Question: What is good for a beginner to do in order to learn and practice the Jesus Prayer?
Answer: First of all, with the help of Divine Grace, a beginner should stop committing great sins. For this a beginner should look for a good spiritual father for Confession and in order to make a good Christian beginning. Then, he should regularly attend the Divine Liturgy, as often as possible; he should fulfill his daily rule of prayers and prostrations given by his spiritual father, and practice the Jesus Prayer twice a day for at least fifteen minutes, in a quiet place. He should learn and practice the foundation of all good works, the viture of humble-mindedness, because if you do not humble yourself before God, men, and demons* you will lose everything. He should cut off his own will, live in obedience, and accept joyfully whatever happens to him. Failure to cut of one’s own will, contradicting others, and justifying oneself represent the beginning of high-mindedness. . . . That’s why you should humble yourself and be obedient. When you are sincere, not doubting, but have humble-mindedness, the Grace of the Holy Spirit will descend upon you. This is a good foundation and you will be able to grow spiritually, fighting against temptations, having the Jesus Prayer as an unconquerable weapon. If you have humble-mindedness, you can defeat the passions. This does not mean that you have become perfect; but when you have the Grace of humble-mindedness, with the help of God’s power you can struggle against the passions, sinful men and the demons.
*In saying that we should humble ourselves before demons, the Elder is obviously not saying that we should acquiesce to them. Rather, we should repel their attempts to sow the seeds of pride in us, and at the same time we should not pridefully think we can overcome their temptations on our own, without God’s help.
–Elder Dionysius (Ignat) of the St. George Kellion, Kolitsou Skete, Mount Athos, Greece (in “Humble-Mindedness: The Doorway to Pure Prayer,” The Orthodox Word, 41:1 [240] [January-February 2005] pp. 25-26; note taken from p. 11)
