer, there is some genuineness in the desire to share it, for I have struggled almost ten years to verbalize it.
Jesus — a name planted in many at baptism and cultured over the years in sacrament and prayer. The simple repetition of this name is not new to us. We have known it from our earliest years. But the ceaseless repetition of this name and the consequent effect is new to many. It was new to me.
Some ten years ago, it seemed to me that I was dying in faith and spirit. I went away to be alone with God. After six long months of darkness, the first of many such periods, half in curse and half in faith, I cried out “Jesus,” over and over and over.
That same cry continues today, but I pray it for different reasons and a different effect. The darkness comes and goes, but it is less frightening. Healing and hope grow. Faith is strangely deepened.
A gradual conversion continues as neither my body nor my heart is able to refrain from repeating that name, whether in sin or sanctity, crime or creed. And this ceaseless repetition of the name “Jesus” is basically what we mean by the Jesus Prayer.
Gradual Change
It has a long history and the sources are vast. I can only confirm that the Jesus Prayer is the gradual conversion of the heart toward the mystery of God and creation through the constant repetition of the specific name, “Jesus,” leading eventually to a silence wherein alone lies all meaning, wherein God alone is.
Neither the conversion nor the silence is sought as such, and the heart is finally emptied of the need to speak at all until, regardless of one’s supposed sin or sanctity, God himself fills the heart in faith, until the heart comes to experience in awesome silence that there are no more questions, no more answers; until we bow low with earth and cosmos, admitting in every cell and depth that God alone is God and we are not!
And as such faith-facts take flesh in the body and the heart, one can be carried deeper into the living God, into life, death, resurrection, silence.
The primary fact that makes the Jesus Prayer differ from all other styles of prayer, East or West, is the specific name, “Jesus.”
Its ceaseless repetition is not a matter of cosmic meditation or mystical pursuit. Humbly and reverently, one cries out that all creation is broken until the last day and that Jesus, the Son of God, came because of that brokenness, as a sign of God’s love and fidelity.
The ceaseless repetition of the name Jesus is Jesus, now in our flesh, now in our heart. If we can speak that name it is the sign that we believe and that he is present here and now. And it is the actual speaking of this specific name which keeps all this alive in the individual.
All that one is or does is simply wrapped deeper in that name, and Jesus is pursued relentlessly, in faith, through simple repetition.
Jesus gradually becomes the constant cry and desire of one’s heart and body in spite of all sin. Soon, the simple fidelity to the ceaseless repetition of that one name in all circumstances is one’s prayer, is one’s faithfulness, is healing.
One Name
I must say again that the difference between the Jesus Prayer and all other prayer is to be found in that specific name, “Jesus.” That is the power. That specific name, when spoken by lip or heart, does heal. For in some sense Jesus himself is one and the same with that spoken Word. When one speaks that name, one is being Jesus-ed, is being saved.
How does one begin the Jesus Prayer? Bow your head right now and begin to repeat it over and over simply and without stress or strain. The rest will come from your heart and God’s direction.
True, it is only for those drawn to it. But the long history of the Jesus Prayer reminds us that it holds a special power and fondness for those who are deeply aware of their call to holiness and their own constant failure to fulfill that call.
It stands unique among all Christian prayer with the exception of the sacraments and Holy Liturgy, though it flows naturally from both. But regardless, the secret of the Jesus Prayer lies in the ceaseless repetition of the specific name Jesus, once begun, never to cease.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
Reprinted from Restoration, December 1975.
Calligraphy by Fr. Eric Lies
