The Jesus Prayer
I'm a big fan of J.D Salinger.
His work is deeply personal to me.
Catcher in the Rye, describes perfectly the teenage angst and disillusionment with society, i went through as a teenager.
Frannie and Zooey pulls me in with the discussion of religious significance.
Especially, Frannie and the Jesus Prayer.
I did a little research on it.
The Jesus Prayer is for the Eastern Orthodox one of the most profound and mystical prayers and it is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice.
THE JESUS PRAYER:
Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ του Θεού, ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν. �
� Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner."
People who say the prayer as part of meditation often synchronize it with their breathing; breathing in while calling out to God (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God) and breathing out while praying for mercy (have mercy on me, a sinner).
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Prayer is a living reality, a deeply personal encounter with the living God, it is not to be confined to any given classification or rigid analysis.
And this is the understanding that i have come across in the past year.
Prayer is not be fixed and defined by any man.
We should pray from the hear.
You know you're praying from your heart when prayer is no longer something we do but who we are.
So here i say it again...in my mother's language no less:
أيها الرب يسوع المسيح ابن الله, إرحمني أنا الخاطئ
Ayyuha-r-Rabbu Yasū` al-Masīħ, Ibnu-l-Lāh, irħamnī ana-l-khāti'a
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner