Akathistos

While in college, much of spiritual walk consisted of feeling unworthy. I related best to worship choruses that yearned for a connection with God through pleading and lessening oneself. In high school, fire and brimstone sermons at youth group retreats “brought me back to God”. I thought, if I have all this sin, God will never be able to forgive me. If I am constantly sinning, God will turn his back on me. I never felt good enough to call myself a Christian or to believe that God would forgive my sin.

In the liturgy, we are perpetually repeating, “Lord, have mercy.” This is the most ancient human prayer: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness”(Psalm 50). It is the first prayer that was spoken in the newly built temple in Jerusalem: “Lord God, when thou hearest, forgive” (1 Kings 8:30). The Jesus Prayer, as it is often called, states it simply: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” After hearing this prayer repeated several times, one might think that it would lose it’s meaning, but prayers only become meaningless repetitions when the words fail to pierce our minds and hearts and when we stop praying.

It seems appropriate to repeat this prayer in times of trial and suffering, but why would anyone reiterate this prayer several hundreds times in a day? What would be the point behind that? I used to ask myself this question, until I actually tried to pray it more frequently. I have found that in times when I am frustrated or overwhelmed, crying out to the Lord with something specific to say has, not only soothed me, but it has drawn me closer to him. Then after becoming attached to this simple prayer, it can be repeated in joy and in suffering, in pain and in hope. For asking the Lord to bestow his mercy upon us shows that we have hope. We aren’t crying out into the void, pleading with the universe. We are addressing the one true God. We are asking him to show us his compassion, his favor, his forgiveness. His grace.

Even though I may spend the rest of my life sinning, God willingly bestows his mercy upon me every day, in every moment. And as Ephesians 2:4-6 says, “But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up with Him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.

Prayer from the Triodion (in preparation for Lent)
“As the Prodigal Son I come to Thee, merciful Lord. I have wasted my whole life in a foreign land; I have scattered the wealth which Thou gavest me, O Father. Receive me in repentance, O God, and have mercy upon me.”