The prayer of the heart: what it is and how to pray

THE PRAYER OF THE HEART - what it is and how to pray

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner or sinner

In the history of Christianity it is found that, in many traditions, there was a teaching on the importance of the body and bodily positions for spiritual life. Great saints have talked about it, such as Dominic, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola ... Furthermore, since the fourth century, we have encountered advice in this regard in the monks of Egypt. Later, the Orthodox proposed teaching on attention to heart rhythm and breathing. It has been mentioned above all about the "prayer of the heart" (or the "prayer of Jesus", which is addressed to him).

This tradition takes into account the rhythm of the heart, breathing, a presence to oneself in order to be more available to God. It is a very ancient tradition that draws on the teachings of the Egyptian Desert Fathers, monks who gave themselves totally to God in one hermit or community life with particular attention to prayer, asceticism and dominion over passions. They can be considered the successors of the martyrs, great witnesses of the faith at the time of religious persecutions, which ceased when Christianity became the state religion in the Roman empire. Starting from their experience, they engaged in spiritual accompaniment work with an emphasis on discernment of what was lived in prayer. Subsequently, the Orthodox tradition enhanced a prayer in which some words taken from the Gospels are combined with the breath and heartbeat. These words were pronounced by the blind Bartimaeus: «Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!» (Mk 10,47:18,13) and from the tax collector who prays thus: "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Lk XNUMX:XNUMX).

This tradition has recently been rediscovered by the Western Churches, although it dates back to an era before the schism between the Christians of the West and the East. It is therefore a common heritage to be explored and enjoyed, which interests us in that it shows how we can associate the body, heart and mind on a Christian spiritual path. There may be convergences with some teachings from Far Eastern traditions.

The search for the Russian pilgrim

The tales of a Russian pilgrim allow us to approach the prayer of the heart. Through this work, the West has rediscovered Hexicasm. In Russia there was an ancient tradition according to which certain people, attracted by a demanding spiritual path, left on foot through the countryside, as beggars, and were welcomed in monasteries, As pilgrims, they went from monastery to monastery, looking for answers to their spiritual questions. This sort of wandering retreat, in which asceticism and deprivation played an important role, could last several years.

The Russian pilgrim is a man who lived in the 1870th century. His stories were published around XNUMX. The author is not clearly identified. He was a man who had a health problem: an atrophied arm, and was beset by the desire to meet God. He went from one sanctuary to another. One day, he listened to some words from the letters of Saint Paul in a church. Then begins a pilgrimage of which he wrote the story. Here's what he looks like:

“By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my actions a great sinner, by condition a homeless pilgrim and the humblest kind who wanders from place to place. All my belongings consist of a pan pan sack on my shoulders, and the Holy Bible under my shirt. Nothing else. During the twenty-fourth week after the day of the Trinity I entered the church during the liturgy to pray a little; they were reading the pericope of the letter to the Thessalonians of St. Paul, in which it is said: "Pray incessantly" (1 Thess 5,17:6,18). This maxim was fixed in my mind, and I began to reflect: how can one pray incessantly, when it is inevitable and necessary for every man to engage in other matters to obtain sustenance? I turned to the Bible and read with my own eyes what I had heard, and that is that one must pray "unceasingly with all sorts of prayers and supplications in the Spirit" (Eph 1:2,8), pray "raising hands to heaven even without wrath and without disputes »(25Tm 26). I thought and thought, but I didn't know what to decide. "What to do?" "Where to find someone who can explain it to me? I will go to the churches where famous preachers speak, maybe I will hear something convincing ». And I went. I heard many excellent sermons on prayer. But they were all teachings on prayer in general: what is prayer, how it is necessary to pray, what are its fruits; but nobody said how to progress in prayer. There was indeed a sermon on prayer in the spirit and continuous prayer; but it was not indicated how to get there (pp. XNUMX-XNUMX).

The Pilgrim is therefore very disappointed, because he heard this appeal for continuous prayer, he listened to the sermons, but received no answer. We must recognize that this is still a current problem in our churches. We hear that we need to pray, we are invited to learn to pray, but, in conclusion, people think that there are no places where you can get started with prayer, especially to pray incessantly and taking into account your own body. Then, the Pilgrim begins to go around the churches and monasteries. And he comes from a starec - a spiritual accompanying monk - who receives him with kindness, invites him to his home and offers him a book of the Fathers that will allow him to clearly understand what prayer is and to learn it with the help of God : the Philocalia, which means the love of beauty in Greek. He explains what is called the prayer of Jesus.

Here is what the starec tells him: The inner and perpetual prayer of Jesus consists in incessantly invoking, without interruption, the divine name of Jesus Christ with the lips, the mind and the heart, imagining his constant presence and asking for his forgiveness , in every occupation, in every place. at all times, even in sleep. It is expressed in these words: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!". Those who get used to this invocation receive great consolation from it, and feel the need to always recite this prayer, so much so that they can no longer do without it, and it itself flows spontaneously in him. Now do you understand what continuous prayer is?

And the Pilgrim exclaims full of joy: "For God's sake, teach me how to get there!".

Starec continues:
"We will learn prayer by reading this book, which is called Philocalia." This book collects traditional texts of Orthodox spirituality.

The starec chooses a passage from Saint Simeon the New Theologian:

Sit quietly and secluded; bow your head, close your eyes; breathe more slowly, look with the imagination inside the heart, bring the mind, that is, the thought, from head to heart. As you breathe, say: "Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner", in a low voice with your lips, or only with your mind. Try to drive your thoughts away, be calm and patient, and repeat this exercise often.

After meeting this monk, the Russian pilgrim reads other authors and continues to go from monastery to monastery, from one place of prayer to another, making all kinds of encounters along the way and deepening his desire to pray incessantly. He counts the number of times he pronounces the invocation. Among the Orthodox, the crown of the rosary is made up of knots (fifty or one hundred knots). It is the equivalent of the rosary, but here are not our Father and Ave Maria represented by large and small grains, more or less spaced. The knots are instead of the same size and arranged one after the other, with the sole purpose of repeating the name of the Lord, a practice that is gradually acquired.
Here is how our Russian pilgrim discovered the continuous prayer, starting from a very simple repetition, taking into account the rhythm of breathing and the heart, trying to get out of the mind, to enter the deep heart, to calm one's inner being and thus remain in permanent prayer.

This Pilgrim story contains three teachings that feed our research.

The first emphasizes repetition. We do not need to go looking for Hindu mantras, we have them in the Christian tradition with the repetition of the name of Jesus. In many religious traditions, the repetition of a name or word in relation to the divine or sacred is the place of concentration and quiet for the person and relationship with the invisible. In the same way, the Jews repeat the Shema several times a day (the proclamation of faith that begins with "Listen, O Israel ...", Dt, 6,4). The repetition was taken up by the Christian rosary (which comes from San Domenico, in the XII century). This idea of ​​repetition is therefore classical also in Christian traditions.

The second teaching focuses on presence in the body, which is linked to other Christian traditions. In the 258th century, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was at the origin of the Jesuit spirituality, signaled the interest of praying at the rhythm of the heart or breathing, therefore the importance of attention to the body (see Spiritual Exercises , 260-XNUMX). In this way of praying, they distance themselves with respect to an intellectual reflection, to a mental approach, to enter a more affective rhythm, because repetition is not only external, vocal.

The third teaching refers to the energy that is released in prayer. This concept of energy - which is often encountered today - is often ambiguous, polysemic (that is to say, it has different meanings). Since this is the tradition in which the Russian Pilgrim is inscribed, it speaks of a spiritual energy which is found in the very name of God which is pronounced. This energy does not fall into the category of vibratory energy, as in the pronunciation of the sacred syllable OM, which is material. We know that the first mantra, the original mantra for Hinduism is the mystical syllable OM. It is the initial syllable, which comes from the depths of man, in the force of exhalation. In our case, these are uncreated energies, the divine energy itself, which comes in the person and pervades it when he pronounces the name of God. The teaching of Philocalia therefore allows us to reconnect to the experience of repetition, breathing and body, energy, but assumed in a Christian tradition in which it is not a cosmic but a spiritual energy.

Let us return to the transmission of the tradition of prayer of the heart, of the incessant invocation of the name of Jesus, which is located in the depths of the heart. It dates back to the high traditions of the Greek Fathers of the Byzantine Middle Ages: Gregorio Palamàs, Simeon the New Theologian, Maximus the Confessor, Diadoco di Fotice; and to the desert Fathers of the first centuries: Macario and Evagrio. Some even link it to the apostles ... (in Philocalia). This prayer developed above all in the monasteries of Sinai, on the border of Egypt, starting from the 1782th century, then on Mount Athos in the XNUMXth century. There still live hundreds of monks completely isolated from the world, always immersed in this prayer of the heart. In some monasteries it continues to murmur, like a beehive hum, in others it is said inwardly, in silence. Heart prayer was introduced to Russia in the mid-XNUMXth century. The great mystic Saint Sergius of Radonez, the founder of Russian monasticism, knew it. Other monks later made it known in the eighteenth century, then it gradually spread outside the monasteries, thanks to the publication of the Philocalia in XNUMX. Finally, the spread of the Tales of the Russian Pilgrim from the end of the nineteenth century made it popular.

Prayer of the heart will allow us to progress in the measure in which we can appropriate the experience we have begun, in an increasingly Christian perspective. In what we have learned so far, we have insisted above all on the emotional and bodily aspect of prayer and repetition; now, let's take another step. This way of regaining such a procedure does not imply a judgment or a disregard of other religious traditions (such as tantrism, yoga ...). We have the opportunity here to place ourselves in the heart of the Christian tradition, with regard to an aspect that has been attempted to ignore in the western churches in the last century. The Orthodox remained closer to this practice, while the recent Western Catholic tradition has evolved rather towards a rational and institutional approach of Christianity. The Orthodox remained closer to aesthetics, to what is felt, to beauty and to the spiritual dimension, in the sense of attention to the work of the Holy Spirit in humanity and in the world. We have seen that the word hexicasm means quiet, but it also refers to loneliness, recollection.

The power of the Name

Why is it said in Orthodox mysticism that prayer of the heart is at the center of orthodoxy? By the way, because the incessant invocation of the name of Jesus is connected to the Jewish tradition, for which the name of God is sacred, since there is a strength, a particular power in this name. According to this tradition it is forbidden to pronounce the name of Jhwh. When the Jews speak of the Name, they say: the Name or the tetragrammaton, the four letters. They never uttered it, except once a year, at the time when the temple of Jerusalem still existed. Only the high priest had the right to pronounce the name of Jhwh, in the saint of saints. Whenever in the Bible we speak of the Name, we speak of God. In the name itself, there is an extraordinary presence of God.

The importance of the name is found in the Acts of the Apostles, the first book of the Christian tradition after the Gospels: "Whoever invokes the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2,21:XNUMX). The name is the person, the name of Jesus saves, heals, drives out impure spirits, purifies the heart. Here is what an Orthodox priest says about this: «Always carry the sweetest name of Jesus in your heart; the heart is inflamed by the incessant call of this beloved name, of an ineffable love for him ».

This prayer is based on the exhortation to pray always and which we have remembered about the Russian pilgrim. All his words come from the New Testament. It is the cry of the sinner who asks the Lord for help, in Greek: "Kyrie, eleison". This formula is also used in the Catholic liturgy. And even today it is recited dozens of times in the Greek Orthodox offices. The repetition of the "Kyrie, eleison" is therefore important in the Eastern liturgy.

To go into the prayer of the heart, we are not obliged to recite the whole formula: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me (sinner)"; we can choose another word that moves us. However, it is necessary to understand the importance of the presence of the name of Jesus, when we want to deeply penetrate the meaning of this invocation. In the Christian tradition, the name of Jesus (which in Hebrew is called Jehoshua) means: "God saves". It is a way of making Christ present in our life. We will come back to talk about it. For the moment, it is possible that another expression suits us better. The important thing is to get into the habit of regularly repeating this expression, as a sign of tenderness that is expressed to someone. When we are on a spiritual path and accept that it is a path of relationship with God, we discover particular names that we address to God, names that we love in a particular way. They are sometimes affectionate names, full of tenderness, which can be said according to the relationship one has with him. For some, it will be Lord, Father; for others, it will be Papa, or Beloved ... A single word can suffice in this prayer; the main thing is not to change too often, repeat it regularly, and that it is for those who pronounce it a word that roots it in their heart and in the heart of God.

Some of us may be reluctant to face the words "pity" and "sinner". The word pity disturbs because it has often taken on a painful or humiliating connotation. But if we consider it in its first meaning of mercy and compassion, prayer can also mean: "Lord, look at me with tenderness". The word sinner evokes the recognition of our poverty. There is in this no sense of guilt centered on a list of sins. Sin is rather a state in which we perceive to what extent we struggle to love and let ourselves be loved as we would like. Sin means "to fail the target" ... Who does not recognize that he fails the target more often than he would like? Turning to Jesus, we ask him to have compassion for the difficulties we have in living at the level of the deep heart, in love. It is a request for help to free the inner source.

How is this breathing of the Name, of the name of Jesus done? As the Russian pilgrim tells us, the invocation is repeated a number of times using the rosary with knots. The fact of reciting it fifty or a hundred times on the rosary allows us to know where we are, but this is certainly not the most important thing. When the starec indicated to the Russian pilgrim how he should proceed, he said to him: "You begin first with a thousand times and then two thousand times ...". With the rosary, every time the name of Jesus is said, a knot is slid. This repetition done on the knots allows to fix the thought, remembers what is being done and thus helps to remain aware of the prayer process.

Breathe the Holy Spirit

Next to the rosary, the work of breathing gives us the best reference sign. These words are repeated to the rhythm of inspiration, then of exhalation so as to make them progressively penetrate our heart, as we will see in the practical exercises. In this case, nodes are not necessary. Anyway, even in this, we don't try to do feats. As soon as we move forward on a path of prayer with the aim of obtaining visible results, we follow the spirit of the world and move away from the spiritual life. In the deepest spiritual traditions, be they Judaic, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian, there is a freedom in terms of results, because the fruit is already on the way. We had to experience it already. Would we dare say "I have arrived"? However, without a doubt, we are already reaping good results. The aim is to arrive at an ever greater inner freedom, an ever deeper communion with God. This is given imperceptibly, progressively. The mere fact of being on the road, of being attentive to what we live, is already the sign of a continuous presence in the present, in inner freedom. The rest, we do not need to research it: it is given in excess.

The ancient monks say: above all, one should not exaggerate, do not try to repeat the Name until completely dazed; the aim is not to go into a trance. There are other religious traditions that propose methods of getting there, accompanying the rhythm of words with an acceleration of breathing. You can help yourself by beating on drums, or with rotational movements of the trunk as in certain Sufi brotherhoods. This leads to hyperventilation, therefore hyper-oxygenation of the brain which determines a modification of the state of consciousness. The person who participates in these trances is as if dragged by the effects of the acceleration of his breathing. The fact that many are rocking together accelerates the process. In the Christian tradition, what is sought is inner peace, without any particular manifestation. Churches have always been cautious about mystical experiences. Normally, in the case of ecstasy, the person almost does not move, but there may be slight external movements. No agitation or excitement is sought, breathing serves only as a support and spiritual symbol for prayer.

Why connect the Name with the breath? As we have seen, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the breath of man. When man breathes, he receives a life which is given to him by an Other. The image of the descent of the dove - symbol of the Holy Spirit - on Jesus at the moment of baptism is considered in the Cistercian tradition as the kiss of the Father to his Son. In breathing, yes it receives the Father's breath. If at that moment, in this breath, the name of the Son is pronounced, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are present. In the Gospel of John we read: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make his home with him" (Jn 14,23:1,4). Breathing to the rhythm of the name of Jesus gives a particular sense to inspiration. "Breathing serves as a support and symbol for prayer. "The name of Jesus is a perfume that is poured out" (cf. Cantico dei cantici, 20,22). The breath of Jesus is spiritual, heals, casts out demons, communicates the Holy Spirit (Jn 7,34:8,12). The Holy Spirit is Divine breath (Spiritus, spirare), a breath of love within the Trinitarian mystery. Jesus' breathing, like the beating of his heart, had to be incessantly linked to this mystery of love, as well as to the creature's sighs (Mk 8,26 and XNUMX) and to the "aspirations" that every human heart carries within itself . It is the Spirit himself who prays for us with unspeakable moans "(Rom XNUMX:XNUMX)" (Serr J.).

It could also be based on the heartbeat to rhythm the acting. This is the most ancient tradition for the prayer of the heart, but we realize that in our day, with the implemented rhythms of life, we no longer have the heart rhythm that the peasant or the monk had in his cell. In addition, care must be taken not to overly focus on this organ. We are very often under pressure, so it is not advisable to pray to the rhythm of the heartbeat. Certain techniques related to the rhythm of the heart can be dangerous. It is better to stick to the deep tradition of breathing, a biological rhythm as fundamental as that of the heart and which also has the mystical meaning of a communion with a life that is given and welcomed in breathing. In the Acts of the Apostles Saint Paul says: "In him we live, move and are" (Ac 17,28) According to this tradition we are therefore created at every instant, we are renewed; this life comes from him and one way to welcome it is to breathe consciously.

Gregory the Sinaita said: "Instead of breathing the Holy Spirit, we are filled with the breath of evil spirits" (it is bad habits, "passions", all that makes our daily life complicated). By fixing the mind on breathing (as we have done so far), it calms down, and we feel a physical, psychological and moral relaxation. "Breathing the Spirit", in the articulation of the Name, we can find the rest of the heart, and this corresponds to the procedure of the hexicasm. Hesychius of Batos writes: «The invocation of the name of Jesus, when accompanied by a desire full of sweetness and joy, fills the heart with joy and serenity. We will then be filled with the sweetness of feeling and experiencing this blessed exultation as an enchantment, because we will walk in the hesychia of the heart with the sweet pleasure and delights with which it fills the soul ».

We free ourselves from the agitation of the outside world, the dispersion, the diversity, the frenetic race is calmed down, because we are all often stressed in a very tiring way. When we arrive, thanks to this practice, to a greater presence to ourselves, in depth, we begin to feel good about ourselves, in silence. After a certain time, we discover that we are with an Other, because to love is to be inhabited and to let ourselves be loved is to let ourselves be inhabited. We find what I said about the transfiguration: the heart, mind and body find their original unity. We are caught up in the movement of metamorphosis, of the transfiguration of our being. This is a topic dear to orthodoxy. Our heart, our mind and our body are quiet and find their unity in God.

PRACTICAL ADVICE - Finding the right distance

Our first cure, when we stop to learn the "prayer of Jesus", will be to seek silence of the mind, to avoid any thought and to fix oneself in the depths of the heart. This is why breathing work is of great help.

As we know, using the words: "I let myself go, I give myself, I abandon myself, I receive myself" our aim is not to arrive at emptiness as in the Zen tradition, for example. It is a matter of freeing up an interior space in which we can experience being visited and inhabited. This process has nothing magical, it is an opening of the heart to a spiritual presence within itself. It is not a mechanical exercise or a psychosomatic technique; we can also replace these words with the prayer of the heart. In the rhythm of breathing, one can say in the inspiration: "Lord Jesus Christ", and in the exhalation: "Have mercy on me". At that moment, I welcome the breath, the tenderness, the mercy that I have given myself as an anointing of the Spirit.

We choose a silent place, we calm down, we invoke the Spirit to teach us to pray. We can imagine the Lord near us or in us, with the confident certainty that he has no other desire than to fill us with his peace. At the beginning, we can limit ourselves to a syllable, to a name: Abbà (Father), Jesus, Effathà (open, turned to ourselves), Marana-tha (come, Lord), Here I am, Lord, etc. We must not change the formula too often, which must be short. Giovanni Climaco advises: "that your prayer ignore any multiplication: one word was enough for the tax collector and the prodigal son to obtain God's forgiveness. Prolissity in prayer often fills with images and distracts, while often only one word (monology ) promotes recollection ”.

Let's take it calmly on the rhythm of our breathing. We repeat it standing, sitting or lying down, holding our breath as much as possible, so as not to breathe at too fast a pace. If we stay in apnea for some time, our breathing slows down. It becomes more distant, but we are oxygenated by breathing through the diaphragm. The breath then reaches such an amplitude that one needs to breathe less often. Furthermore, as Theophanes the Recluse writes: «Do not worry about the number of prayers to be recited. Take care only that prayer springs from your heart, gushing like a source of living water. Remove the idea of ​​quantity completely from your mind ». Again, everyone must find the formula that suits them: the words to use, the rhythm of the breath, the duration of the acting. In the beginning, the acting will be done orally; little by little, we will no longer need to pronounce it with our lips or use a rosary (any rosary can be fine, if you don't have one made of wool knots). An automatism will regulate the movement of breathing; the prayer will simplify and reach our sub-conscious to pacify it. Silence will pervade us from within.

In this breathing of the Name, our desire is expressed and deepened; gradually we enter into the peace of hasychia. By placing the mind in the heart - and we can locate a point physically, if this helps us, in our chest, or in our hara (see Zen tradition) -, we invoke the Lord Jesus incessantly; trying to do away with anything that can distract us. This learning takes time and you don't have to look for a quick result. There is therefore an effort to be made to remain in great simplicity and in great poverty, accepting what is given. Every time distractions come back, let's focus on breathing and speech again.

When you have taken up this habit, when you walk, when you sit down, you can resume your breathing. If gradually this name of God, whatever the name you give it, is associated with its rhythm, you will feel that the peace and unity of your person will grow. When someone provokes you, if you experience a feeling of anger or aggression, if you feel that you are no longer controlling yourself or if you are tempted to commit acts that go against your beliefs, resume breathing the Name. When you feel an inner impulse that opposes love and peace, this effort to find yourself in your depths through your breath, through your presence to yourself, through the repetition of the Name, makes you vigilant and attentive to the heart. This can allow you to calm down, delay your response and give you time to find the right distance in regards to an event, yourself, someone else. It can be a very concrete method of appeasing negative feelings, which are sometimes a poison for your inner serenity and prevent a deep relationship with others.

THE PRAYER OF JESUS

The prayer of Jesus is called prayer of the heart because, in biblical tradition, at the level of the heart is the center of man and his spirituality. The heart is not simply affectivity. This word refers to our profound identity. The heart is also the place of wisdom. In most spiritual traditions, it represents an important place and symbol; sometimes it is connected to the theme of the cave or to the lotus flower, or to the inner cell of the temple. In this regard, the Orthodox tradition is particularly close to biblical and Semitic sources. "The heart is the lord and king of the whole body organism," says Macario, and "when grace takes hold of the pastures of the heart, it reigns over all limbs and all thoughts; because there is intelligence, there are the thoughts of the soul, from there it awaits the good ». In this tradition, the heart is at the "center of the human being, the root of the faculties of the intellect and of the will, the point from which it comes and towards which all spiritual life converges. It is the source, dark and profound, from which all man's psychic and spiritual life flows and through which he is close and communicates with the Source of life ". To say that in prayer it is necessary to go from head to heart does not mean that head and heart are opposed. In the heart, there is equally desire, decision, choice of action. In current language, when one says that a person is a man or woman with a big heart, it refers to the affective dimension; but when it comes to "having a lion's heart" it refers to courage and determination.

The prayer of Jesus, with its respiratory and spiritual aspect, has the purpose of making "the head go down into the heart": this leads to the intelligence of the heart. «It is good to go down from the brain to the heart - says Theophanes the Recluse -. For the moment there are only cerebral reflections in you about God, but God himself remains outside ». It has been said that the consequence of breaking up with God is a kind of disintegration of the person, a loss of inner harmony. To rebalance the person with all his dimensions, the heart prayer process aims to connect the head and the heart, because "thoughts swirl like snowflakes or swarms of midges in summer". We can therefore achieve a much deeper understanding of human and spiritual reality.

Christian enlightenment

Since pronouncing the name of Jesus releases his breath in us, the most important effect of the prayer of the heart is illumination, which is not a manifestation physically felt, although it can have effects on the body. The heart will know the spiritual warmth, peace, light, so well expressed in the Orthodox liturgy. The Eastern Churches are decorated with icons, each with its own light that reflects on it, a sign of a mysterious presence. While western mystical theology has insisted, among other things, on the experience of the dark night (with Carmelite traditions, such as that of St. John of the Cross), illumination, the light of the transfiguration are emphasized in the East. The Orthodox saints are more transfigured than if they received the stigmata (In the Catholic tradition some saints like Francis of Assisi received traces of the wounds of the crucifixion in their flesh, thus joining the suffering of the crucified Christ). There is talk of taboric light, because on Mount Tabor, Jesus was transfigured. Spiritual growth is a path of progressive transfiguration. It is the very light of God that ends up reflecting on the man's face. For this reason we are called to become ourselves icons of the tenderness of God, following the example of Jesus. To the extent that we find our hidden source, little by little the inner light shines through our gaze. There is a grace of emotional participation that gives a great sweetness to the gaze and face of the religious of the East.

It is the Holy Spirit who realizes the unity of the person. The ultimate goal of the spiritual life is the deification of the human being according to the Orthodox tradition, that is, an inner transformation that restores the similarity wounded by the break with God. Man becomes ever closer to God, not with his strength, but for the presence of the Spirit who favors the prayer of the heart. There is a big difference between meditation techniques, in which one tries to achieve a certain state of consciousness through personal efforts, and a method of Christian prayer. In the first case, the work on oneself - which is certainly necessary for every spiritual journey - is carried out only by oneself, possibly with external human help, for example that of a teacher. In the second case, even if we are inspired by some techniques, the approach is lived in a spirit of openness and welcome to a transforming Presence. Gradually, thanks to the practice of prayer of the heart, man finds a profound unity. The more this unity is rooted, the better he can enter into communion with God: it is already an announcement of the resurrection! However, one should not delude oneself. There is nothing automatic or immediate in this process. It is not enough to be patient, it is equally important to accept being purified, that is to recognize the obscurities and deviations in us that prevent the acceptance of grace. Prayer of the heart stimulates an attitude of humility and repentance which conditions its authenticity; it is accompanied by a desire for discernment and inner vigilance. Faced with the beauty and love of God, man becomes aware of his sin and is invited to walk on the path of conversion.

What does this tradition say about divine energy? The body can also feel the effects of the illumination of the resurrection right now. There is always an ongoing debate among the Orthodox about the energies. Are they created or uncreated? Are they the effect of a direct action of God on man? Of what nature is deification? In what way could God, transcendent and inaccessible in his essence, communicate his graces to man, to the point of "deifying him" with his action? The interest of our contemporaries in the question of energy obliges us to dwell briefly on this question. Gregorio Palamàs speaks of a "participation" in something between the Christian and God. This something, are the divine "energies", comparable to the sun's rays that bring light and heat, without being the sun in its essence, and that we nevertheless we call: sun. It is these divine energies that act on the heart to recreate us in image and likeness. With this, God gives himself to man without ceasing to be transcendent to him. Through this image, we see how, through a work on the breath and on the repetition of the Name, we can welcome the divine energy and allow a transfiguration of the deep being to take place gradually in us.

The Name that heals

Speaking of pronouncing the Name, it is important not to place yourself in an attitude that would fall within the scope of magic. Ours is a perspective of faith in a God who is the shepherd of his people and who does not want to lose any of his sheep. Calling God by his name means opening up to his presence and the power of his love. Believing in the power of the evocation of the Name means believing that God is present in our depths and is only waiting for a sign from us to fill us with the grace we need. We must not forget that grace is always offered. The problem comes from us that we do not ask for it, we do not accept it, or we are unable to recognize it when it operates in our life or in that of others. The recitation of the Name is therefore an act of faith in a love that never ceases to give itself, a fire that never says: "Enough!".

Now perhaps we understand better how, in addition to the work we have started on the body and the breath, it is possible, for those who wish, to introduce the dimension of the repetition of the Name. Thus, little by little, the Spirit joins our breathing. In concrete terms, after a more or less long learning, when we have a moment of calm, when we walk on the street or when we are in the subway, if we enter deep breathing, spontaneously, the name of Jesus can visit us and remind us who we are, beloved children of the father.

Currently, it is believed that the prayer of the heart can urge the subconscious and implement a form of liberation in it. In fact, there lie forgotten dark, difficult and anguished realities. When this blessed Name pervades the subconscious, it casts out the other names, which are perhaps destroyers for us. This has nothing automatic and will not necessarily replace a psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic procedure; but in the Christian faith, this vision of the work of the Spirit is part of the incarnation: in Christianity, the spirit and the body are inseparable. Thanks to our communion with God, which is relationship, to pronounce his Name can free us from obscurity. We read in the Psalms that when a poor man cries out, God always answers (Ps 31,23; 72,12). And the beloved of the Canticle of Canticles says: "I was sleeping, but my heart was awake" (Ct 5,2). Here we can think of the image of the mother sleeping, but she knows that her baby is not very well: she will wake up at the slightest moan. It is a presence of the same kind that can be experienced in the important moments of love life, parental life, filiate. If to love is to be inhabited, the same can be said also for the relationship that God has with us. Discovering it and experiencing it is a grace to ask.

When we prepare an important meeting, we think about it, we prepare ourselves for it, but we cannot assure that it will be a successful meeting. This does not entirely depend on us, but also depends on the other. In the encounter with God, what depends on us is to prepare our heart. Even if we know neither the day nor the hour, our faith assures us that the Other will come. To this end it is necessary that we already place ourselves in an approach of faith, even if it is a faith in the first steps. Have the audacity to hope that there is actually someone who comes to us, even if we do not feel anything! It is a continual presence, just as we breathe every moment, and our heart beats without stopping. Our heart and our breath are vital for us, so this presence becomes vital from a spiritual point of view. Progressively, everything becomes life, life in God. Of course, we do not experience it permanently, but at certain moments we can guess it. Those moments encourage us, when we have the impression of wasting time in prayer, which, undoubtedly, often happens to us ...

Wait for the unexpected

We can draw from our own relationship experience, from the memory of our amazements in front of what we have discovered beautiful in us and in others. Our experience reveals to us the importance of the ability to recognize beauty on our way. For some it will be nature, for others friendship; in a nutshell, everything that makes us grow and gets us out of banality, from the daily routine. Wait for the unexpected and still be able to wonder! "I await the unexpected," a young man in search of vocation, met in a monastery, said to me one day: then I told him about the God of surprises. It is a journey that takes time. Let us remember that we said that the answer is already present on the path itself. We are tempted to ask ourselves the question: when will I arrive and when will I get the answer? The important thing is to be on the way, drinking at the wells we meet, even knowing that it will take a long time to get there. The horizon moves away when you approach the mountain, but there is the joy of the journey that accompanies the dryness of the effort, there is the closeness of the climbing partners. We are not alone, we are already turned towards the revelation that awaits us on the summit. When we are aware of this, we become pilgrims of the absolute, pilgrims of God, without seeking the result.

It is very difficult for us Westerners not to aim for immediate effectiveness. In the famous Hindu book Bhagavadgita, Krishna says that one must work without desiring the fruit of our effort. Buddhists add that one should free oneself from desire which is illusion in order to attain enlightenment. Much later, in the West, in the XNUMXth century, St. Ignatius of Loyola insisted on "indifference", which consists in maintaining a just inner freedom in regard to an important decision, until discernment confirms the appropriate choice. However, as we have seen, in Christianity desire remains an important reality for the spiritual journey. It unifies in the impulse that makes us come out of ourselves in the direction of fullness, and all this in great poverty. In fact, desire produces an emptiness in the soul, because we can only desire what we do not have yet, and gives its impetus to hope.

This helps us to think "right", because our thinking is also a thought of the heart, and not just a purely intellectual exercise. The righteousness of heart-enlightened thought and the states of our heart tell us something of the righteousness of our relationships. We will soon see this in the Ignatian tradition when we speak of the "motion of the spirits". This expression of Saint Ignatius of Loyola is another way of talking about the states of the heart, which tell us how we live our relationship to God and to others. We Westerners live above all at the level of the intellect, of rationality, and sometimes we reduce the heart to emotionality. We are then tempted both to neutralize it and to ignore it. For some of us, what is not measured does not exist, but this is in contradiction with daily experience, because the quality of the relationship is not measured.

In the midst of the splitting of man, of the dispersion caused by distraction, the recitation of the Name to the rhythm of breathing helps us to find the unity of the head, body and heart. This continuous prayer can become truly vital for us, in the sense that it follows our vital rhythms. Vital also in the sense in which, in the moments in which our life is questioned, threatened, we live the most intense experiences. Then, we can call the Lord with his Name, make him present and, little by little, enter the movement of the illumination of the heart. We are not obliged to be great mystics for this. At certain moments in our lives, we can discover that we are loved in an absolutely indescribable way, which fills us with joy. This is a confirmation of what is most beautiful in us and of the existence of being loved; it can only last a few seconds, and nevertheless become a milestone on our path. If there is no precise cause for this intense joy, St. Ignatius calls it a "consolation without cause". For example, when it is not a joy that comes from good news, from a promotion, from any gratification. It suddenly pervades us, and this is the sign that comes from God.

Pray with prudence and patience

The prayer of the heart has been the subject of discussion and suspicion because of the risks of falling back on oneself and of illusion as to the results. The constant repetition of a formula can cause a real vertigo.

The exaggerated concentration on breathing or on the rhythm of the heart can cause malaise in certain fragile people. There is also the risk of confusing prayer with the desire for feats. It is not a matter of forcing to arrive at an automatism or a correspondence with a certain biological movement. Therefore, originally, this prayer was taught only orally and the person was followed by a spiritual father.

In our day, this prayer is in the public domain; many are the books that talk about it and the people who practice it, without a particular accompaniment. All the more reason not to force anything. Nothing would be more contrary to the procedure than wanting to provoke a feeling of enlightenment, confusing the spiritual experience of which Philocalia speaks with a modification of the state of consciousness. There should be no merit or psychotechnics sought for itself.

This way of praying is not suitable for everyone. It requires repetition and an almost mechanical exercise at the beginning, which discourages some people. In addition, a phenomenon of fatigue arises, because progress is slow and, sometimes, you can find yourself in front of a real wall that paralyzes the effort. You don't have to declare yourself defeated, but even in this case, it's about being patient with yourself. We must not change the formula too often. I remember that spiritual progress cannot be achieved solely through the practice of a method, whatever it is, but implies an attitude of discernment and vigilance in daily life.

Source: novena.it