Any Catholics say the Jesus Prayer?

[allhers]

I am a Catholic, and I say it all the time. I learned it from a young priest who would often pray that prayer before celebrating daily mass.

Paul

That is exactly when both my husband and I say it, while kneeling in prayer before Mass. (silently of course.)

 

[DebChris]

I am a Catholic, and I say it all the time. I learned it from a young priest who would often pray that prayer before celebrating daily mass.

Paul

Before Mass, is a good place to say the Jesus Prayer. I now use a different method to move into contemplation, learned at the Trappist monastery in Conyers, before Mass.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Quite often, yes. Especially when I’m so upset, its the only prayer I can concentrate on.

 

[wingsofmentis]

Dear SianTeresa,
3) The claim, made by a tiny faction of Orthodox practitioners of this breath/heartbeat method (hesychasts), and defended by Gregory Palamas (St Palamas in the Orthodox Church, but considered a heretic by Rome) that through the practice of the Jesus Prayer the disciple can attain the Beatific Vision while still in the body. This is another occasion of Messalian/Palagian heresy, saying that we can attain the gift of God’s loving presence by our works and our prayers. We can never attain the Beatific Vision by anything that we do, but only by God’s mercy. This error also opens hesychasm to a psychologistic error - by controlling heart-rate and breathing the hesychast acheives a bodily ecstacy, similar to that attained through the use of yogic exercise or the use of psychotropic drugs, and mistakes that neurological reaction for the experience of union with God. Ultimately, as Catholics, we do not pray in order to attain ecstatic experience, we pray because we wish to live lives pleasing to God.

1 and 2 are Catholic, 3 is heretical. As long as we understand that we are not praying the Jesus Prayer to ‘get’ anything from God, but only to put ourselves in a position where He can continue His sanctifying work in and through us, no problem. St John of the Cross is a great writer on the subject of mystical experience and how the Christian should not strive for visions and ecstatic experiences, but for the silent union of the soul with God in the darkness that lies beyond our sensory experience.

God bless.

Actually hesychasists warn against seeking visions and ectsacy, viewing them as unimportant to even dangerous.

 

[rossum]

1. The practice of associating the prayer with breathing and heartbeat, as practiced by some Eastern Christian mystics, and as explained in ‘The Way of a Pilgrim’. In this practice, the disciple prays ‘O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’ on the in-breath, and ‘have mercy on me, a sinner.’ on the out breath, while focussing on the heartbeat so that each beat prays ‘Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, God, mercy, on-me, a-sinner’. This practice has never been common in the West, but is practiced by both Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians. The Church has never suppressed this practice to the best of my knowledge, though whether there is any advantage to it is another matter.

At an Orthodox site there is a webpage: Saying the Jesus Prayer about this. If you are going to follow the practice of linking the prayer with your breathing then you need to be aware of a warning from Bishop Ware on that page:“But those who have no personal contact with starets [a teacher] may still practice the Prayer without any fear, so long as they do so only for limited periods - initially, for no more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time - and so long as they make no attempt to interfere with the body’s natural rhythms.”
This is wise advice.

rossum

 

[Izdaari]

I am neither Catholic nor Orthodox, and sometimes I say it.