How to Pray the Jesus Prayer: Words, Roots and Practice

The Jesus Prayer is a short prayer of the Orthodox Church, repeated slowly and with attention: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." To pray it, you stand or sit quietly, say the words aloud or silently, and bring your mind back whenever it wanders. Five or ten minutes a day is a sound beginning.

It is one of the oldest continuously used prayers in Christianity, and one of the simplest. It asks for no book and no particular place. Orthodox Christians pray it in church and at home, on the bus and at the sink, and monks on Mount Athos have given their lives to it. This article describes the prayer as the Orthodox tradition itself teaches it.

What are the words of the Jesus Prayer?

The most widely used English form is:

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

In Greek it reads Kyrie Iesou Christe, Yie tou Theou, eleison me ton hamartolon. Several shorter and longer forms are equally traditional:

• Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
• Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
• Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.
• Lord, have mercy.

The oldest witnesses do not include the final words "a sinner"; they were added later and are now very common. Teachers of the prayer agree that what cannot be removed is the name of Jesus. It is also called the Prayer of the Heart.

The sentence has two halves. The first is a confession of faith: Jesus is Lord, he is the Christ, he is the Son of God. The second is a request: have mercy. The Orthodox Church in America's catechetical series The Orthodox Faith points out that the first half echoes Peter's confession (Matthew 16:16) and that, as Paul writes, no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). So even the shortest form is a prayer to the Son, in the Spirit, to the glory of the Father.

Where does the Jesus Prayer come from in Scripture?

Its request comes almost word for word from a parable. Jesus describes two men praying in the temple, and it is the second, standing at a distance, whose prayer is heard.

¹³But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

The same plea is addressed directly to Jesus a few verses later, on the road near Jericho. A blind man hears the crowd, learns who is passing, and calls out.

³⁸He cried out, “Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those in front tell him to be quiet, and he shouts all the more, until Jesus stops and asks what he wants (Luke 18:39-41). The tradition has always noticed that persistence. The Jesus Prayer is, in a sense, the blind man's refusal to stop.

The reason for repeating it comes from Paul.

¹⁷Pray without ceasing.

Three words, and for centuries Christians have asked how anyone could obey them. The Jesus Prayer is the Eastern Church's most characteristic answer: a prayer short enough to be carried into every hour, until, as its teachers say, it prays itself in the heart.

Where did the practice develop?

The practice began among the monks and nuns who settled the Egyptian desert in the fourth and fifth centuries, known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They prayed with brief, repeated phrases, often a line from the Psalms or a cry for help, as a way of keeping the mind turned to God through manual work. Over time the name of Jesus became the centre of such prayers.

A form close to the present one appears around the year 600 in the account of Abba Philemon, preserved in the Philokalia. In the same period John Climacus, abbot at Sinai and author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, urged monks to pray with a single short phrase.

From these roots grew hesychasm, from the Greek hesychia, stillness. Hesychasm is the Orthodox tradition of inner quiet and unceasing prayer centred on the name of Jesus. It flourished on Mount Athos, and its theology was set out in the fourteenth century by Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica.

The Philokalia (the title means "love of the beautiful") is the tradition's great anthology. It gathers texts on prayer and watchfulness written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries, and was compiled by two monks, Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, and first printed in Greek at Venice in 1782. A Church Slavonic version by Paisius Velichkovsky followed in Moscow in 1793 and carried the prayer deep into Russian life.

The Way of a Pilgrim shows what happened next. This anonymous Russian book, first published in Kazan in 1884, tells of a wanderer who is struck by Paul's instruction to pray without ceasing and cannot rest until he learns how. An elder, a starets, teaches him the Jesus Prayer, and he walks on across Russia carrying a copy of the Philokalia. The first English translation appeared in 1930, and the book has introduced the prayer to many readers outside Orthodoxy.

How do you pray the Jesus Prayer?

The OCA's teaching describes three ways the prayer is used: as the hesychast's formal prayer of the heart, as a continual prayer during ordinary activity, and as a brief prayer in moments of temptation. Most lay people live in the second and third. Here is a simple way to begin.

1. Set a time and place. Morning or evening, five to ten minutes. Orthodox Christians usually pray standing before the icons in their home; a quiet chair is also fine.
2. Begin as you normally begin prayer. Make the sign of the cross if that is your custom, and ask the Holy Spirit's help in a sentence.
3. Say the prayer aloud, slowly. Give each phrase its weight. Leave a short pause, then say it again. Aloud is the traditional starting point; teachers speak of the prayer of the lips coming first.
4. Keep your attention inside the words. When you notice you are thinking of something else, return without scolding yourself. Returning is the practice.
5. Do not look for experiences. Do not picture anything or wait for a feeling of warmth or peace. Orthodox teachers are blunt that seeking sensations is a wrong turn. The aim is repentance and attention to Christ.
6. End simply, with the Lord's Prayer or a moment of silence, and carry the prayer into the day: while walking, waiting, washing up, or lying awake.

Over time, the tradition says, the prayer moves inward: from the lips, to the attentive mind, and finally to the heart, where it continues beneath everything else. That deepening is described as a gift and is not something to be forced.

What is a prayer rope?

A prayer rope is a loop of knotted cord used to keep count of the Jesus Prayer and to occupy the hands. Greeks call it a komboskini and Russians a chotki. It is traditionally tied from black wool and joined at a knotted cross, often with a tassel.

Ropes commonly have 33, 50 or 100 knots; small ones for the finger have ten. You hold the rope in your left hand, leaving the right free to make the sign of the cross, and move one knot along with each prayer. Tradition credits Pachomius, a fourth-century Egyptian abbot, with giving the rope to monks who could not read.

A rope is a help and not a requirement. If you are a Catholic who prays with beads, you will recognise the purpose, though the two prayers differ in shape; see how to pray the Rosary.

Does the Jesus Prayer go with your breathing?

Many introductions suggest saying the first half of the prayer while breathing in and the second while breathing out. The link between the prayer and the breath is real in the tradition; hesychast writers describe praying it rhythmically, seated, with the head bowed and the mind gathered into the heart.

The tradition attaches a firm caution to this. The OCA's teaching notes that Theophan the Recluse, the nineteenth-century Russian bishop, reported that the bodily postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his day, because people were harming their lungs instead of growing in prayer, and it states that the hesychast method requires a spiritual guide "always and without exception." Techniques are aids for a few, under direction. They are never the goal.

For most people, that settles it. Pray the words at a natural, unhurried pace. If your breathing falls quietly into step, let it; do not manage it. If you are drawn toward a deeper practice, speak with an Orthodox priest or an experienced spiritual father or mother. That is how the prayer has always been handed on.

Is this prayer only for Orthodox Christians?

The Jesus Prayer belongs to the Orthodox Church in the way a family heirloom belongs to a family. It was formed there, guarded there, and is best learned from those who live it. Its words, though, are the Gospel's, and other Christians have long been welcomed to them.

If you are Catholic, the Catechism of the Catholic Church commends the invocation of the name of Jesus and calls it the simplest way of praying always. It cites the prayer in a plural form and names its home:

The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2667

Eastern Catholic Churches share the practice as part of their own inheritance.

If you are Protestant, you may hesitate at repetition, remembering Jesus's warning against piling up empty words (Matthew 6:7). The prayer's teachers share that concern; their whole emphasis is on attention. The content will be familiar. It is the tax collector's prayer, addressed to Christ by name, and Lutheran pastors, among others, have commended it on those grounds. If you already use short "breath prayers" drawn from Scripture, you are close to it.

If slow, repeated attention to Scripture is what draws you, Lectio Divina is the Western tradition's nearest relative. And if you are looking for a way to close the day, the Examen begins from a similar honesty about needing mercy.

In Emmaus, the Jesus Prayer is there for those who pray it, in keeping with the tradition you choose.

What if my mind keeps wandering?

It will. The Desert Fathers wrote at length about distraction because they knew it well. Their counsel is steady: do not argue with the thoughts, do not be alarmed by them, and return to the name. Shorten the time if you need to. Say the prayer aloud again. A small number of prayers said with attention, every day, is the tradition's own advice to beginners.