The Divine Mercy Chaplet of Latin Christianity and the Jesus Prayer of Byzantine Christianity are two powerful prayers which a Christian ought to faithfully practice. Though one may be brought up in one tradition or the other, I have found great fruit in seeking Christian wisdom from across the Adriatic. In fact, seeing beautiful Byzantine liturgy has helped me see the possibility of beautiful liturgy in the vernacular. It occurred to me a few days ago that the Jesus Prayer and the Divine Mercy Chaplet have much in common and that more Christians should dip their toes into the waters of different Christian traditions.
The Divine Mercy Chaplet
The Divine Mercy Chaplet is a relatively recent prayer with ancient messages. Christ appeared to St. Faustina Kowalska in the early XX century. St. Faustina was a Polish nun. The Lord granted her great mercy and showed her what mercy is, and asked her to spread the devotion to His mercy. This produced several devotionals, the most prominent of which are the now-famous image of Christ's Divine Mercy as well as Divine Mercy Chaplet.
The Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed on a standard five-decade rosary. It starts out with an optional prayer, remembering the Blood and Water which poured forth from the Heart of Jesus. Then one prays an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and Apostles' Creed. Then, starting on the central medal, one prays Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. Then one prays the element most similar to the Jesus Prayer on each Hail Mary bead,For the sake of His Sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! One prays this ten times (once per Hail Mary bead) and then on the Our Father bead one prays Eternal Father..., doing this four more times to go around the rosary. On the central medal at the end, one prays a modified version of the Trisagion prayers: Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Those familiar with the East might find this translation a bit difficult to integrate into prayer; I find myself sometimes saying the regular Trisagion prayer.
The Divine Mercy Chaplet is often said on Fridays in remembrance of Christ's Passion.
The Divine Mercy Chaplet calls to mind two things beyond Christ's Mercy: the Eucharist and His Passion. The Eucharist is the foundational point of the Chaplet. Each decade begins with a remembrance of the Eucharist, offered again and again to God as at the Liturgy. The Eucharist is the banquet of Mercy. God did not deign for Mercy to be one-time but rather unlimited and frequent. Thus He deigned that the Eucharist, the True Body and Blood of Christ, be not offered once but every day. In remembering the Passion of the Lord, we call to mind the scripture verses that foretell His death: By His stripes we are healed. Remembering the Passion lets us recall that Christ's Death was painful and sorrowful; He tasted of the sufferings that we taste. Thinking of Christ's sorrowful Passion brings compunction and repentance for our sins.
The message of the Divine Mercy Chaplet is not hidden. It is eponymous: Mercy. In praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, we remember His Mercy. How beautiful and sweet that such a terrible Passion could make the most sublime Mercy!
The Jesus Prayer
The Jesus Prayer comes from the Desert Fathers of the first three centuries of Christianity. They continually implored Christ for mercy, as we Christians ought to do, following Saint Paul's advice.
Several Desert Fathers have written manuals over the centuries on how to pray the Jesus Prayer. They all condense into:
- Find a calm place in your heart.
- Sign yourself.
- Pray in your mind: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
- Let your mind's prayer become your heart's, and let each heartbeat become another invocation of mercy to Our Savior.
- Pray as long as you are able.
The Desert Fathers often recommend to start with reciting a Psalm or a few Our Fathers to put yourself in a prayerful state. The Desert Fathers urge us to avoid engaging the mental phantasms (the mind's eye) that often arise during prayer. In doing so, you continually turn your mind and heart to the Lord --metanoia. The Fathers also encourage us to listen to the Holy Spirit as we pray. Many people find themselves weeping in repentance for their sins. Yet in repentance God grants us His Mercy.
The Jesus Prayer helps us to follow St. Paul's advice to pray unceasingly. Letting our bodies pray for us while we work and live out the earthly vocation given us helps us to be Christians not-just-on-Sunday. In the Russian classic, The Way of the Pilgrim, the Pilgrim encounters a man who had given up a life of wanton drinking by memorizing the Gospels. And the priest with the Pilgrim tells the Pilgrim that inside the Jesus Prayer lies the entirety of the Gospel's truth. Thus, in praying the Jesus Prayer, we can only move closer to Christ and the living out of the Gospel.
Synaxis
The differences between the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Jesus Prayer are mostly practical. Firstly, the Divine Mercy Chaplet is finite whereas the Jesus Prayer ought to be prayed without ceasing. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed on a rosary (normally a five-decade rosary). The Jesus Prayer is prayed on prayer ropes known as chotkis. Chotkis come in varying lengths: some 33-knot for Christ's age, some 50-knot small-sized ones, and some 100-knot ones, all with varying numbers of intervening beads. I like my 50-knot one because it has 10-knot divisions so it easily doubles as a rosary. Be mindful, though, you don't need a chotki or rosary; you can pray either on both or even use your fingers. Secondly, while the Divine Mercy Chaplet is beautiful, it is not necessarily liturgical. In the East, particularly in Russian Old Believer Circles, for laymen who are unable to make it to the services, certain numbers of Jesus Prayers are considered an acceptable replacement.
The Jesus Prayer naturally lends itself to repetition. It is its original purpose. And once you pray it long enough, you will continue to pray the Jesus Prayer subconsciously. So too with the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Both of them can benefit from either's mental-visualization tradition, too. In the West, faithful often pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet while looking at or imagining Christ's Passion. In the East, the faithful are counselled to empty their mind so that there are no imaginations (phantasms) of anything while they pray. Either prayer, in my book, can be prayed imaginatively or aphantastically.
Both prayers focus on Mercy. Christ's Mercy is infinite and for every heart He made there is a different voice calling for His Mercy. When we pray either of these prayers we call to mind not only our weaknesses but also Christ's Mercy. I sometimes imagine myself as a beggar on the road to Jerusalem calling out to the Savior.
Thus, bretheren, if you are Eastern, try saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet; if you are Western, try saying the Jesus Prayer. There are many more things to glean from meditation thereon, but those are outside of the scope of this article. Let Christ's Mercy shine on you and through you.