My Experiences with a Mantra

I’m Introduced to a Mantra

I spent one Christmas Day in the convent, creating a calendar as a gift for my father. That night my sister called. She said, “Dad had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital. He’s been anointed. You better come.” No one in my family had ever been seriously ill before.

At the hospital, my dad was hooked up to machines and unconscious. I can still hear the hiss of the machine keeping him alive. At home in bed that night I couldn’t sleep. I was petrified wondering what would happen to Dad. What would my mother do? Then gently into my heart came the words, “The Lord is my shepherd.” These words became a mantra. Repeating them over and over comforted me. They made me realize that God was with me and I fell asleep.

The next morning when I returned to the hospital, two men were with my father. One was his doctor who introduced me to the male nurse who had worked overtime caring for my dad Christmas night. His name was Bob Shepherd.

A few years later a retreat director told me he was going to explain a way of praying that he called the prayer of the heart. It was praying mantras. I told him that the Holy Spirit had already taught me to pray that way.

A Mantra to the Rescue Again

In an operating room awaiting surgery for a herniated disk in my neck, I found myself praying, “Even though I walk through the valley of death, you are with me!” After I came to, I kept repeating, “The Lord is my shepherd” all night. In the morning I remarked to a nurse that the machine next to my bed that sounded like a stream flowing over rocks had been very soothing. She said, “There’s no machine next to you.”

When you are sick, tired, plagued with a problem, or stressed out, you may not be able to muster enough energy to pray a Hail Mary or pick up our Bible. At such times you can fall back on the simplest prayer: a mantra. It is a restful and comforting form of prayer. Praying a mantra makes us God-conscious. Of course, God is always present. A mantra gently leads us to become aware of him and his love for us.

Praying a mantra follows St. Paul’s advice to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). If we make a habit of praying it, soon this prayer is sounding in our hearts without our intending to pray it.

The Jesus Prayer

The shortest mantra is simply “Jesus.” In the Bible we read that the name of Jesus is above every name. At this name every knee should bend (Philippians 2:9–10). Jesus told us that whatever we ask the Father for in his name we will receive.

The oldest and most popular mantra is the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Supposedly it originated with the Desert Fathers in the fifth century. The words are Scripture based. They echo the repeated pleas of Bartimaeus: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47) and the prayer of the publican in Jesus’s parable: “Have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Some people like to pray the first part as they inhale and the second part as they exhale.

In the Jesus Prayer, we call on Jesus by his essential identity, the Son of God, thereby professing faith in his divinity. Then we ask for mercy, as so many hurting people did when Jesus walked the earth. We look to his mercy not only to forgive our sins but to heal us, to open our eyes and ears. At the end we humbly identify ourselves to the all-holy one as not-so-holy sinners.

Someone suggested gradually reducing the prayer as you pray. Begin by repeating the entire prayer. Then repeat it leaving off “a sinner.” Then omit “on me,” and so forth until you are repeating only “Jesus.”

If you are alone, you might make up a melody for the Jesus Prayer and sing it!

How to Pray a Mantra

Once I found myself praying the Jesus Prayer as I crocheted a baby blanket. The words fell in sync with my stitches: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” You don’t have to crochet to pray a mantra. You can pray it while walking or mopping a floor. Some people like to sit quietly with hands open. Mantras can be sung. Taize prayer are sung mantras.

A priest told me that he spent an eight-day retreat doing nothing but singing, “Jesus, Jesus, let everything that is you flow into me,” to the refrain of Roc O’Connor’s hymn “Jesus Is Lord.” He came out a changed man.

I’ve noticed that sometimes one of the words that I’m saying has become another word, giving new meaning to my prayer.

We can praying mantras while we stand in line in a store, wait for something to download, or sit through a long red light. We can pray mantras when we’re put “on hold” on the phone or when we’re trying to fall asleep.

Sources of Mantras

What can you use for a mantra? You can choose a psalm verse or a line from a prayer, words from the Mass, or make up your own.

My book Prayer-Moments for Every Day of the Year is a collection of possibilities. Originally it was published by Twenty-Third Publications with a different, lovely cover. Then Paulist Press picked it up and allowed me to use my photo of sunrise over the Sea of Galilee on the cover. You can find this book in the bookstore here, buy it from me or from Paulist Press.

Here is a sample of Taize prayer:

• What has been your experience with mantras? If you’ve never prayed this way, you might try it. You may be surprised.