Mother Natalia

It's a way of repetitively using the name of the Lord in order to pray without ceasing.

Like it's not about reflecting on the words or thinking about the words.

It's that the words are bringing you into His presence.

I like your new studio.

That'd probably be weird.

The Jesus Prayer is a form of what I think people are now calling arrow prayers, like the short, succinct prayers that kind of get right to the point.

And it developed—I can't give dates and things like that, but it developed amongst—

the desert fathers, and then especially developed on Mount Athos, which is off of Greece and this island of monastics.

But it's a way of responding to St.

Paul's

exhortation when he says to the Thessalonians in his first letter to pray without ceasing.

So it's a way of repetitively using the name of the Lord in order to pray without ceasing.

Hmm.

Great question.

So no, I don't, but I try and that's what I'm striving for.

And yeah, so, so the Jesus prayer, um, the, the formula of it, there's different variations, but kind of a standard formula of it is Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

So this developed through, again, like I said, through the desert fathers, but, um,

But it's very based in scripture.

The blind man crying out, have mercy on me, son of David, have mercy on me.

And the publican and the Pharisee, the story of the publican saying, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, and so on and so forth.