Dialogue 5: The Realm of the Heart

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

Our desire is to honor and share the best parts of the Christian contemplative traditions so that this collective wisdom might serve the flourishing of humanity, all beings, and all of creation.

My name is Ben Kesey, and I lead the development team at the Center for Action and Contemplation. I want to thank all of you who are generous donors giving freely and cheerfully to make this work possible. If you've been impacted by these podcast conversations and are inspired to invest in the future of CAC's mission and work, twice per year, we invite your financial support. To contribute, go to cac.org/donate to make a gift. Thank you so much.

James Finley (0:49)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:52)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

James Finley (0:54)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (1:04)

Welcome, everyone, to season nine of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to an anonymous author who wrote The Way of a Pilgrim.

And I'm here with Jim to discuss his fifth talk on The Way of a Pilgrim. Welcome, Jim.

James Finley (1:20)

Yes, good to be back together again.

Kirsten Oates (1:25)

I thought what might be helpful as an opening is to read through all the instructions that have been given so far about the prayer. They're kind of interwoven throughout the story, but I thought I'd bring them together and just read them one after the other.

And then I'll ask you some questions about them, Jim, if that's okay?

James Finley (1:44)

Yeah, that would be great.

Kirsten Oates (1:46)

Okay, great.

So here we go. The continuous interior prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart, while forming a mental picture of his constant presence and imploring his grace during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. One who accustoms himself to this appeal experiences as a result, so deep a consolation and so great a need to offer the prayer always that he can no longer live without it. And it will continue to voice itself within him of its own accord.

Sit down alone and in silence. Lower your head, shut your eyes, breathe out gently and imagine yourself looking into your own heart. Carry your mind, your thoughts from your head to your heart. As you breathe out, say, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Say it moving your lips gently or simply say it in your mind. Try to put all other thoughts aside. Be calm, be patient and repeat the process very frequently.

The faculty of pronouncing words lies in the throat. Reject all other thoughts. You can do this if you will and allow that faculty to repeat only the following words constantly. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Compel yourself to do it always. If you succeed for a time, then without a doubt, your heart also will open to prayer. We know this from experience.

Here is a rosary. Take it and to start with, say the prayer 3,000 times a day. Whether you are standing or sitting, walking or lying down, continually repeat Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Say it quietly and without hurry, but without fail exactly 3,000 times a day, without deliberately increasing or diminishing the number. I reported to my starretts and he bade me to say the prayer 6,000 times a day, saying, be calm. Just try as faithfully as possible to carry out the set number of prayers. God will vouchsafe you His grace.

And then the last one, see that you preserve the habit and strengthen it. Waste no time therefore, but make up your mind by God's help from today to say the prayer of Jesus 12,000 times a day. So there are all the instructions that we're given and what we're missing out is the conversations going on in between, but you can feel the way the starretts is upping the ante each time the pilgrim reports to him. So I have a couple of questions about for myself and maybe for anyone else who might be trying to take on this prayer as a practice. Should we be at 12,000 times a day at this point?

James Finley (5:35)

You see, my sense of it would be true to the spirit of the tradition and the story also is notice that the whole story begins with the pilgrim in the midst of a life of devotional sincerity. That is, he's living the Christian life, is he wonders about his best pocket is the Bible over his heart. The 24th Sunday after Pentecost. So he's at prayer, efficacious unto holiness, efficacious unto holiness. And so that's what we should be where we are in the sincerity of our desire to be open to God's experience and guidance in our life and so on. To live this love life that Christ modeled for us. That's where we should be. And we should also be in our devotional sincerity and faithful to a daily rendezvous with God in prayer. So it's like experientially rooted within ourselves. And each time we end our daily rendezvous to ask God for the grace not to break the thread of that through the day. And the way we pray will be where we are at the moment. And typically where most of us are is we start out with Lectio Divina, meditation and prayer. We open the scriptures and we take a text. We read the passage as if God is personally saying that to us. Like we listen to God. Then meditation, we have a dialogue with God, Meditatio. A loving dialogue, we might journal it out. And then the prayer is asking God for the grace to be true to it. That's where we should be.