Elder Paisios on the Jesus Prayer

“Ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts—nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the Grace of God, and God will have in His Grace everything you need for your salvation, or anything you might need to help another soul.

"Things are very simple, and there is no reason why we should complicate them.  If we regard matters in this way, we will feel the Jesus Prayer as a necessity and will not grow weary.  We will be able to repeat it many times and our heart will feel a sweet pain, and then Christ Himself will shed His sweet consolation inside our heart.

"Thus prayer does not tire, but invigorates.  It is tiresome only when we do not enter into its meaning and do not understand the sense given it by our Holy Fathers.  Once we comprehend the need of God's mercy, the desire of this hunger will compel us, without pressuring ourselves in prayer, to open our mouth like a nursing infant, and we will feel, simultaneously, all the security and joy of a baby in its mother's embrace."

The Jesus Prayer:  an image from Balamand Monastery