The Practice of Centering Prayer
CENTERING PRAYER is a form of silent prayer that helps us grow in our relationship with God. It is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer; and it is only one of a number of styles of Christian contemplative prayer which have been made more widely available over recent decades. The regular practice of Centering Prayer promotes growth in grace and inner healing.
Thomas Keating, that great teacher of centering prayer, writes:
The contemplative journey is the most responsible of all responses to God because so much depends on it – the future of humanity, the healing of the wounds of humanity, our own deepest healing. It’s not just a method of meditation or a practice to nd personal peace. It’s basically a total acceptance of the human condition in all its rami cations, including its desperate woundedness...
Centering prayer brings me into the kernel of the story of Martha and Mary, where Martha welcomed Jesus into her home, as I desire to welcome Jesus into my heart. “She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet...” There is a part of me that longs to sit at the feet of Jesus. Day after day I sit in Centering Prayer, with that longing. It is the desire of my heart to follow the word of the Lord and “be still and know that (He is) God”. And day after day, what happens? I nd I am “worried and distracted by many things...“ My mind has a way of its own, galloping o in a hundred di erent directions at once. Jesus says: “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” When Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part then I know, no matter how worried and distracted I am by many things, day after day I need to return to my place of prayer and try again.
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Carol Casey
Is a Church of Ireland lay reader, a spiritual director and a committee member of the Church’s Ministry of Healing.