The Jesus Prayer and repetition...

Is using the Jesus Prayer 'heaping up empty phrases'? When Jesus' followers asked him to teach them to pray, Jesus said: 'When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.' (Matthew 6:7)

I thought it might be helpful to explore this issue and so I asked Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, joint author of Praying the Jesus Prayer Together for his comment and he kindly replied:

If you look up 'vain repetion' in its context in Jesus' teaching you will see that it is associated with 'heaping up phrases' and wanting to be heard not by God, but by other people, to impress them!

The Pharisee in the Temple was uttering vain repetition in this sense, Jesus's sense.  The Tax Collector 'repeated' one sentence over and over 'God be merciful to me, a sinner' and daren't even lift up his head to God.  Jesus comments, 'I tell you this man went home justified rather than the other'. 

Short prayer pierces heaven and if it is repeated out of an overwhelmed heart, if it carries all the weight of an inexpressible prayer as praying in tongues can also do. It is like the short phrases that we utter and repeat when we feel more than we can ever say, be it 'Thank you, oh thank you!' or 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry' which convey our heart's fullest feeling which can be beyond all words. 

The Jesus Prayer helps us to concentrate our thoughts beyond any words and to express our gratitude, love and longing all at once.  And the name repeated itself, the name above all names, miraculously invokes the presence and love of the One named.

Jesus' teaching about prayer has so much to do with the sincere desire of the heart, and if we want to want to have a sincere love for Him, however distracted we are and however faint and feeble our longing, He will reach out and lift us up to Himself.

The Jesus prayer then becomes a way into 'hesychia', stillness in the presence of the one 'Lord Jesus Christ' who leads us to the Father, 'Son of God' and through whom in the power of the Spirit the love of God is poured out into our hearts! 'Have mercy upon us!' even if we feel or know ourselves to be unworthy - that love enfolds us utterly - 'Have mercy upon me, a sinner.'

The prayer of longing to long more fully, like the Tax Collector's or blind Bartimaeus's prayer can never be in vain!  Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift to us in Jesus Christ our Lord!
Love and Prayers  +Simon