On the Jesus Prayer - St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia
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- Опубликовано: 4 фев 2025
- St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia on Mount Athos discusses how to pray the Jesus Prayer and why it is "the key to the spiritual life" for every Orthodox Christian.
A reading of Wounded by Love p. 118-122
📖 Wounded by Love: The Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios
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🎧 Original recording of Saint Porphyrios saying the Jesus Prayer:
• Saint Porphyrios of ka...
🎧 Divine Eros: Insatiable Love For Christ - St. Porphyrios
• Divine Eros: Insatiabl...
📖 Healing the Soul: Saint Porphyrios as a Model for Our Lives by Elder Savvas Hagiorite. The St. John Chrysostom Monastery in Wisconsin publishes this book. Email them to ask how to obtain a copy:
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⛪ FIND an Orthodox parish and monastery near you:
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St. Porphyrios teaches:
As the most effective prayer the Church Fathers use the short phrase, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me: This prayer is the key to he spiritual life. It is a prayer that cannot be taught either by books, or by spiritual fathers or by anyone else. Its sole teacher is divine grace. If tell you honey is sweet and runny, or this and that, you won't understand unless you taste it. The same is true of prayer. If I say, this is what it's like or 'this is how you'll feel, you won't understand, nor will you pray except in the Holy Spirit.
When grace comes, when love comes, you say the name 'Christ and your mind and heart are flooded. This love, this craving, also has degrees. When you experience this love, you desire to acquire spiritual things, not only when you are awake, but even in your dreams you see the same things. You desire to do everything within the embrace of this love, to move within this love. You wish to engage in effort, in every effort, out of love for God. You feel love and gratitude towards God, without having in mind to achieve anything specific. What is of value is to repeat the Jesus Prayer with tenderness of soul, with love, with longing, and then it doesn't appear at all as a chore to you. It's like when you say, 'my mother...my father, and you feel perfect consolation. Force, therefore, is not the way to acquire prayer.
Pray without forming images in your mind. Don't try to imagine Christ. The Fathers emphasized the need for prayer to be free of images. With an image, the focus of prayer is easily lost, because one image can easily be displaced by another. And the evil one may intrude images and we lose the grace.
You can say the prayer, 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, gently, without straining and without contortion wherever you happen to be - on a stool, on a chair, in a car, walking along the road, at school, in the office or at work. Don't tie yourself down to a specific place. What is all-important is love for Christ. If your soul repeats with worship and adoration the seven words, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, it never can have enough. They are insatiable words! Repeat them all your life. There is such life-giving sap hidden within them!
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Lord I need You in my life every step🙏✌️❤️
Beautiful words by a wonderful and holy man. Saint Porphyrios, please pray for us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners!
i keep running back to this video, the words of our beloved elder porphyrios are truly inspiring and of the Holy Spirit.
Many admirations to the Saint for describing what being in the spirit feels like as I listened I cannot help but realize the complexities of what he is attempting to communicate glory to the FATHER and to the SON and to the Holy Spirit amen
This is a great channel! And this is one of your best. Though always inspiring, this one is also really very practically useful. Specific advice on prayer is just wonderful to get! Those of us raised protestant never ever heard why of this.
Wounded by Love by St. Porphyrios was one of the first Orthodox Christian books I read. He has a wonderful way of describing the Orthodoxy life with love.
If I could afford it I would buy this book by the case and give them out like candy.
አሜን ✝️🙏❤️🛐
Thank you so much for making these videos in my times of need wether I’m at work or driving I love listening to these readings it helps so much and I want you to be encouraged to keep making these because I know they are helping many like me
Amen!
ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL ADVICE!!!
I always found the prayer to be easier with my eyes open. With my eyes closed I struggle with the prayer as images tend to pop up in my mind involuntarily ( since I’m a very visual person and had a very overactive imagination )
Looks like “Wounded By Love” is next on my to read list. Thank you for the wonderful content
May it be blessed
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This thumbnail is beautiful ❤
Thank you. Can you read more of saint porphyrios?
It’s difficult for me to pray and get closer to God because I always am feeling like maybe it’s an ulterior motive that drives me to be closer to God, and not my pure love for Him. But I’m not sure how to make the ulterior motives go away. I feel like as humans, a lot of us tend to do things like be in relationships transactionally with ulterior motives instead of what God wants for us which is to love without expectation. It’s a difficult thing to really do, and I want to know how we can really achieve that.
Do you not understand that the prayer is about giving up self reliance? If this is the case, what you said is not a problem: pray with this in mind 1) that you stop your attempts to figure it out on your own 2) that your intentions be made pure and acceptable to Christ.
Everything else is just neuroticism meant to distract you. Cut that train of thought off immediately
in 1:20 can someone tell me what does he mean by your not ready?
Hey, how do we avoid prelest, delusion and pride when saying the prayer? How do we avoid thinking highly of ourselves which obviously will block divine grace from working in us?
How do we lead ourselves to an atmosphere of grace so that we can say the prayer? Is that something we can do by attending church, struggling, and confessing regularly or do we need constant guidance to do it, like being a monk?
Between what I understand and what comes to mind from the saints, including St. Porphyrios: fall in love with Christ, be watchful over yourself, and ask God for the "atmosphere of grace" and the God who gives good gifts to His children will not fail to do so. Good question, brother.
I recommend the book "Thinking Orthodox". I just listened to a part of the book about the different paths you mentioned in your comment.
Im confused. St Joseph the Hesychast said to never stop saying it
He did. I thought of this as well when I recorded this text last night. One possibility, since I can't imagine these two great saints would disagree on something so fundamental, is that St. Porphyrios has in mind a situation where someone is becoming delusional in saying the prayer because of pride and prelest. Would be a good question for someone will deep experience of the Jesus Prayer.
@OrthodoxWisdom thank You so much. God bless You. I usually Say the Jesus prayer alot but this video made me despair a Little bit.
The neptic fathers say that continual prayer is a gift from God. One may rightly aspire to continual prayer as the ultimate goal of prayer, yet not have received the power from God for this state to manifest. What is advised by St.Porphyrious is to only pray at such times as you have the concentration and peace to pray worthily and with complete attention. If you try to have continual prayer by your own efforts, you will so dilute the prayer that it will become weak, and the soul will begin to reject the imposition of this monotonous and mechanical chore. The fathers have stressed that the gift of continual prayer is a manifestation of divine grace, which when it comes is effortless and accompanied by deep inner peace.
@MichaelK.-xl2qk thank You!
Don't try to picture anything. This seems to be the opposite of what praying through icons does. If I am often praying through icons of Christ, my brain will automatically start to picture that deep within the subconscious
I’d reconsider that. The Fathers all say we must not make images in our minds during prayer.
@OrthodoxWisdom what about people who think only in images? My overall point was that the majority of people are not in control of what their subconscious mind produces. It can improve the more we pray.
Amen, on point!