Prayer of Jesus today

Metropolitan Clement of Larissa and Platamon | October 1/14, 2025

 

 

Our Lord Jesus Christ exhorts us to pray continually and not to lose heart (cf. Luke 18:1). To communicate with Him always, day and night, to address Him with our mind and our heart. To express to Him our doxology, our thanksgiving, our confession, as well as our petitions for the spiritual and material goods necessary to us.

The essence of prayer is precisely the noetic ascent toward God from our heart. For this to be accomplished, the spiritual thoughts of the mind must be united with the spiritual feelings of the heart.

For this to occur, great struggle and continual effort are required. For the thoughts of our mind and the feelings of our heart are very carnal and earthly, and we must, with the help of Divine Grace, lift up our mind and heart, our spirit, to spiritual thoughts and sacred feelings.

The more we limit and reduce carnal and earthly wanderings, occupations, and attachments, and the more we struggle in repentance and in the keeping of the divine Commandments; the more we study the word of God, participate in the holy Services and the sacred Mysteries of the Church, and devote ourselves willingly to prayer, so much the more are our thoughts and feelings purified, illumined, and made spiritual. The hesychastic tradition of the Holy Fathers speaks, as is known, of purification, illumination, and perfection–theosis. Yet the path is one of the Cross.

True repentance is needed, spiritual attentiveness, self-restraint, peace, patience, prayers. Our communication with God takes place noetically, because God is noetic. From our heart we must address Him mystically with our mind, that is, noetically, toward God. This noetic spiritual prayer constitutes the true and genuine prayer.

The continuous, unceasing prayer with the invocation of the Almighty divine Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, with awareness of His true Presence—yet without forms, images, or fantasies, with concentration on the words of the Prayer—is the most powerful, purifying, and effective prayer, which heals us from the passions and sins, makes us truly children of God, houses, temples, and dwellings of the divine Glory, vessels and instruments of the Holy Spirit.

But for this blessed and saving work to be accomplished, a struggle is required to avoid every act and thought that is not pleasing to God. The mind must be cleansed from the sorrowful wandering of deceitful thoughts, and the heart must be pure, without greed, without sensual pleasure and carnal burning, but also in a state of humility, without judgment, resentment, jealousy, vainglory, and pride. There must not exist within it even a trace of a disposition toward imposition, domination, and prevailing over others. No movement of contempt or criticism against others should lurk within, for such a thing reveals the presence of pride, which defiles every spiritual effort, nullifies it, and brings it to naught. The pursuit of order and proper arrangement is something else, especially when someone is in a position of authority and is obliged to care for the good progress of things for the benefit of the whole.

In the meantime, it is understood that our effort in prayer takes place with the knowledge and blessing of our Spiritual Father.

We thus draw near noetically to our Lord in repentance, with a sense of complete humility, weakness, and self-reproach, with forgiveness, love, and mercy for all and for everything, as the most pitiable of all men. We accuse and blame only ourselves and no one else. For everything, we ourselves are at fault, without any self-justification or excuse. We condemn only ourselves as worthy of damnation, as transgressors of all the divine Commandments, as an abortion, as wretched and deserving of every punishment and condemnation.

And we humbly implore, from the depths of our being, that the Lord may help us not to grieve the Holy Spirit with our passions, and not to harm our brother, the Church, the whole world, creation, and every creature, whether animate or inanimate.

We do not await charismata, we do not desire divine gifts and lofty or supernatural states, we do not seek divine visions and miracles. We do not consider ourselves worthy of such exalted gifts and rewards, which the Lord bestows upon His chosen servants. We ask only for Mercy, for awareness and understanding, so that we may comprehend and apply the divine Commandments, to begin repentance, to attain forgiveness.

All these things are entirely God-pleasing and well-pleasing, and it is then that the divine overshadowing is present!

When this prayerful invocation becomes long-standing, stabilized, and established within a person, it then draws down divine Grace, which acts therapeutically within him. It reunites the disjoined parts of the praying person. It unites the mind with the heart, with the soul, and with the body. But it also unites our spirit with the Spirit of God! This is the most wondrous and exalted gift of Heaven, to which we contribute through our patient persistence and unwavering effort.

This blessed state gives longing and desire only for God, only for His good and well-pleasing will. It repels all evil and all passion. It turns away from every delusion, as well as from everything tempting and harmful. It refines, sensitizes, and brings joy to the praying athlete of Christ.

This path is without end, if it continues rightly and in a God-loving manner. The devil, the enemy of salvation, stirs up dreadful temptations and also employs seductive suggestions in order to halt it, to abolish it, or to divert it. For this reason, very great attentiveness is needed, for even the slightest concessions to the devil's suggestions and temptations have serious and damaging consequences.

If the spiritual struggle weakens, if there are sinful compromises, then precious ground is lost. Yet the path always remains open. The Lord longs for our living communication with Him, as well as our personal contact with Him, so that He may count us as true members of Himself and that we may already now maintain unbroken communion, which shall continue eternally in Heaven “face to face”!

If this is not realized, the fault will be entirely ours, for we stop, grow slothful, retreat, and abandon this life-giving and saving bond with the Source of Life, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, our Love and Adoration…

Let us not retreat, let us not be afraid, let us not lose heart! Under any circumstances, even within the modern, noisy, and exhausting reality, let us not cease the divine invocation of our Christ, which can and must be made everywhere and at all times. The Prayer of Jesus is the strongest, the sweetest, the most effective, the most immediate, the most beloved, the most cherished prayerful activity.

Let us place this first, let us take refuge in it, let us cling to it. Let it enter into our very being, let it consume us, and let us consume it. And especially:

● when we lose something important and precious, which brings us unspeakable pain, sorrow, and turmoil;

● when a difficult trial, mission, encounter, examination, or judgment awaits us;

● when someone or several people attack us in anger, wrong us, slander us, insult us, speak ill of us, oppose us, reject us;

● when we are overcome by fatigue, disappointment, sorrow, helplessness, failure, anxiety, despair, darkness, or dead ends;

● when our hidden or visible passions attack us, the worldly spirit and mindset that prevails around us, our complaints and unfulfilled desires, the repressed thoughts of self-justification, the suppressed remnants of our past, our passionate lawlessness, our egotistical judgments and delusions;

● when our fears and insecurities rise up menacingly, our weaknesses and inferiority complexes, our infirmities and atrophies, our depressive thoughts and tendencies, our self-destructive obsessions, the various idols and phantoms of our mind and intellect…

How, then, and from where shall we find strength to resist and to guard ourselves?

No one, absolutely no one, can prevent us from having true communion with the Lord Jesus Christ within us—noetically and in the heart, within our very being. Only obstacles arise, both internal and external, which we are obliged to overcome and conquer by His power.

May Christ dwell within us, that He may renew and enliven us. That we may transmit and reveal Him also to others—not so much by our words, but by our living example and our radiant presence. May He be our Savior and Redeemer, our Lord and our God!

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

 

Greek source:

https://imlp.gr/2025/10/14/%cf%80%cf%81%ce%bf%cf%83%ce%b5%cf%85%cf%87%e1%bd%b4-%cf%84%ce%bf%e1%bf%a6-%e1%bc%b0%ce%b7%cf%83%ce%bf%e1%bf%a6-%cf%83%ce%ae%ce%bc%ce%b5%cf%81%ce%b1/