Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me sinner.
The Jesus Prayer may be practiced in two ways. There is what can be called the 'free' use, when it is said once or many times as we go about our familiar occupations, during all the passing moments of the day that might otherwise be wasted. Then there is the 'fixed' use, when we repeat the Jesus Prayer as part of our appointed times for prayer, when our whole attention is concentrated on the act of praying. We can choose to follow either of the two without necessarily adopting the other. In this session, let us understand the 'free' use of the Jesus Prayer.
The purpose of the 'free' use can be summed up in the words ' Find Christ everywhere'. The Prayer in it's 'free' use may be practiced at any time and in any place. We can repeat it in our room, while at work, as we walk about in the street. We can say it at the bus stop, in our car while waiting for the green light, in the church when we arrive before the beginning of the service. It can be our first thought as we wake in the morning, and our last thought before we go to sleep at night. It can be easily taught to children also.
The Jesus Prayer can be used in situations where a more complex form of prayer would be impossible. We can repeat it when unable to sleep, when subject to physical pain or mental distress, or at moments of temptation and sudden crisis. It is a prayer for all seasons, especially suitable for our contemporary age of anxiety, living as we do in a time-starved society. The Jesus Prayer is never out of place.
The effect, then, of the 'free use' of the Jesus Prayer is to integrate our prayer time and our work time, to turn our work itself into prayer, and so as to make the secular sacred. In the words of St. Theophan the Recluse, "The hands at work, the mind and heart with God."
The Russian-American, Fr. Alexander Schmemann said, "A Christian is the one who, wherever he or she looks, finds everywhere Christ, and rejoices in Him." This is exactly what the Jesus Prayer helps us to do. Through the invocation of the Holy Name, all persons and all things around us become transparent. We begin to see all things in Christ, and Christ in all things.
In one of the agrapha or 'unwritten sayings' - words of Jesus that circulated among the early Christians but are not included in the New Testament - it is said: "Lift the stone, and you will find Me; cut the wood in two, and there am I." Such is the result of the 'free' use.
If we are to being prayer into each passing moment, into every familiar occupation, then we need a form of praying that is immediately at hand, directly accessible without elaborate reflection. The Jesus Prayer is precisely that form of praying. When recited regularly in a 'free' way, it comes to our mind and lips spontaneously, without any deliberate effort on our part. So it gradually pervades every part of our daily life, enabling each activity and each personal encounter to be Spirit-filled.
While the 'free' use of the Jesus Prayer can be practiced during the empty moments or when carrying out routine tasks, it is less appropriate when engaged in some absorbing activity that requires full concentration. It is unwise to do two things at once, for then in all probability we shall do both things badly. St James in his Epistle warned us not to be dipsychos - double minded or divided in our psyche (James 1:8). A surgeon performing a delicate surgery in which the slightest mistake might price fatal, would scarcely be well advised to keep breaking off from the task at hand in order to say prayers. But he might certainly wish to say the Jesus Prayer before embarking on the operation and after it is finished.
"Pray without ceasing" said St Paul (1 Thess. 5:17). Some Christian groups, such as the 4th-century Messalians, interpreted this to mean that we are to say prayers ask the time. But thus is literally not possible. Prayer, however, understood in a more extended sense, is not limited to the enunciation of words, but it signifies what St Gregory of Nyssa termed as 'sense of presence'. The aim of the Jesus Prayer is to establish within us this 'sense of presence', which will continue to exist at a deep level of our being even after we have stopped repeating the actual words of the Prayer.
That surely is what St Paul meant by unceasing prayer: an implicit state rather than a series of explicit acts. Yet, in order that this implicit state may genuinely exist within us, it requires to be sustained by outward prayers, frequently repeated. In this way, the regular use of the Jesus Prayer initiates us into the first beginnings of continual prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner.
Reference: The Jesus Prayer - Bishop Kallistos Ware
