How do I become a Christian?

Pray 100 times a day

Repetitive Prayer

A friend told me this story:


A man asked, ‘How do I become a Christian?’
His priest said, ‘Say the ‘Jesus Prayer’ every day.

Then say it 5 times a day. Then 10. When you get to 100, let me know.’

---

---

---

---

‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

The Jesus Prayer - developed by the 400s by the earliest monastics (those following the rituals of religious communities, like monks or nuns).


Repetitive prayer is contemplative, and can create a mystical state. It turns our hearts and souls towards God.

The early monastics also started using small rocks or pebbles to count their prayers - certain numbers of prayers became important:

• 33 for the years of Jesus’ life

• 44 for ‘creation and completion’

• 100 or more to fulfill the mandate to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:16)

These eventually became prayer beads, strung together, pre-cursor to the rosary.

---

The Franciscans call prayer beads ‘the poor man’s breviary’ (prayer book), and they were an early part of the church’s liturgical (worship) practice.

Those in religious orders read through the psalms (all 150 of them!) daily, and the beads helped them remember where they were in their prayers - as well as offering a meditative experience of prayer.

---

Repetitive prayer - and prayer beads - are also meant to be used in community.

They were developed, in part, from the ‘desire to give the laity the same experience as the monastery’.

Monastics developed challenges: like saying the Lord’s Prayer 150 times during the day! (in addition to all the psalms).

This is the real exercise for our souls - and why prayer is a ‘stretching’ practice (‘ekteino‘). Physical challenges help us push our bodies to be stronger. They can be challenging - and also, fun!

Spiritual challenges can bring similar joy.

---

Repetitive prayer and prayer beads are also and important part of praying in community (Teamwork - ‘koinonia’).

Saying the rosary together bonds us with one another and with God. There are times when it is hard to find the right words to say, but you just want to be with others.

Years ago, I was called to the hospital because a young woman was dying. Her family only spoke Spanish (which I don’t speak). We sat for hours in the waiting room, saying the rosary together. In Spanish. It wasn’t hard to learn the words, repeating them together. It brought us all closer to the comfort of God’s presence in a terrible moment.

---

If you are lonely, or distracted, or just want to open your heart to Jesus today, I invite you to say the Jesus Prayer 5 times - 10 if you feel bold, more if you feel bolder still.

Can you say it 100 times in one day?

Use some pebbles, or marbles, or something tangible to count your prayers as you say them. You can, of course, use your phone!

Or find - or make! - your own prayer beads or rosary.

---

You can also use other prayers. There are different patterns for praying with beads, but these are common.

Say each prayer while holding or touching a bead or stone. Then move to the next bead for the next prayer. Say several of one prayer in a row, then switch to another, or alternate prayers according to your own pattern, or an established one.

---

Common rosary prayers:

The ‘Hail Mary’ was one of the earliest rosary prayers (developed from Luke 1:28):

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord be with you
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

The Lord’s Prayer (from Matthew 6:9-13):

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

After the Lord’s Prayer, or between any prayers, or on its own, you can add the ‘gloria patri’ (from the early 4th century):

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
(as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever).

---

---