Jesus Prayer- Prayer of Union

Jesus Prayer- Prayer of Union

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28-29)

"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love." (John 15:9)

Jesus- Healer of Our Soul
In the ever-present person of Jesus we find the Healer of our soul. This healing comes when we become one with him. He invites us to abide in his love. And in this way we share in the love of the Trinity, the communion of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. "A simple conceptual "belief" in the historical Jesus as God and Savior may suffice for some people. What heals the soul is to come home to an experiential union with the Christ Mystery who is the Heart of God. In union with the Person of Jesus we do come home to receive and to live in the Love of God. Jesus says, "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love." (John 15:9) To abide in his love is to abide in his person. This is the basis of the of Jesus Prayer. Jesus is within and we may abide in his love always.

The Jesus Prayer- Ancient Prayer of Union with Christ
The Jesus prayer comes to us from earliest Christianity. Those followers of Jesus who wanted to realize his message of a simplicity of life unified in the love of God and neighbor went into the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to find this simplicity. Going into the "inner room" (Matt. 6:6) of the heart they sought to abide in the love of Christ as their sole and unifying motivation in life. And like all of us they realized that to be so totally given and consecrated, to totally "abide" in the love of Christ, and unite their souls to his Person, they must find a way to free themselves of the misdirected obsessions and compulsions of mind and behavior. They found power and an every-moment anchor in Christ's presence by invoking his name as their prayer word in alignment with their breath.

This simple but powerful prayer has continued to the present day in the oldest continuing Christian monastery of the Middle East, St. Catherine of Sinai, on the slopes of Mt. Sinai, the very mountain where God appeared to Moses. The icon of Christ on the front page of this booklet comes from that monastery and is the oldest known rendering of the image of Christ. This prayer of union and of mercy continues to the present day, but is most widely known in the traditions of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. It is a path of prayer that is open to all who seek soul healing through inner union with Jesus.

First and foremost the Jesus prayer is a prayer of union. The promise of this union is made clear in the Gospel, "
" In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.." (John 14:20) Our union with Christ is not only possible, it is our birthright as child of God, it is the calling of grace and the purpose of our journey in this life. This union is always offered in the self-gift of Jesus. He offers himself, and union in his love ceaselessly. We are made accessible to him in the prayer of our self-offering. This joining (yoke) is what heals our soul and brings us to rest and live in Eternal Life in his Heart. In the Christian tradition we practice this prayer of union by calling on the name of Jesus within in the Jesus prayer. The power of his name opens us to receive the gift of communion. The Jesus prayer is our response to his invitation to rest our soul and abide in him.

Praying the Jesus Prayer
In silence and stillness-When we want to remind ourselves of a loved one we think of their name, and the longing and love we share with them. So it is with our friend, our companion, our home and refuge, Jesus. We remember his name.

• So to enter into conscious communion with him we say his name inwardly, sitting in a quiet place, perhaps with an icon or a cross on a home altar before us.
• With each breath we repeat his name and let all other thoughts arise and go on, giving them no heed. So that slowly the only consideration, the only focus of our attention, the only act of our will is to be close to the presence of Jesus, the living Presence of God as Person.
• Again and again we simply return as we find our attention wandering or our longing and desire diverted by other things. In this way, abiding in his love, healing in his presence become our singular lifetime devotion and desire. It is this continual return that is the essential rhythm of this practice.

In the tradition of the Jesus prayer, some simply say the name of Jesus, or the Aramaic form of Jesus, "Yeshua." Breathing the first syllable on the inbreath and the second syllable on the outbreath. For others the more extended forms of the Jesus prayer are preferred. These include: "Jesus, have mercy" or "Lord Jesus, son of the Living God, have mercy." Choose the form that you are most drawn to. Sitting for 15-25 minutes of silence and interior quiet simply resting in the presence of Christ, anchored in the breathing in and out of his name, brings healing and freeing of our fears and obsessions, and brings us home to "abide in his love."

Praying the Jesus Prayer Throughout the Day-
Doing this once, or twice, or three times a day, establishes us in an ongoing return to inner communion with Christ throughout the day, in the midst of activity and relationships. We enter an ongoing ceaseless joining with Jesus in the flow of his loving Mercy into the world, by returning to the power of his name and abiding in his love. We come to him, heavy burdened by our preoccupation and fear, and there find the freedom to rest our soul entirely in the freedom of his love. Therein is our peace and our completion in life.

We are the Beloved Disciple
"Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." (John 13:23)
When we consider union with Christ as the center of our life we might hold the image of the apostle John, at the Last Supper, resting his head on the bosom of Jesus, listening to his heartbeat. The Greek word used for bosom refers to the area around the breastbone nearest the heart. Celtic Christian tradition holds the true source of spiritual life, not as the institutional transmission of belief, but the direct stream of Christ's own Loving Mercy when we open to His heartbeat in the practice of inner communion in prayer.

Living the Life of Christ in the Jesus Prayer
Jesus said "I came that they should have Life and have it fully." (Matt. 10:10) The goal of our life is unite our human life, our human soul utterly with His Life, and to receive the gift of himself that he wants to give. This is a life-long process of opening and receiving and bringing forth this union with Jesus, so that he can live fully in us. In the Jesus Prayer we open and receive this union.

When we are in a relationship of love or close friendship, there are times when we simply abide in the presence of our human beloved one. There are other times when we express our love and givenness in words and rituals of love. My path is that of inner communion with Christ, my Beloved, the emanation of the Godhead as Person, and my practice is the disciplined daily self-offering in love that I make to and with Yeshua, giving of the gift of my person and receiving the gift of His Person. My day begins and ends with the invocation in vocalized chant, "Yeshua (Jesus), Yeshua (Jesus), You in me, I in you." Everything else is the actualization of that singular desire, that singular intention. This is Theosis, Christ living in us, the foundation of spirituality and transformation in Eastern Christianity. We are the beloved disciple our calling is to "abide in his love." In this way over time we can begin to say as St. Paul does, "I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:20)

The Christian writer Brian Taylor says it this way:

"For contemplatives, the use of The Jesus Prayer may be one of the most ancient, consistently taught, simplest, most direct, and powerful ways of accessing Christ's transformative power in prayer. It calls upon us only to be present, to open our hearts to God, and to observe those personal obstacles that arise to stand in the way of that openness. By using the name of Jesus, it encapsulates everything we know, believe, love, and hope about Him, who is both the human face of God as well as our human potential. But rather than thinking about Jesus or our relationship to him, the Jesus Prayer brings us into His very presence. And in this nearness, He lives His life through us and takes us into the glory of God."
(Taylor, Becoming Christ: Transformation Through Contemplation) p. 75-76)