Originally Posted by
d&g
thanks for the replies.
It is interesting how various traditions have the same (or almost the same) practices. I recall that in the Russian Orthodox tradition, particularly among the monks, there is a so called "Prayer of the Lord" which goes like this -
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" It is repeated up to several thousand times in a row.
Even the top Orthodox Church fathers admit that the words of the prayer are not important. What is important is the effect that it produces on the psyche of the person praying. First of all it helps the person to hold himself in his own attention (self-remembering) and secondly, the realization of God's perfection and our imperfection creates a different in potentialities and causes, what the Orthodox call, the current of Grace.