Jesus’ prayer: Why we use prayer rope? Small photo journal

The Holy & Great Monastery of Vatopaidi – The Monastic Republic of Mount Athos – 8/11/16

It is very important to use the prayer rope when we pray Jesus prayer because it helps our mind concentrate by using our sense of touch, our most sensitive sensory perception. Even if 90% of the information transmitted to the human brain is visual, the tactile stimuli have the property to create a deeper impression on us. Try to say the Jesus prayer with the prayer rope and then without it. You will see that the mind is more focused when using the prayer rope.

Thanks to its easily multipliable or divisible number of knots (33,100,300 etc.), the prayer rope helps us to be constant, overcoming our fallen nature, fallιng victim usually to daily influences. Besides that, every 25th knot of the rope is of a different colour and/or material, which is yet another help in accomplishing a certain number of prayers daily, by allowing us to stop and (re)start our prayer easily.

That’s why the prayer rope helps us a lot in our spiritual life. Of course, we can use other means to pray, but prayer ropes are the traditional and most recommended tools for this.

In this photo, a monk is making a prayer rope in a quiet place between the Cell of St. Joseph of Timisoara and Vatopaidi.

(Published with permission)

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