Following up on our message from this Sunday, talking about spiritual disciplines and the importance of prayer, silence, solitude, fasting, service and gathering with the community of faith. We focused on “The Jesus Prayer” as a way that Christians for over a thousand years have prayed as a way to center themselves upon the mercy of Christ. Granted, this is certainly not the only way to pray – but it can be a useful tool to be used in prayer. The prayer goes like this “Lord Jesus Christ…Son of God…have mercy on me…a sinner” This is very good exercise to repeat softly as you breath slowly in and out, in and out, in and out. A quote that I found as fantastic was from an Orthodox site that said:

We don’t say the Jesus Prayer, or enter wordless contemplation, to get “some benefit.” We don’t pray to reduce our stress, or strengthen our immune system, or lose weight, or add years to our life. On the contrary, we enter prayer to follow Christ, to become open to Him. His way is the Way of the Cross.

I hope you can incorpoate some of these disciplines in your daily life in this new year. Peace!