soul. The prayer grounds us in our ongoing capacity to miss the mark. It calls us to receive Jesus’s mercy desperately and joyfully. In a blaming and scapegoating culture, the Jesus Prayer helps us confront our duplicitous ways. In an attacking and shaming society, the Jesus Prayer grounds us in our own inconsistencies. In a finger-pointing and judgmental world, the Jesus Prayer awakens us to the dark secrets we harbor within. In so doing, the Jesus Prayer petitions the mercy of God, which is to lead us in petitioning mercy for others.
