From time to time I write about the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner”), and my continual intention to pray it without ceasing. No surprise I do better when I have time to pay attention to prayer and meditation, than when I’m busy 24/7 out in the world. I’ve always been drawn to the monks who take the vow of silence, solitude, and thus simplicity, and envy how this offers them time to sit in God’s mystery, which is what they have chosen to do. I couldn’t do this, nor do I want to, but I am striving for some place in between, and yes, I get glimpses of the mystery now and them. I believe that the Jesus Pray is one way that we ‘religious’ out in the world can stay in the mystery.
Currently I am reading Meeting Christ in His Mysteries: A Benedictine Vision of the Spiritual Life, by Gregory Collins OSB, a monk of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. Although a Benedictine, he speaks generously from the perspective of Eastern Orthodoxy, of which the Jesus Prayer is important.
Collins tells me, “There is nothing selfish about such sustained personal prayer (the Jesus Prayer) for it is really a kind of evangelization of the self,” and with that I am encouraged to keep saying it.
Currently I am reading Meeting Christ in His Mysteries: A Benedictine Vision of the Spiritual Life, by Gregory Collins OSB, a monk of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. Although a Benedictine, he speaks generously from the perspective of Eastern Orthodoxy, of which the Jesus Prayer is important.
Collins tells me, “There is nothing selfish about such sustained personal prayer (the Jesus Prayer) for it is really a kind of evangelization of the self,” and with that I am encouraged to keep saying it.
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