Centering Prayer Resources

Centering Prayer

The practice of listening for God’s movements from within a contemplative stillness

About

Contemplative prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to deepen that relationship. It requires from you only the intention to grow closer to God, and its practice.

Contemplative prayer is centuries old, practiced by all of the world’s principal religions, and represents a desire to have God draw us closer into a relationship. As we grow closer to, and come to better know, God, we gradually let go of who we think we are, to become who we truly are.

The practice we follow is called “centering prayer”. It was resurrected in its current form by Father Thomas Keating and others in the 1980s. It proceeds from a Judeo-Christian tradition, but can be practiced by anyone. It is designed to be simple in its practice. The more you practice it, the more you will begin to develop your relationship to God, and therefore to others, and the more you will come to know your true self.

Centering Prayer is also beneficial as a means to spiritual healing from personal trauma, addiction, and the “slings and arrows” of daily life. It is not a footrace or a contest. God loves each of us infinitely and entirely, but until we completely open our hearts to that love, we can never fully realize it. Once we begin to appreciate that Divine Love, we can begin to lavish it on the people and the world around us.

Text shared from the Center for Contemplative Living Centering Prayer page