To all my fellow christians,
Do any of you have any experience with the Jesus Prayer? Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, Have mercy upon me a sinner. I am trying to practice this prayer in silence and doing it for 15 minutes a day. Any thoughts on how to do it, what to do, how to sit and pray. I need any experience or advice I can get or encouragement. Please help.
Thanks,
C
Comments
To all my fellow christians,
Do any of you have any experience with the Jesus Prayer? Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, Have mercy upon me a sinner. I am trying to practice this prayer in silence and doing it for 15 minutes a day. Any thoughts on how to do it, what to do, how to sit and pray. I need any experience or advice I can get or encouragement. Please help.
Thanks,
C
Our Church specialises in this prayer. That's all we do in EVERY single Hoss.
The only part in the tasbeha where we do not use the Lord's prayer is in the Theotokiat.
here's an example:
A) Afty Emeponof: Chorus : My Lord, Jesus Christ, my good savior.
B) I called you from the depths of my heart: (Aikoty Ensok): Chorus: My Lord Jesus, Come and Help
..
Dude, I could go on, but the TASBEHA = 90% of the Lord's prayer.. OVER and OVER.. in every single verse!
Man... I love my Coptic Church. No one realises these riches.
Im not being mean - at all, and you all know how much I love Greek food, Greek People, Greek Orthodoxy etc, but seriously, their Lord's prayer doesnt sound as good as ours. Really.
You are in the "Lord's-Prayer-R-Us" Church!!
You can pray afty-emeponoff silenty if you want.
I think there are as many ways to use the Jesus Prayer as there are poeple. I have some experience in using this prayer. A while ago I decided to try and 'pray unceasingly' as much as possible. I started sitting down quietly two or three times a day for at least 30 min. I then prayed the payer using a prayer rope for that whole time starting and ending the prayer session with 'Our Lords Prayer'. In addition to these special prayer times I would say the ptayer as much as possible throughout the day, while working, or walking from bus stop to bus stop, or on the bus etc. Now I often hear the prayer almost say itself in the back of my mind. When my attention is unoccupied, I can just move it to focus on the prayer that is continously in the background.
Some things I personally found useful:
- I had to persevere even when I didn't feel like it.
- I found that the effects of this prayer increased exponentially if I tried to focus and imbue with meaning each word of the prayer. I had to put my whole heart behind each word, and then persevere in the effort.
At times I felt my heart and attention settle almost completely on the Lord, which brought incredible peace.
This was my practice. Yours might be different.
Best wishes
Gerhard :D