Do you know what the monks implied when they asked for more supervision in the practice of hesychasm? They did not say that we should not recite the Jesus Prayer; all the prayer books printed in Romania have it on the first page: O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." And there is a note there saying that this prayer can replace any other prayer. So the monks recommended it and the Church recommended it. What the monks could not accept was too much intellectualization; a whole theology has been created around this Prayer—too much discussion instead of simply practicing it. They were for simplicity; prayer is life, not theory.
~Fr. Roman Braga,
No comments:
Post a Comment