When I attempted different prayer practices for Flunking Sainthood, my favorite was my June experiment with the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner"). It's the only one of the spiritual practices I tried that I still do every day. Here, author and pastor Lynne Baab teaches us how to give the Jesus Prayer even more power and focus by coordinating it with our breath.
Drawing from her forthcoming book Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation, Baab explains what breath prayer is and how to do it. Simple but powerful -- give it a try. --JKR
Breath Prayer by Lynne Baab
Because of its simplicity, breath prayer is a great way to start when introducing a group to contemplative prayer. I know a family that engages in breath prayer at the beginning of their Sabbath day, and if the parents forget to make time for it, the kids remind them. I’ve used breath prayer in many different small group settings and occasionally in worship services as well, and most people take to it easily.
One way to engage in breath prayer is to imagine breathing out all our concerns and worries into God’s presence, while breathing in God’s love and care. . . .When I engage in this kind of breath prayer, I focus on one concern or one person in need as I breathe out. As I feel the air leaving my lungs, I picture myself relinquishing that concern or person into God’s care. Then I breathe in, imagining God’s love filling the empty space where the concern or worry was located inside me.
Sometimes the concern is so great that I spend several breaths on the same issue or person, always relinquishing the concern into God’s hands as I breathe out, and always imagining God’s love coming into me as I breathe in. Sometimes I simply name all my family members as I engage in breath prayer, saying one name silently with each breath out, knowing that God is aware of that person’s needs even more than I could be.
Another form of breath prayer uses the ancient prayer called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer is based loosely on the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 8:9–14 in which the tax collector says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (v. 13). One phrase of the Jesus Prayer is prayed on each breath, with the breaths providing a rhythm for the prayer.
In groups, I have used a white board to list the favorite names for Jesus that the group members suggest, such as Prince of Peace, Bread of Life, Light of the World, and True Vine. I suggest to the group that they pick one of those names and adapt the Jesus Prayer to that name, along these lines:
Lord Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, have mercy on me. I need your peace.
Lord Jesus Christ, Bread of life, have mercy on me, feed me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Light of the World, have mercy on me, shine your light in me.
Lord Jesus Christ, True Vine, have mercy on me, help me abide in you.
Then we spend some time as a group praying the new prayer silently in harmony with our breathing. . . . Breath prayer engages the physical body and helps us experience God’s presence in our bodies and in the physical world, integrating the physical and spiritual parts of our lives. Focusing on our breath slows down our breathing, which has the effect of slowing down all bodily functions, a way to experience peace from the One who gives us breath and longs to give us peace.
Lynne Baab is the author of Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation (September, WJK) and many other books on spirituality and leadership. She blogs regularly at The Thoughtful Christian's site Gathering Voices.
gilhow | Jun 21, 2012 | 7:12pm
Negativity and self-abasement continue too much of the Christian tradition. Why can’t the “Jesus Prayer” be a simple statement of fact, “Jesus, I am a seeker. I wish to pursue spirit as you taught.” Then just breathe, just let go, get lost in being. Tich Nhat Hanh teaches how breathing is the conduit between the brain and the rest of the body. Concentrate on your breathing. Concentrate on your being. Just being. All of being.
Alena | Jun 23, 2012 | 9:57am
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Alex Scott | Jun 24, 2012 | 3:53pm
gilhow: I’d say because there’s much more to it than that. On one level, it’s a statement of faith: in Jesus as Lord, Christ, Son of God, and merciful savior. On another, it’s an invocation of the divine Name, which is said to have its own power. On another, it’s an act of humility, a recognition that we are in need of his help, and a call for his mercy. And as Metr. Anthony Bloom explains in his book Living Prayer, it’s about more than simply the absence of punishment; the Greek word for “mercy” is related to the word for “oil,” so it conveys anointing, soothing, blessing, healing, and grace in addition. Even in English, the word has its roots in a word for “gift.”
And finally, it’s not simply a breath (in fact, it doesn’t have to be a breath prayer). This article only scratches the surface on what is an active wish for union with God. Orthodox literature goes much further on this (caveat: I’m not Orthodox, just a fan). Using the prayer is a way to fulfill Paul’s advice to pray without ceasing, and Jesus’ teaching about persistence in prayer. One prays the Jesus Prayer to make it an integral part of one’s mind and soul; it becomes what the Orthodox call “prayer of the heart.” The prayer is as much a part of yourself as your heartbeat, and your entire life becomes an expression of the prayer. In a way, you become the prayer. And from there, you move closer and closer to union with God.
marmot | Jun 24, 2012 | 7:16pm
I too pray a version of this prayer daily (Jesus, Lord, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner).
I believe its essence is not that it’s addressed to Jesus rather than to The Father. Nor is it its brevity, or that it’s a couplet. Its essence is that it’s a prayer of repentance: “have mercy on me, a sinner”.
As such, both the alternative focuses offered by Baab (“I need your peace ... feed me ... shine your light in me ... help me abide in you”) and the concern about “Negativity and self-abasement” voiced by gilhow (Comments) each stray from that essence.
The Jesus Prayer comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition and is as Baab notes, “based loosely on the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector” found in Luke 18:9-14 (note that the blog quotes that incorrectly as Luke ch. 8). But perhaps the best example of a version of the Jesus Prayer is Alma’s anguished prayer found in the Book of Mormon (Alma 36:18): “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” (This one, in English, doesn’t roll off the tongue as do some others, but may be unmatched for depth of feeling.)
That said, it’s true that in its broadest form, the Jesus Prayer is a prayer for healing: Matt 15:22; Matt 20:30; Mk 10:47; Lk.17:13; Lk 18:35-39. And, of course, forgiveness of sins is a subset of the healing of the Atonement, which can cover both physical and spiritual ills. As all of us sin and only some of us are physically ill or handicapped, the “have mercy on me, a sinner” version is the more universal variant.
Separately, I particularly appreciated the comments on breathing. I also coordinate my offerings of the Jesus Prayer with breathing. But I have one quibble with Baab on that. She says: “One phrase of the Jesus Prayer is prayed on each breath, with the breaths providing a rhythm for the prayer.” if one complete breath consists of inhaling and exhaling, then Baab’s statement is not accurate as I understand it. I believe the idea is to coordinate the first part of the prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God”) with the inhaling phase of one breath, and the balance (“have mercy on me, a sinner”) with the exhaling part of the same breath - one full breath per repetition of the prayer.
Also, not mentioned in either the blog or comments is the objection some LDS readers may have to any prayer that is rote, memorized, or repetitious. But the fact that a prayer is memorized and given verbatim shouldn’t be an issue to those readers as our liturgy includes set prayers. The issue should only be one of feeling and intensity. Any prayer, set or otherwise, can be one just going through the motions. And any prayer can be from the heart.
Lastly, Amen! To Alex Scott’s comments!
Jana Riess | Jun 26, 2012 | 1:31pm
Thanks for these comments. Gilhow, I think that for me at least, the Jesus Prayer has actually been such a powerful statement precisely because of its emphasis on the petitioner as a sinner. I don’t think it’s excess negativity or self-abasement to admit that we err constantly and need to be brought back to God’s light. But if it bothers you, there are other versions of the Jesus Prayer that omit the closing statement and just end with “have mercy on me.”
I like what Tony Jones has to say about this in “The Sacred Way” (chapter 5): “While the final self-referential tag, ‘a sinner,’ seems like a harsh conclusion, it is, of course, the truth. Many modern recitations of the Prayer omit this ending, but I always use it in my own practice. It stings me and awakens me to my own weakness. It also makes the Prayer a loop, for as I conclude by considering my own sinfulness, I’m compelled to once again call upon God’s mercy for my life. In this way, when practiced rhythmically, the Prayer has no beginning and no end.”