Praying With Franny: The Jesus Prayer in Modern Life

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you… May the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5.16-18, 23

The streams of Orthodox Christian ascetic and mystical life have as their headwaters this injunction from St. Paul the Apostle, to “pray without ceasing.” On the face of it, this seems an
impossible task, a word from the past born from the devices of hyperbolic and poetic expression. Over the centuries, however, many have taken the challenge quite literally and seriously, and with
astounding results. We as moderns, in our hurried busyness and singular focus on present matters have, at best neglected, and at worst dismissed these words of life.

Neglect is born from ignorance, when the cares of living in a fast-paced society drown out the slow and deliberate pace that a mystically engaged life demands of us. When navigating the
treacherous waters of day-to-day life, we run aground upon the rocky shoals of constant activity, driven by ambition, inhibition, and self-absorption. J.D. Salinger, in his wonderful novel Franny and Zooey, has made much exploration of these themes, their affectations, and how the human person interacts with them. The protagonist of the story, Franny Glass, finds herself awash in enoui,
questioning the very fabric of her life and the situation she finds herself in. Frustrated by the apparent lack of serious engagement of those she is surrounded by with any matters of consequence,
she rails against society as a whole:

“All I know is I’m losing my mind,” Franny said. “I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and verybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting—it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says… Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.”

Her distaste of the status quo thrusts its head dramatically, and she is sickened precisely because the spirit of the age is animated by this particular kind of ignorance, the trap that the world has set and which has sprung, catching in its jaws the majority of humanity. Not only does she experience a metaphysical or existential crisis, but her physical health declines becuase of the realization that she has been a willing participant in this game without winners.

On my first reading (of nearly a dozen at present), I missed the particular importance of this declaration. A necessary part of the human condition and consequent journey to meaning is this fall from the dizzying heights of a complete self-righteous confidence in our own powers. Indeed, progress toward the truth necessitates an admission that one dwells, at least in some small way, in a certain kind of falsehood. Saint Sophrony of Essex articulates this need beautifully:

“The moment the Holy Spirit grants us to know the hypostatic form of prayer[that is, the prayer of the heart], we can begin to break the fetters that shackle us. Emerging from the prison cell of selfish individualism into the wide expanse of life in the image of Christ, we perceive the nature of the personalism of the gospel.” —St. Sophrony of Essex, His Life is Mine

Part of what kicks off this journey to meaning is Franny’s discovery of the book The Way of the Pilgrim, a book about a Russian peasant of the 19th century who also goes on a journey of
metaphysical self-discovery through the Jesus Prayer and the realization that he is not alone in his quest, but is a part of a community of people who long to be with God continually. The book
becomes for her, a touchstone of modern life, a litmus test which she uses to identify false and shallow thinking in her contemporaries. She also, in undertaking this struggle for freedom, reveals
something important to us, the inheritors of the world she inhabited in the mid 1950’s. We live in a self-imposed prison of ignorancec, wearing the blinders of self-determination and self-interest.
“Ego, ego, ego,” as Franny says; and to that, St. Sophrony also answers:

“It is a recognized fact that the ego is the weapon in the struggle for existence of the individual who refuses Christ’s call to open our hearts to total, universal love.”

But isn’t the prayer of the heart all about ourselves? After all, St. Theophan talks about this prayer, the true definition of prayer, as the mind descending into the heart, and then staying there
forever. It seems, for all intents and purposes, a completely self-contained process. Most often, the Jesus Prayer is used to reach such a state; “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner” (emphasis mine). I am the sinner, and Christ saves me. I am on a quest to better myself; I am coming to an understanding of God’s grace upon me. The story’s main antagonist, Franny’s brother Zooey (a diminutive of Zachary), identifies this immediately as his main concern over his sister’s new fascination.

“There’s something about the way you’re going at this prayer that gives me the willies, if you want to know the truth. You think I’m out to stop you from saying it. I don’t know whether I am or not…but I would like you to clear up for me just what the hell your motives are for saying it.” He hesitated, but not long enough for Franny to cut in on him. “As a matter of simple logic, there’s no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who’s greedy for material treasure—or even intellectual treasure—and the man who’s greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure’s treasure…and it seems to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.”

Zooey’s hesitancy regarding Franny’s motives are well-placed. Ever the sceptic and the hostile interlocutor of religious piety (he hates nothing more than an overly pious person), he can’t help
himself but poke holes in Franny’s new-found support; what he would ultimately call a crutch. He sees within the practice of contemplative and inner prayer, not the acquisition of the Holy Spirit,
but of spiritual favour, grace, and power. To descend with the mind into the heart is another self-interested move by a person uninterested and unconstrained by the world around him. Matthew the Poor, in his book Orthodox Prayer Life addresses this very real problem head on:

“But the method of constant prayer, having been moved from its original home in Egypt, lost much of its former simplicity. In its original form, it had allowed the praying person to
live in the depth of its spiritual verve without exciting his ambition or spiritual greed. The point is that this method has shifted from its ascetical position as a humbling practice by
itself to a mystical position, with programs, stipulations, technical and mechanical bases, degrees, objectives, results—all of which the praying person puts in mind before entering
upon the practice. This has entangled the method of constant prayer in much complexity and artificiality.” —Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life

So where does this leave us? It seems that we are caught between two equally sollypsistic practices: either egotistical self-determination or the delusion of individual spiritual grandiosity. To
pray, or not to pray; that is the question. If we adopt the position of Zooey and completely eschew contemplation for its possible danger of spiritual greed and aggrandizement, we move from simple ignorance to outright rejection (if you recall the juxtaposition of the two at the beginning of this article). The Jesus Prayer has become another avenue for avarice, and we are left again in our solitude, to consider our own fate apart from the world around us. But there is another way, a way in which we are able to transcend ourselves and embrace the promise of truth, which is that same blessing the priest gives to all assembled at the liturgy:

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you!” —St. John Chrysostom, The Divine Liturgy

Our entry deeper into the life of the church is then a descent into ourselves to discover Christ dwelling there, in the mystery of the Father’s love. He it is who gives us the Holy Spirit, in Whom
we have communion with all. Far from being a solitary venture, the true practice of the Prayer of the Heart is a unifying practice of embrace involving the whole world. St. Silouan of Mount Athos
says it best:

“The Lord taught me to stay my mind in hell and not despair. And thus my soul humbles herself; but this is not yet true humility, which there are no words to describe. When the
soul approaches the Lord she is afraid; but when she sees the Lord, the beauty of His glory  fills her with ineffable joy, and in the love of God and the weetness of the Holy Spirit the
earth is quite forgot. This is the paradise of the Lord: all will live in love and their Christ-like humility will make every man happy to see others in greater glory. The humility
of Christ dwells in the lowly ones: they are glad to be the least of men. The Lord gave me understanding of this.” —St. Sophrony of Essex, His Life is Mine

A true vision of life in Christ has, at its centre, the unity of all mankind in love, flowing from the humility that is attained through the realization of each person, the reality of who they are in the face of Christ. That love is the sine qua non of true Christianity.

Oddly enough, at the climax of the story, it is Zooey himself that gives us the very truth of the matter, righting the ship as it were. He and Franny recall their eldest brother Seymour, and how he used to tell them to “shine their shoes for the Fat Lady,” or to “be funny for the Fat Lady.” Long since, Seymour had passed away and they never did find out who the Fat Lady was, or why they had to do right by her. But suddenly, Zooey, in a fit of inspiration, blurts out:

“There isn’t anyone anywhere that isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know that secret yet? And don’t you know—listen to me now—don’t you know who the Fat Lady really is?… Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It’s Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

In his rejection of a faulty vision of Christianity, in some broken fashion he makes his way back to the ultimate truth; that every person is an icon of Jesus Christ, and that true love is found in humble service to each and every one of those people. When we humbly love our brothers and our sisters, we venerate the icon of Christ. Wiping away the tears of the mourning and down-trodden, we kiss his face. Cradling the lost and broken in prayer deep within the heart, we bow down before Him. The reality is, that in forgetting the world and all of its cares, we remember those that inhabit and are lost in it. And by descending with the mind into the heart, we reclaim not only our own image, but the image of the cosmos, the created order. In the heart, salvation is created. So pray. Pray for yourself. Pray for the world. And do it for the Fat Lady.