[st uriel's] Prayer

[Fr Tim Mansfield]

Hi folks,

Last night was our first new-format gathering. We talked about some basics
of a Gnostic approach to spiritual practice and tried a new approach to the
Jesus Prayer. I thought I'd share some of what came up.

The basics of spiritual practice in our tradition it seems to me are,
loosely, awareness training and prayer.

Awareness training shows up in most spiritual traditions because without it,
you find yourself subject to your mind and emotions and unable to bring much
attention to the what you're trying to do, whether that's sharing in
liturgy, prayer, transformative practices or whatever. The basics of
awareness training are simple: pick something to focus on, compassionately
return your attention to that point of focus when it drifts, repeat; try to
improve your ability to focus for longer periods and with greater quality
and depth.

Favourite objects of concentration are: the breath, images (statues, ikons,
crucifixes, iconic shapes like hexagrams and so on) and words (centering
prayer, for instance, is based on using significant words like "Abba" -
which means Daddy or "Maranatha" - which means Come Lord! - Aramaic has a
lovely open, sonorous tone for the job).

Many things may happen in awareness training, but one way to explain the
point of it is to improve your ability to be present with what's happening.

Prayer, by contrast, as I see it, is an activity in which we adjust our
patterns of thinking and feeling to align with the beneficial presence of
the Divine in which we are constantly bathed.

The Jesus Prayer is a nice example of the ways this can work. The prayer is
old and simple. The words are:

Lord, have mercy

or in Greek:

Kyrie, eleison

I like the Greek because it makes it clearer that the sense of "mercy"
(eleison) is less Bohemian Rhapsody and more Florence Nightingale. The
prayer is voicing a longing for healing. One form of the classical
instructions for the prayer are to pray is from the heart, with a devoted
yearning for the beloved Lord (Kyrie).

So the way the prayer is to be approached internally is to begin with
cultivating a sense of devoted yearning and to offer that with the word
"Kyrie" and then open oneself to received the grace and peace of the Divine
with the word "eleison".

Simple to say, but as one gets more practiced in cultivating the kind of
thinking and feeling the prayer describes, I would say that two things
happen:

First, in the praying of the prayer the sense of division from the object of
prayer become softer and begin to dissolve and the prayer naturally becomes
softer and then silent. It becomes hard to stay so attached to you the
subject, praying to an imagined Divine object and the pray-er, the pray-ing
and the prayed-to are One.

Second, that we achieve at least briefly what is called in Greek "metanoia"
- a change in mind or in thought. We understand that in loving we are loved
and that that is a fundamental condition of our existence. As we persist
with the prayer, that change becomes more certain, less something we hope
and more something we know.

And we Gnostics are, after all, all about the knowing.

I love that very simple prayer and it's a treasure for me that in every
Eucharist service we say it, linking the liturgy to our own private
spiritual practice and to the practice of countless lay folk, monk and nuns
since the first century, right back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

Saint Uriel's meets next Sunday for prayer and discussion at 6pm at 15
Francis St. I pray that you can join us.

My blessings on you and your week ahead,

Reverend Father Tim Mansfield
Rector, Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel <http://www.saint-uriels.org>,
Sydney, Australia
Apostolic Johannite Church <http://www.johannite.org>
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