Christian Prayer - Breath Prayer "Personal Prayer"

Pastor and Hospice Spiritual Director Ryan T. Schmidt leads a 10 minute​​ breath prayer practice.

Breath prayer is an ancient Christian prayer practice dating back to at least the sixth century. Historically, it is associated with the Eastern Church.

What is the name you use for God? What is the desire of your heart? Let's pray to the rhythm​ of our breath.

Transcript

Breath Prayer is following the rhythm of your breath and allowing that rhythm to guide the cadence of your prayer.

Within the Christian tradition,

The Breath Prayer dates back to the 6th century.

Historically,

It is associated with the Eastern Church,

Particularly Greek and Russian Orthodox churches.

Known as the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart,

Early practitioners would repeat to the rhythm of their breath the phrase,

Lord Jesus Christ,

Son of God,

Have mercy on me a sinner.

In time,

The prayer was shortened to,

Lord Jesus Christ,

Have mercy,

Or simply,

Jesus,

Mercy.

I invite you for the next 10 minutes to first select a name that you refer to God by.

Use that name to address God at the beginning of your Breath Prayer.

Once you choose the name that you would use in referring to God,

Then pause for a few moments and think about what your desire is in this moment.

What is your heart's longing?

Once you've identified your longing,

Condense it down to a word or two,

And then on the out-breath,

Express the name and the longing of your heart to God.

We begin this personalized Breath Prayer with three deep breaths.

Please take them slowly and allow yourself to settle and calm into this time and this space.

Following the three deep breaths,

Allow your breath to find its natural rhythm and begin your prayer.

The instrumental music plays.

You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You

Reviews

My prayer was focused and meant so much to be connecting my spirit with my day, wee and month ahead

Beautiful prayer practice! So much gratitude that I found it !

Thank you for teaching me this wonderful prayer technique

Relaxing. I can be in constant dialog with God while doing another task or bodily devotion.

Great meditation that was very helpful to me! Thank you.

Thank you so very much 🙏🏽

I like that! Thank you! 🙏

Thank you! God bless!👍❤️🙏

That was really nice. I didn’t think I could do it for ten mins but I kinda ad libbed and added extra prayers and gratitude to God in between my phrases.

Love this meditation and connecting to our hearth where our Lord Jesus is present

Thanks for introducing me to a new way to connect with The Creator. I enjoyed this.

I enjoyed your practice. Thanks

This meditation has become my daily morning prayer time. I love it because it calms my mind and set the tone for me to be specific in my prayer life

Very calming for my soul

Thank you for this morning and evening practice!

Blessings

Tim

This was a beautiful practice that anyone can do to connect to the Divine! Thank you!

Profound moving beautiful

Excellent practice thank you

This was so perfect and simple, loved that it was Christian and not Buddhist and that it centered around my God's gift to me: my Breath. Thank you

It was great thank you but the talk at the start was a little to fast and the end to sudden