Lord Jesus Christ,

Son of God,

have mercy on me,

a sinner.

The 5th-century ‘Jesus Prayer’ is central to the Christian East, and especially to Orthodox spirituality. Christians from all traditions, however, can be drawn to its simple profundity in times of stress or sleeplessness, and as a centring prayer before worship. Those for whom the prayer is a constant companion speak of it becoming the heartbeat of their life, helping them to glimpse what it might mean to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess 5.17) and changing the way they interact with the world around them.

Its words summarise the Gospel! In the first six, we find God-in-Christ, in the last two we acknowledge our need, and in between stretches a bridge of mercy, balm for the soul. The words, repeated over and over, are often accompanied by bodily actions especially breathing. Inhaling to ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’ and exhaling to ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner’ can help ground the one praying, ‘bringing the mind into the heart’, the words synchronising with its rhythmic pulse.

In fact, the Jesus Prayer is also known as the Prayer of the Heart and, under that title, John Taverner, himself an Orthodox convert, set it to music for the Icelandic singer Björk. The piece opens with a pumping human heart. Björk then sings the prayer repeatedly first in Greek, then in Coptic and lastly in English. Her raw and primal voice crying out for mercy – ‘el-é-i-son me’ – against the Brodsky Quartet’s calm, steady chordal progression is undeniably powerful.