This is a story of one of the spiritual children of Elder Porphyrios told about how he taught them to pray.
He placed us towards the east, two of us to his left and two to the right, with him in the middle.
“Now we’ll pray noetically.
First, I will say the words, and you
will repeat them. But be careful, without anxiety or force, you’ll say
the words calmly, humbly, with love and sweetness.” The Elder started
off with his fine, delicate and eloquent voice, “Lord Jesus Christ, have
mercy on me.” He said it very slowly, word by word, without forcing it
at all. It was as though he had Christ before him and he was begging
him, with a log pause after the word “Christ”, Coloring his words “have
mercy on me” with an entreating tone. And we repeated it each time,
trying to imitate his stance, the color of his voice and if it at all
possible his spiritual disposition.
At some point, the Elder stopped
saying the prayer out loud and just continued whispering it on his lips.
We did the same thing. How long did our night-time prayer take? I don’t
remember. All I remember was that the Elder imparted an emotion to us
that I cannot express with human words.
St. Porphyrios
