The Breath That Never Ceases

The Holy Fathers teach that the remembrance of the Name of Jesus is life itself. Saint John Climacus writes that the remembrance of Jesus is a single, all-embracing thought that contains within itself all prayer. Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou, standing within this same living current, says that the invocation of the Name is not a spiritual ornament but an absolute necessity, because the human heart was created for communion with God. When the heart ceases to remember Him it begins to die. The Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, becomes therefore the breath of the soul. To cease praying is to suffocate. To call upon the Name is to live.

In the writings of Zacharou we hear the echo of his elder Saint Sophrony who said that the Prayer unites our spirit with the eternal Breath of God. When we pronounce the Name with faith and compunction the Spirit Himself prays within us crying Abba, Father. The repetition is not mechanical but an act of love, a continual remembrance that Christ dwells in the depths of our being. Through this remembrance the Name descends from the lips into the heart and transforms the whole person. The mind once scattered is gathered again. The heart once hardened is softened by grace.

The ancient Fathers called this mneme Theou, the memory of God, and they guarded it as their most precious treasure. Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote that when the Name of God becomes rooted in the heart it drives away the demons as fire drives away wild beasts. Saint Barsanuphius said that this single invocation contains all virtues because it keeps the soul in humility and dependence upon mercy. Elder Joseph the Hesychast in our own times testified that he never found peace until the Prayer took hold of his heart as involuntary breath, saying I live only when I pray.

Zacharou emphasizes that the Jesus Prayer is not simply a means to interior calm but the very path of deification. In invoking the Name we bear the Presence. The divine energy contained in the Name purifies, illumines, and divinizes. The heart that keeps the Name with reverence becomes a living temple where heaven and earth meet. To pronounce Lord Jesus Christ is to open the door to His light. To say have mercy on me is to confess both our poverty and our hope in His compassion.

This remembrance is battle as well as communion. The evil one fears nothing more than a heart that continually calls upon the Lord. Saint Anthony said that unceasing prayer burns the demons, and Elder Aimilianos taught that the invocation becomes a sword when joined with humility. Every breath of the Name pushes back the darkness and restores the order of paradise within the soul.

To pray more often than we breathe is not hyperbole but revelation. Breath and prayer were meant to be one. The first breath of Adam was the breath of God. The renewal of that breath is the Spirit praying in the Name of Jesus. When the heart is immersed in this remembrance even silence becomes full, every moment becomes prayer, and the whole being rests in the mercy that never ceases.

Let the Name be the rhythm of our existence, rising and falling with every heartbeat, shining within every thought, sanctifying every labor. Let it be our refuge in battle, our song in peace, our final word at death. For in the Name of Jesus we live, and in His mercy we shall never die.

Meditation based upon the writing of:

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou 

Perfect Surrendering to the Spirit of Salvation, pp. 25-26