SadhanaOriental meditation and christian prayer
Other ways of praying
【4】Chanting short phrase repeatedly - 1
(Bible as a source)
This method is related to the prayer that was introduced in this section earlier.
Let’s start with cherishing impressive words that we encounter in the Bible. First, we repeat an original phrase in the Bible in our mind.
For example, we can read the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke meditatively. Eventually, we come to the part where Gabriel tells Mary that she will have a son. It is a wonderful scene full of beautiful words. Let’s assume here that we are especially impressed by the phrase “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1-35).” We close our eyes, think of God, and repeat the phrase again and again:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
…………………………
…………………………
Now, we get closer to God, and take our prayer one step further. Let’s modify the phrase as follows, replacing Mary with ourselves.
“The Holy Spirit will come upon ___ (= your name), and the power of the Most High will overshadow ___.
Repeat this phrase.
You can also choose other short phrases such as
“Your faith has saved you (Mark 5-34, Luke 7-50, etc.).”
Here, you will eventually replace “you” with your name.
You can keep chanting the phrase to encourage yourself.
“___ (= your name)’s faith has saved ___,”
Other examples would be:
“Knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7-7).”
“Whoever loves Jesus, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit come to him and make their dwelling with him.” (Arranged version of John 14-23. Chant this phrase by eventually replacing “him” with your name.)
The Bible is a treasury trove of the words of God that encourage and energize us spiritually. It is full of impressive phrases.
Keep repeating your favorite short phrase such as the above until you fully enjoy it or until the prayer time is over.
You can also repeat the phrase in your mind in between jobs in your daily life. Or, you can keep repeating the phrase while you are doing chores like cleaning, hanging out the laundry, or walking in a town.
This is a kind of prayer that you can pray wholeheartedly and that the total time of prayer in a day will be very long. And you can continue the same phrase even for several months.
The late Trappist monk Thomas Merton loved the power of this prayer. He called it “Centering Prayer” because it lets us concentrate on our inner self using condensed short phrases.