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Difino
| • | The Jesus Prayer, also called the Prayer of the Heart by some Church Fathers, is a short, simple prayer that has been widely used, taught and discussed throughout the history of Eastern Christianity. The exact words of the prayer have varied from a simple form such as "Lord, have mercy" to the more common extended form: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner." However, a number of different repetitive prayer formulas have been attested in the history of Eastern Orthodox monasticism (e.g. the Prayer of St Ioannikios, the repetitive use of which by St Ioannikios (754ࢀ&#-2952;46) is described in his Life; the more recent practice of St Nicholas Velimirovich (1880ࢀ&#-2959;956)). Sometimes the Jesus Prayer is alternated with an invocation to the Mother of God: "Most Holy Theotokos, save us." In such a case, the practitioner repeats, say, 400 Jesus Prayers and then 100 invocations of the Mother of God.
The Jesus Prayer is, for the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholics, one of the most profound and mystical prayers and it is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice. Its practice is an integral part of Hesychasm, the subject of the Philokalia, a collection of texts on prayer compiled in the late 18th Century. There have been a number of Roman Catholic texts on the Jesus Prayer, but its practice has never achieved the same popularity as in the Orthodox Church. Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox theology of the Jesus Prayer, enunciated by St Gregory Palamas (1296ࢀ&#-2959;359), has never been fully accepted by the Roman Catholic Church (see, e.g., 1996).
The practice of repeating the prayer continually dates back to at least the fifth century. The earliest known mention is in the Gnostic Chapters of Saint Diadochos of Photiki (400-486), a work found in the first volume of the Philokalia. The Jesus Prayer is described in the Gnostic Chapters in terms very similar to St John Cassian's (?ࢀ&#-2956;35) description in the Conferences 9 and 10 of the repetitive use of a passage of the psalms. St Diadochos ties the practice of the Jesus Prayer to the purification of the soul. He also teaches that repetition of the prayer produces inner peace. The us
Source: [wikipedia: jesus prayer]
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