It was my first introduction to repetitious prayer, and it's been with me every since. The idea is simple, that we repeat the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me a sinner" over and over again. Eventually we link it with our breathing. Breathe in real long and deep and recite, "Lord Jesus Son of God." Breathe out real long and deep and recite, "Have mercy on me a sinner." Other people suggest other simple phrases like "O God Come to My Assistance--O Lord Make Haste to Help me"
The monks of Mt Athos had used the prayer linked with physical behaviors as a sort of mantra to help them enter into a spirit and mindset of transcendent prayer. OK. The problem is that we can induce an altered state of consciousness through lots of different techniques or by taking certain chemicals. The altered state of consciousness--a feeling of peace, calm and unity with the cosmos--does not necessarily mean that we are in touch with God or that we are really experiencing Christ's holy spirit. All it means is that we have achieved (sometimes through simple physiological techniques) a mellow sort of mood.
The Jesus Prayer can be a wonderful way of moving more deeply into communion with the Lord, but only if it is accompanied by a daily obedience to the teachings of the Church, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a love of Sacred Scripture, service to the poor and a life lived in dynamic communion with the saints and in the fullness of Christ's sacramental economy. These are the objective criteria which validate and enhance and amplify the Jesus Prayer and any other personal and subjective spiritualities.
In my growing experience this is what the church needs most desperately at this time. We need humble Catholics who will simply live day by day in the great torrent of grace which is flowing in and through Christ's Church, her teaching, her saints and her sacraments.
I find this difficult to articulate fully, except to say that it is a unity and a whole experience which draws together the Sacred Scriptures, the sacraments, the church and the lives of the saints in an experience which is at once full and magnificent and awesome, and yet at the same time as humble and simple and down to earth and seemingly insignificant as saying your Divine Office, going to Mass, biting your tongue when you want to say something bitter, being aware and in touch with a favorite saint, reading the Bible or being kind to an enemy.
All this can be infused with the daily presence of God, and special prayer techniques can be a great complement and aid to this process, but they cannot replace it.
Thanks, Father! The Ukrainian Catholic (and I think Orthodox too) liturgy has a prayer before Communion which contains words like that. It goes:
ReplyDelete"I believe and confess, O Lord, that Thou art truly Christ, the son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first.
"Accept me this day, O Son of God, as a partaker of Thy mystical supper. I will not tell the mystery to Thine enemies, nor will I give Thee a kiss as did Judas, but like the thief I confess unto Thee:
"Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
Remember me, O Master, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
Remember me, O Holy One, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
"O God have mercy on me a sinner.
O God cleanse me of my sins and have mercy on me.
I have sinner without number, forgive me, O Lord."
(It's prettier in Ukrainian, of course.)
yes- the Jesus prayer is a way to pray without ceasing- but you are so right- a 'good mood' isn't that be-all, end-all
ReplyDeleteIt is a bit the same with the ultra-strict Orthodox mode of fasting (we Byzantines also will fast for 2 weeks before Assumption/Dormition)---intention and attitude is very important
I don't know if you've come across the book "The Spirit of Solesmes" but it expresses much of what you are saying here, I think. It would be worth reading - yes, I know, in your spare time and bought with your extra cash ;) If it helps, the book is basically an anthology of short excerpts so it is eminently suited to picking up and putting down.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, Father.
ReplyDeleteThe West insists on "content" to prayer to avoid the dangers of confusing a mental state with a genuine experience.
The East warns against too much "content" in prayer to avoid the dangers of confusing mental state with genuine experience. :)
Thank you Father. There is nothing in this life or the next I want, as intensly as I want, to see My Lord Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteWould it not lead more to self-reflection instead of an altered state of consciousness? That's very much an Eastern thing, is it not?
ReplyDeleteFather, in my experience (limited and fallible though it is!), the Jesus Prayer leads to humility. It allows me, particularly in stressful times when I cannot think of what to do/say, to focus on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If that is an altered state of consciousness, than I'll take it because humility is where I need to be...
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Old Bob's comment, I was thinking what a good private post-Communion prayer the Jesus Prayer would be.
ReplyDeleteI read that book, Way of a Pilgrim many years ago and it still has a significant effect on me. There is excellent Catholic commentary on the Carmelite life, which reminds me of this, on http://www.catholicurrent.com/#/.
ReplyDeleteWell, obviously it doesn't make you a runner to put on a running outfit and do stretches, but doing stretches and putting on a running outfit can certainly be helpful when it comes to running. If you spend too much time obsessing about the perfect stretch and the perfect outfit or trying new versions every five minutes, that can be bad. But then again, it's helpful not to kill yourself with bad stretches or trip yourself with your bad running outfit.
ReplyDelete"The altered state of consciousness--a feeling of peace, calm and unity with the cosmos--does not necessarily mean that we are in touch with God or that we are really experiencing Christ's holy spirit."
ReplyDeleteQuestion: What's so bad about arriving at an altered state of consciousness? Especially if the consciousness we experience when we get there is calm, alert, present, and if the place we got out of before coming into that state was stressful, burdened with the chaos within, and unavailable to contact by those around us?
I'm saying that the burden of proof shouldn't always have to be on the hesychast practitioner to "prove" to the doubters around, that the altered state he is in, is a good and holy one to be in: the burden should rather be on his neurotic critics, who would wish to disparage the experience of that blessed peace of mind.
And, to be totally fair, I would say the same goes for herbal tea or other natural substances: if it happens to induce a feeling of blissful peace when injested, let us not rush to call it unholy, simply because it has "altered" the otherwise anxious, apparently habitual or chronic state of the individual.
I'm discerning a call to the Diaconate. I've often wondered if I am called to teach the Catholic people how to pray- so they don't have to chase problematic Eastern pagan methods of meditation.
ReplyDeleteI'm an Orthodox monk, and I just want to point out that the Fathers and the Saints warn us very carefully about saying the Jesus Prayer. I'm glad you noted the potential for becoming spiritually deluded - a state which the Greek Fathers call "plani," and the Russian "prelest" - but in mentioning the prerequisites for practicing the prayer, you omitted the one, most necessary thing, which all the Saints and Fathers insisted upon: the guidance of an experienced practitioner of the prayer.
ReplyDeleteIf individual laymen want to say the prayer, they should do it simply and WITHOUT making use of breathing techniques or any other techniques. If they find that a natural pattern of breathing emerges as they say the prayer, that is fine; but they should be self-forgetful about this fact, and not pay attention to it.
Furthermore, they should make sure that their mind pays attention to the words of the prayer. We should never be saying the words of a repetetive prayer as a "mantra," while the mind contemplates other spiritual (or non-spiritual) things. Many Roman Catholics do this when praying the Hail Mary of the Rosary, but this is firmly against the received tradition of all the saintly masters of prayer: the mind should never use a "mantra" and divide its attention to contemplate the Mysteries of the Rosary or anything else. When praying the Rosary, say your Hail Mary prayers with utmost attention to the prayer. When you have finished a decade, THEN you may contemplate a Mystery. Or contemplate the Mystery a bit BETWEEN each Hail Mary. But NEVER contemplate something else while you are saying the Hail Mary.
When praying, the Fathers teach us that the mind must encapsulate itself in the words of the prayer with great attentiveness; any other practice can be spiritually and mentally dangerous over time. Just keep your mind on the words, and say the prayer without trying to use special posture or breathing techniques.
If you find an accomplished spiritual director, he MAY give some guidance about such techniques, but they are otherwise EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and tend to confuse the beginner more than they help him. I strongly recommend to all readers that, if they wish to practice the prayer without an accomplished spiritual director, they give sober heed to what I've written above. And this warning is not my own, but comes down to us from great Fathers and Saints, from the 6th century to the present day.
Fr. Augustine
I almost forgot to mention - the man in the photo is Elder Joseph the Hesychast. He was the spiritual father of many monks on Mt. Athos, and had much to do with the spiritual revival of Athos in the past century. Some of his relics are at the Monastery of St. Anthony, near Florence, Arizona, with his spiritual son, Elder Ephraim. I have had the great privilege of venerating his skull, which is kept there.
ReplyDeleteOne of the above posters also underscored the danger of prelest. "What difference does it make if my state is altered, so long as it seems to be a good thing?" Not everything that seems good, is. The Devil masquerades as an Angel of Light, and he knows that sometimes one can catch more flies with honey than gall.
At the very least, "pleasant" altered states can lead us into a sense of spiritual complacency or worse, like a state of feckless pride, where we assume that our experience is good and so God-given, and begin to count on that as a sure sign of our being approved of by God. This can end very badly.
At the worst, the seemingly "good" spiritual state, is in fact a kind of demonic oppression, where they take the soul that is eager for "nice" spiritual experiences on a bit of a ride, catering to their vanity and punishing them for their spiritual over-reaching. Obviously, the ride doesn't go anywhere we want to go.
St. Isaac of Syria said:
"Every man who, before perfectly mastering the first part [i.e., the endurance of sufferings in imitation of the Cross], switches to the second, attracted out of weakness--to say nothing of laziness, is overtaken by God's wrath because he did not first mortify his members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5). In other words, he did not cure his thoughts of infirmities by patiently bearing the cross, but rather dared in his mind to envision the glory of the cross."
Commenting on this, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov said: "It is evident from these words of Isaac the Syrian that what we call prelest proper, exists when a man starts trying to live above his capabilities. Without having cleansed himself of passions, he strives for a life of contemplation and dreams of the delights of spiritual grace. Thus the wrath of God befalls a man; because he thinks too highly of himself, God's grace is withdrawn from him and he falls under the influence of the evil one who actively begins to tickle his vainglory with lofty contemplation and [spiritual] delights..."
Not every "nice" state of mind/body/spirit is good or God-sent. The key is to always cling very closely to humility, to always doubt ourselves and the authenticity of our spiritual experiences (submitting them to the discernment of a good spiritual director, if possible), and to expect no rest for ourselves in this life.
We can pray here and now in a basic way, of course. But, advanced techniques of prayer should be adopted with great care, and with a real appreciation of the actual danger of spiritual delusion in our experiences.
Fr. Augustine