Chapter 75
On Errors in the Practice of the Jesus Prayer
75.2.1 May the mercy of God be with you!
75.3.1 Accept from me as well my greetings on the feast days and on the new year. May all things work toward your salvation!
75.4.1 What was written about the elder. N from the words of others—I think it’s better to let that be forgotten.[1] The one who passed it on added something of her own to it, and it’s impossible to separate that from the words of the elder. N it’s impossible.[2] Nowadays, people don’t know how to approach the Jesus Prayer. How many embellishments they’ve invented! And yet they’ve forgotten the heart of the matter entirely. That’s why some people stop at the words alone and just repeat, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’ – but without any thought or feeling. I call them whisperers, or mutterers. Others stop at nostril-breathing and just snort. These are the snorters. There have also appeared some who, as if unable to stop the inner movement, start shouting: ‘Jesus… Jesus… Je… Je…’. These are the shriekers.[3]
75.5.1 But the practice of this prayer is simple: stand with your intellect in your heart before the face of the Lord and cry out: ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,’ or simply: ‘Lord, have mercy, merciful Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner…,’ or with any other words. The power is not in the words at all, but in the thoughts and feelings… Stand on this, and reject all the embellishments, and teach others to do the same.
75.6.1 That you’ve been freed, though not entirely, from the harassments—that’s the mercy of God. Make use of it and take care to order your inner life well, to walk unceasingly in the remembrance of God and the remembrance of death, and by this to stir up a vigilant and zealous thought about salvation.
75.7.1 I ask you to pray to the Lord for this blessing for me as well.
75.8.1 May the Lord bless you!
75.9.1 Be saved!
75.10.1 Your well-wisher, Bishop Theophan.
75.11.1