Vine and Branches: Abiding in Jesus through the Prayer of the Heart

JESUS AND PRAYER

The Jesus Prayer, also called the "Prayer of the Heart," is a way of abiding in Jesus in a personal relationship. Far from being merely a simple disciplined method of praying, the Jesus Prayer aims at communing with Jesus in the heart continually during the day and in formal prayer times.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE JESUS PRAYER

Not simply a mechanical repetition of a sacred formula, the Jesus Prayer is a continually repeated act of loving attention to Jesus. It is an act of gazing upon the Lord Jesus by faith in a gaze full of love, desire, holy sorrow, ineffable delight, and invincible trust.

THE MEANING AND POWER OF THE NAME OF JESUS

Joshua Yeshua 'Ihsus Jesus

Components: the Sacred Tetragrammaton (YHWH) + "SHUA," the Hebrew word meaning "SALVATION." The name of Jesus, therefore means something like "Salvation from Yahweh" or "Yahweh is (our) Salvation." According to Mathew 1: 21, God willed that the Child to be born must be named Jesus "because He will save His people from their sins."

THE CONTINUAL USE OF THE JESUS PRAYER

We try to remember Jesus with love and trust continually during the day.

Whenever we become aware of any troubling thought or feeling inside us we "overlay it" with an act of loving trust in Jesus. That is, we replace every anxiety, fear, doubt, sadness, pain, sorrow, or desire, by remembering Jesus with love, desire, and trust. Similarly, whenever we encounter need, suffering, or the possibility for more of life and happiness in the world outside us, we invoke Jesus. We call on Jesus who takes away all human need and suffering and fulfills all the possibilities for more love, more life, and more happiness of every creature. There is a "real presence" of the Lord Jesus in the invocation of His Name.

The Jesus Prayer consists in the practice of remembering in faith that Jesus is the one gift of God who contains in Himself our deliverance from all evil, and in Whom we receive every good thing that we can possibly need or desire. "Jesus" is the name of all the goodness, life, love, and happiness that God is giving us. In this sense, the name of Jesus is a prayer of petition. Whoever wants Jesus in prayer wants the end of all harm, suffering and death in her/his own life and in the life of the entire universe. At the very same time, whoever wants Jesus in prayer is asking the infinite, eternal, plenitude of all deifying blessings of grace from God upon him/herself and upon the whole of Creation.

THE PRIESTLY BLESSING USING THE NAME OF JESUS

Putting the Name upon the people.

THE FORMAL USE OF THE JESUS PRAYER

The remembrance of Jesus God is life giving. We want it to become habitual to our life of awareness. Without it, we will habitually have some other awareness that does not give life. In order to establish the Jesus Prayer as a continual habit of heart, it is helpful to dedicate at least ten or twenty minutes each day to practicing the Jesus Prayer in a conscious formal manner.

THE MECHANICS OF THE FORMAL USE OF THE JESUS PRAYER

• Choose a place, a time, and a posture.
• Before beginning to pray, assume the dispositions of Bartimaeus and the Tax Collector.
• Become aware of the rhythm of your heartbeat by placing your hand on your heart.
• Teach your heart to say "Jesus" in an act of loving attention.Once attentive to Jesus, forget the physical heart. (Note the two elements: Attention, and Affection.)
• How to deal with distractions.

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