5] Centering Prayer: A Method of Christian Meditation for Our Time
Jane K. Ferguson
Thousands of people from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities are gradually becoming aware of the Christian tradition of contem- plative prayer as a quieting practice in a fast-paced world. Having been exposed in the 1960s and 1970s to the value of meditation from Eastern religious practices, a steadily growing number of Christians are often surprised to learn that a meditation practice exists in their own faith tradition, based on the classical mystical theology of the church.1
This chapter focuses on a contemporary form of contemplative prayer known as Centering Prayer, which is based on the ancient Christian tradition of resting in God. The chapter explores the reli- gious context in which Centering Prayer arose, its historical roots in early Christianity, the method of the prayer, and its distinctive qual- ities and accompanying practices. Emerging empirical research about the spiritual and health effects of Centering Prayer is highlighted, including a study in progress on Centering Prayer’s effects on the brain’s neural networks and a published account of the prayer’s impact on stress. Everyday applications of Centering Prayer are reviewed within a variety of settings, from churches to prisons, hospitals to
Sections of Chapter 5 are reprinted with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media: Pastoral Psychology, “Centering Prayer as a Healing Response to Everyday Stress: A Psychological and Spiritual Process,” June 9, 2009, Jane K. Ferguson, Eleanor W. Willemsen, and MayLynn V. Castaneto. Copyright (c) Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009.
psychotherapy sessions, and 12-step recovery workshops to college classrooms. Cross-cultural considerations of the practice in different settings also are touched upon.
Of course Centering Prayer is not the only form of Christian meditation. Modern teachers and authors who have helped advance understanding of a practical method to access the Christian mystical path are Benedictine monks and priests John Main and Laurence Freeman of the World Community for Christian Meditation, as well as Episcopal priest Tilden Edwards and psychiatrist and spiritual director Gerald May of the Shalem Institute. The contemplative prac- tice of the Jesus Prayer that grew out of Eastern Christianity in the early sixth century endures today. This chapter focuses on Centering Prayer because of my own familiarity with it as a trained presenter and my personal daily prayer practice the past nine years. I helped establish two Centering Prayer groups in my professional ministry at St. Mary Parish in Los Gatos, California, and conducted a doctoral study on the prayer’s spiritual and health effects in the lives of parishioners, discussed below.
RELIGIOUS CONTEXT
Centering Prayer’s emphasis on a personal relationship with God distinguishes it from some Eastern approaches to meditation that seek still-mind or observation of the present moment. While acknowl- edging this distinction, the terms contemplative prayer and meditation are used interchangeably in this chapter to recognize their similarity as a quieting practice.
Importantly, the Centering Prayer movement encourages dia- logue with the contemplative dimension of other religions and sacred traditions. In this climate, Centering Prayer developed in the mid- 1970s when Fr. Thomas Keating, then abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, became engaged in interreligious dialogue with Buddhist and Hindu teachers and their students. What impressed Keating during these dialogues was a psycho-spiritual wisdom presented in Buddhist meditative disciplines that was not as readily available in the Christian contemplative framework in the same detailed and prac- tical way.2 Keating believed that he and his fellow Trappist monks, Basil Pennington and William Menninger, might be able to distill the essence of the Christian contemplative tradition into an accessible method, too, based on the Egyptian Desert experience that was the
basis of St. Benedict’s Rule. They were responding to Pope Paul VI’s request of monastics to share the contemplative life with the laity to encourage the spirit of church renewal promoted by Vatican II.
The method became known as Centering Prayer to reflect the classical contemplative experience of interior silence described in the sixteenth century by St. John of the Cross: “We are attracted to God as to our center, like a stone toward the center of the earth.”3 When through ongoing surrender to God we reach the very core of our being, there remains one more center that is deeper and greater than us, Keating adds. “This center is the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who dwells at the inmost center of our being. It is out of that Presence that our whole being emerges at every moment.”4
An estimated 150,000 people are now practicing Centering Prayer individually and in hundreds of small prayer groups throughout the United States and in 39 countries in Latin America, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. Keating’s books have been translated from English into French, Korean, Spanish, Croatian, Czech, and Polish. The Centering Prayer movement has grown largely through the grassroots efforts of laity and religious who are affiliated with Contemplative Outreach, the nonprofit organization Keating founded in 1984 to support the growing ecumenical base of practi- tioners from mainstream denominations, principally Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian. Centering Prayer introduc- tory workshops are being offered on the Internet internationally, and Fr. Keating can be found on YouTube teaching the method of Center- ing Prayer.
While interest and practice of Centering Prayer is steadily growing, it generally is perceived as a peripheral practice within mainstream Christianity today, even though contemplative prayer was commonly practiced by devout lay men and women, as well as clergy, during the first 16 centuries of the church. Today’s ordained clergy and their congregants generally have not been introduced to the Christian con- templative prayer tradition in seminaries and churches, and so it is not well understood. Some fundamentalist sectors remain to be con- vinced that Centering Prayer is authentically Christian, viewing it as a New Age knock-off of Eastern meditation practices. Yet it is a rich and living vein of the Christian experience. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, for example, likens contemplative prayer to entering into the Eucharistic liturgy to abide in the dwelling place of the Lord: “We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified
and transformed. .. . Contemplative prayer is silence, or ‘silent love.’ ”5 Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, PhD, an Episcopal priest, author, and teacher of contemplative prayer, sees theological congruence between Centering Prayer and the biblical concept of kenosis (Greek for “to let go” or “to empty oneself”), which describes the very nature of Christ, who emptied himself to become human, and again in the Garden of Gethsemane turned his will over to God. This is the ges- ture of Centering Prayer: “It’s a surrender method, pure and simple, a practice based entirely on the prompt letting go of thoughts as they arise. I often think of it as kenosis in meditation form, a way of patterning into our being that continuously repeated gesture of, ‘let go,’ ‘let go,’ ‘let go,’ at the core of the path that Jesus himself walked.”6
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF CENTERING PRAYER
The biblical basis of Centering Prayer is Jesus’s intimate experience of God as Abba (Mark 14:36), his teaching of the prayer in secret (Matthew 6:6), and the final discourse of the Gospel of John describ- ing the divine indwelling (John 17:21–23a). Centering Prayer also is rooted in the spirituality expressed in the third and fourth centuries by the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria who informed mainstream Christianity. The essence of desert spirituality is expressed by the term hesychia, the Greek word for rest as well as stillness or silence in prayer. This rest, however, has little to do with the absence of conflict or pain. It is a rest in God in the midst of intense daily struggle. Desert spirituality as an effective response to the tensions of daily existence came not through escape but from cultivating an interior “peace of the heart”7 during one’s trials. This spirituality is particularly fitting for contemporary Christians who seek respite from daily turmoil because “the real desert lies within the heart.”8 Here, one learns from the Desert Mother Syncletica of Egypt (380 to ca. 460) that “it is possible to be solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in a crowd of personal thoughts.”9
This awareness that one’s thinking has a profound effect on the body, mind, and soul is characteristic of the desert spirituality that was exported to Western Christendom by the desert monk John Cassian in the fifth century when he moved from Egypt to France and founded two monasteries near Marseilles. Cassian’s instructions on silent prayer, drawn from his interviews of other desert monks and chronicled in his
influential Conferences, focus on the prayer in secret that informs the method of Centering Prayer:
We need to be especially careful to follow the gospel precept which instructs us to go into our room and to shut the door so that we may pray to our Father. And this is how we can do it.
We pray in our room whenever we withdraw our hearts com- pletely from the tumult and the noise of our thoughts and our worries and when secretly and intimately we offer our prayers to the Lord.
We pray with the door shut when without opening our mouths and in perfect silence we offer our petitions to the One who pays no attention to words but who looks hard at our hearts. Hence, we must pray in utter silence.10
Contemplative spirituality became the norm for the devout Christian and for clergy. This slowly began to change over the centuries with a continuing shift in emphasis from the experiential to the intellectual in spirituality beginning with the rise of Scholasticism in Western Europe in the thirteenth century. With the suppression of monasteries in many European countries during the Reformation, and the Inquisition’s pros- ecution of individuals who practiced certain forms of quiet prayer that were deemed suspect by the church, contemplative prayer faded into a rarefied practice appropriate for cloistered monks well advanced on the spiritual journey but not for laity.
THE METHOD OF CENTERING PRAYER
To revive the Christian contemplative tradition within the wider church, Keating and his fellow monks developed an accessible method for modern-day seekers. The method of Centering Prayer is recom- mended for 20 minutes, two times a day to deepen one’s intimacy with God and to manifest the prayer’s healing effects in one’s life. These are the four guidelines:
1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to the presence and action of God within.
2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.
3. When engaged with your thoughts, return ever so gently to the sacred word.
4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.
Guideline 1. The sacred word is a one- or –two-syllable word selected beforehand. It may be a word of scripture, like “Jesus,” “Peace,” “Abba,” “Mary,” “Shalom,” or some other word that is meaningful but does not stimulate thought—for example, “let go,” “calm,” or “be.” The sacred word is “sacred” not because of its meaning but because it sym- bolizes one’s intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.11 Generally, one does not change the sacred word after it has been chosen because with use over time it becomes infused in the depths of one’s being, leading one to enter more willingly into contemplative prayer.
Guideline 2. The posture is relaxed yet aware. One sits upright. The eyes are closed to reduce external stimulation. The basic disposition is receptive and diffuse. One silently introduces the sacred word, without using the lips or vocal cords. “The sacred word comes from the heart and reverberates in the imagination only momentarily.”12 The method of Centering Prayer is not a technique that can be used to automatically produce either a relaxation response or a mystical experience. Instead, it is both a method and a form of prayer in itself to help dispose the prac- titioner to receive the divine gift of contemplation by quieting the mind through the use of a sacred word.
Guideline 3. Thoughts refer to any perception. This might be a feeling, sensation, emotion, image, memory, reflection, concept, com- mentary, or even spiritual experience. When one becomes aware of “engaging,” that is to say, becoming overly interested in, any kind of thought other than the original intention to consent to God, one renews the intention by returning to the sacred word ever so gently. The loving attitude toward oneself in this prayer is based on advice given to spiritual seekers 400 years ago by St. Francis de Sales: “Act with great patience and gentleness toward ourselves. We must not be annoyed by distrac-
tions or our failures but start over without further ado.”13
Guideline 4. The additional two minutes serve as a bridge to ease back into ordinary awareness and sustain the effects of silence into the day.14
For those interested in exploring the method more deeply, read Keating’s Open Mind, Open Heart and Bourgeault’s Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (referenced).
THREE DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
1. Centering Prayer is often called a prayer of intention rather than attention, making it a receptive as opposed to a concentra- tive form of meditation. The only “action” on the part of the practitioner is to consent to one’s intention to open to God by returning to the sacred word as necessary. The sacred word does not function as a mantra in that it is not constantly repeated or used to focus one’s attention. Instead, it is introduced only on those occasions when one is “engaged” in thoughts. Otherwise, one simply lets the thoughts drift by as one continues to rest in God.
2. Centering Prayer is an apophatic (Greek for negative), as opposed to cataphatic (positive) form of prayer within the two classic streams of Christian theology. Cataphatic prayer is positive because it is everything that can be said or imagined of God, typical of the prayers recited in church. Apophatic prayer, by contrast, is a prayer of “no-thinking,” that is, without images or ideas of any kind, asserting the ultimate incomprehensibility of God, the mystery of mysteries whom we meet in a cloud of unknowing like Moses did on Mount Sinai. Though distinct, cataphatic and apophatic forms of prayer are profoundly comple- mentary. Centering Prayer, for example, can enhance one’s expe- rience of spoken prayer and overall faith commitment.
3. Keating has developed a conceptual framework of Centering Prayer called the divine therapy to offer an understanding of the classical spiritual path of purification that is accessible to today’s laity. He uses the jargon of popular psychology to unpack the spiritual insights of Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross in light of the modern theory of the uncon- scious and developmental psychology. This has helped many people incorporate the Christian spiritual tradition more easily into their twenty-first-century lives.
Thus, while Centering Prayer may promote deep relaxation as a side effect it does not stop there: the deep rest one experiences in the prayer encourages the healing of an individual’s emotional wounds of a lifetime through the purification of the unconscious. This process of purification is itself prayer, “not a preparation for the (divine) rela- tionship but the relationship itself,”15 leading to one’s true self in
God, as St. Paul describes, “It is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Those interested in a more extensive presentation of the divine therapy may reference Keating’s Intimacy with God as well as a lecture he delivered at Harvard Divinity School on The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation.16 As an individual progresses in a regular practice of Centering Prayer, both psychotherapy and spiritual direction may be supportive adjuncts in helping to integrate this transformational process. While Centering Prayer does not appeal to everyone because of its radically receptive method it is available to all who are attracted to it.
ACCOMPANYING PRACTICES
The positive effects of Centering Prayer are to be found not so much in the actual prayer period but rather in the transformation of one’s attitudes and behaviors in daily life. Friends and co-workers often notice these changes before the practitioner does, for example, greater peacefulness, patience, kindness, wisdom, compassion, and a desire to serve others. To help extend the effects of the prayer into daily life, several other spiritual practices have been elaborated by Contemplative Outreach to accompany a Centering Prayer practice.
1. Cultivation of Silence, Solitude, and Service
These traditional values of Christian monks are translated in practi- cal ways for lay people who live and work in the world. Silence means avoiding making a lot of noise when one is walking, sitting, or work- ing, and refraining from unnecessary chatter or gossip in order to be tranquil and open to God’s presence. Solitude is not a withdrawal from ordinary life but taking moments apart like Jesus did when he withdrew from crowds to be with God, for it is in solitude that God renews one. Contemplative service is prayer in action. It is comprised of forming an intention to be open to God’s will as the “why” of one’s activity at a business meeting, for example, teaching a class, or reach- ing out to the homeless; and paying attention to “how” one is doing the activity through listening and presence, which allows one’s rela- tionship with God to be developed at the contemplative level even as one is actively engaged.17
2. Lectio Divina
One of the classical sources of Centering Prayer is the monastic practice of lectio divina, Latin for “sacred reading,” characterized by four interwoven moments: lectio (reading), meditatio (reflecting), oratio (praying), contemplatio (resting). The process involves a deep listening from one’s heart to the word of God in scripture, leading to moments of simply resting in God, beyond words and thoughts.
Practitioners of Centering Prayer often use lectio divina as a way to end a prayer period. The quiet time spent in Centering Prayer pre- pares one to savor scripture, or even a poem, more deeply, either indi- vidually or in small groups. At the small prayer group at my parish, for example, we practice lectio divina for a half hour after a 20-minute Centering Prayer period. The scriptural passage is selected from the lectionary for the upcoming Sunday Gospel, linking the prayer prac- tice to participants’ overall worship life.18
3. Welcoming Prayer
The Welcoming Prayer is a nonsitting practice known as “consent on the go.” It describes a way to surrender to God in the present moment during the activity of daily life, inspired by the eighteenth-century spiritual classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence, by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. The method of the Welcoming Prayer includes noticing the feelings, emotions, thoughts, and sensations in one’s body, welcoming them, and then letting them go. Practicing the Welcoming Prayer helps a person respond instead of react to the present moment. I have found it to be useful in transforming inner turmoil to greater peace and accep- tance when I am emotionally upset. Here is the method:
• Focus, feel, and sink into the feelings, emotions, thoughts, sensa- tions, and commentaries in your body.
• Welcome the divine indwelling in the feelings, emotions, thoughts, commentaries or sensations in your body by saying, “Welcome, welcome, welcome.”
• Let go by repeating the following sentences:
“I let go of my desire for security, approval, and control.” “I let go of my desire to change this situation or person.”
• Repeat the prayer as often as you need it.
4. Active Prayer Sentence
The active prayer is also a nonsitting practice involving a phrase or short sentence drawn from scripture and comprised of five to nine sylla- bles, which one says aloud or silently in harmony with one’s heartbeat. Examples include, “O Lord, come to my assistance”; “Abide in my love”; “Jesus, my light and my love.” The advantage of repeating the active prayer phrase frequently during the day is that, “it eventually becomes a ‘tape’ similar to the ‘tapes’ that accompany one’s upsetting emotions. When this occurs, the aspiration has the remarkable effect of erasing the old tapes, thus providing a neutral zone in which common sense or the Spirit of God can suggest what should be done.”19
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
While extensive research exists on the health benefits of Eastern religious practices, only a small number of experimental studies have explored the bio-psycho-social correlates of Judeo-Christian prac- tices. Empirical research is beginning to emerge on the promising impact of Centering Prayer, exemplified in three instances:
1. The subtle but distinguishing feature of intention in Centering Prayer is being studied by Michael Spezio, a social neuroscientist at Scripps College and the California Institute of Technology. Spezio, who is also an ordained Presbyterian minister, is investi- gating the effects of Centering Prayer on the brain’s neural net- works, using magnetic resonance imaging and other methods to discover how the brain contributes to such complex activities as returning to one’s intention to be with the divine in Centering Prayer and how this compares to an attentive practice. Spezio’s hypothesis is that the brain activation in Centering Prayer is statis- tically different than an attentive practice. Experimental research is in progress.
2. A study funded by the Templeton Foundation and the Fetzer Insti- tute is investigating how involvement in spiritual practices such as Centering Prayer—and the lay communities that support them— influence people’s health, life, and well-being over a one-year period. The study, called the “Spiritual Engagement Project,” is directed by psychologists John Astin and Cassandra Vieten of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Group at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. It involves 50 practitioners of
Centering Prayer, as well as 100 practitioners from two other groups, Religious Science/Science of Mind, and Contemplative Non-Dual Inquiry.
3. A published study based on a doctoral dissertation by this author, in collaboration with Eleanor Willemsen, PhD, professor of psy- chology and advanced statistics at Santa Clara University, and May Lynn Castan˜ eto, a PhD candidate in psychology at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, reports the impact on Catholic parishioners (n = 15) of a three-month program focused on Cen- tering Prayer.20 The study explores the connection between health, stress, and the unconscious using Keating’s paradigm of the purification of the unconscious and psychologist Richard Lazarus’s theory of stress. It hypothesizes that a regular practice of resting in the arms of a loving God may inspire an unburdening of emotional wounds from the past, which in turn may lower a per- son’s susceptibility to stress.
To test this hypothesis, participants received guidance in twice-daily Centering Prayer. The project used quantitative and qualitative mea- sures to assess the prayer’s effects. The quantitative measures included Kenneth Pargament’s Relationship-With-God Coping Styles (Col- laborative, Self-Directing, Deferring). Qualitative measures involved open-ended questionnaires and observation of participants by the author and an interdisciplinary team. A comparison group of other parishioners (n = 15) filled out pre- and postmeasures but did not have a Centering Prayer experience.
The study concludes that participants in the first three months of their introduction to a twice-daily Centering Prayer practice experienced:
(a) Change in their style of relationship to the divine as measured by an increased Collaborative Style. The Collaborative Style is based on an interactive relationship with God that is consis- tent with Centering Prayer’s theological grounding where those praying establish an increasingly intimate relationship with God. It is associated with reduced stress and the greatest overall sense of well-being among the three styles.
(b) Healing of stress through the effects of this relationship, corroborated by qualitative results indicating signs of purifica- tion of the unconscious and positive coping behavior. For example, unexpected tears emerged “all of a sudden” for one participant—“I just needed to let go and let it flow.” Several
participants said thoughts “came up, and were let go,” of child- hood flashbacks and of people and events that they had not entertained in years.
Participants relayed that their detachment from thoughts during the prayer period also became a habit in daily life as they disengaged from reactive patterns of behavior with their children, co-workers, and spouses. This resulted in less conflict and greater intimacy in their interactions with others, which indicates an overall reduction in stress since interpersonal relationships are a prime source of source.21 For example, one participant reported the experience of a double awareness of her outward behavior on the one hand, and her inward, observing self, on the other: “I’m not as ‘engaged’ in my children’s dramas like I used to be. I can step back more, and if I do start arguing unproductively with my kids, I can catch myself sooner, and stop.”
Many of the participants found that in letting go of their expectations for stress relief or other goals, they were better able to relax by surren- dering to God, which brought them rewards beyond their expectations. This included a desire for a relationship with God in and of itself.
APPLICATIONS
It is primarily laity who practice the prayer and have found ways to share it in a variety of settings as church members and as psychothera- pists; volunteers in prisons and 12-step recovery workshops; health professionals in hospitals and educators in high schools, universities, and seminaries. Here are some examples:
TEACHING MODEL IN A UNIVERSITY CLASSROOM
Vincent Pizzuto, PhD, professor of theology and religious studies at the Jesuit University of San Francisco, teaches Centering Prayer in his semester-long course, “Mystery of God.” The course involves thirteen three-and-a-half-hour sessions that revolve around the theology of Keating with references to his inspiration from the scriptural and tradi- tional roots of Christian mysticism. Each class opens with a 10-minute Centering Prayer group practice. This is followed by lecture and dia- logue on required readings that include Keating’s books and texts by other authors such as Martin Laird’s Into the Silent Land and selections from Harvey Eagan’s Anthology of Christian Mysticism. A series of
20-minute DVDs featuring interviews with Thomas Keating sets the weekly class themes of Centering Prayer, the human condition, the pur- suit of happiness, sin, suffering, redemption, Trinitarian love, divine indwelling, and divine transformation. The course also invites students to attend a day-long field trip in nearby Marin County to hike in meditative silence on nature trails leading to a mountaintop. The point of the trip is to get students away from cell phones and text messaging in order to experience nature as a sacred place to encounter the divine. Grading is based on class participation (40%), written critical reflec- tions on all of the readings (50%), and a final exam (10%) in which stu- dents are observed practicing Centering Prayer for 15 minutes in order to demonstrate their “skill set” of being able to quiet the body, mind, and emotions—to “be” instead of “do.” Students especially appreciated integrating Centering Prayer meditation into the classroom experience because it helped them experience the theological concepts and ideas that they were studying, and appropriate the course material on a deeper
level contributing to their own personal development and learning.
CENTERING PRAYER SUPPORT GROUPS
There are Centering Prayer groups worldwide to support individ- uals in the daily practice of the prayer. Most of them meet in churches, generally for an hour a week, but Centering Prayer groups also gather in prisons, hospitals, and other locations. Typically, groups range from 6 to 12 participants, with chairs arranged in a circle in a quiet place. Formats include a 20-minute period of Centering Prayer followed by either lectio divina (described above) or a walking meditation in which participants walk slowly and mindfully before returning to a second Centering Prayer period.
IN A PRISON
Prison outreach has been integral to the Centering Prayer movement for decades, currently involving 187 volunteers who teach contemplative prayer to inmates in 69 state, county, and federal prisons across the United States. Reduced recidivism and a lessening of violent behavior among inmates who practice Centering Prayer has been observed by prison staff, but firm statistics have not been compiled to corroborate this. Savario Mungo began volunteering in prisons after his retirement as a college professor. He now leads a Centering Prayer group attended
by 180 inmates of different ethnicities and religious backgrounds who gather each week and sit together in silence in the gym at the McConnell Prison Unit in Beeville, Texas: “It’s amazing how they respond to silence because it gets them away from the chaos. This is a private prayer they can do on their own.” Prisoners themselves have written about the inner freedom and healing they have found through a Centering Prayer practice.
IN A HOSPITAL
At Santa Fe’s Christus Saint Vincent Regional Medical Center, hospital chaplain Susan Rush leads a weekly Centering Prayer group on Wednesday evenings for patients, their caregivers, hospital staff, and the wider community. Participants have found the practice to be restorative on all levels in a hectic medical setting. The chaplain also teachers the prayer to her hospice patients: “In Centering Prayer, we consent to God’s presence and action within. In dying, it is the same consent, the very same surrender. We do the prayer in life, we become the prayer in death.” At the final stages of death, Rush does not teach Centering Prayer to patients, but through her own practice of the prayer she is able to extend to the dying her own compassionate and contemplative presence.
AS AN ADJUNCT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
Len Sperry, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Florida Atlantic University, used Centering Prayer and other spiritual interventions in his treatment of a 45-year-old Roman Catholic woman with chronic depression and an eating disorder.22 The focus of the therapy was reducing the stressors related to the patient’s symptoms. Several spiritual disciplines were employed during the three-year psychotherapeutic treatment process, including Centering Prayer, a focusing body awareness practice, journaling, and participation in a faith community. Sperry attributes the spiritual practices to the quieting effect that helped derail his patient’s ruminative, internal mental chatter. At the beginning of therapy, the woman indicated that her image of God was, “judge and taskmaster .. . emotionally withholding, unsupportive, and critical.”23 By the end of therapy this image gradually changed to that of a “smiling, caring grandmother.”24 Her depression and eating disorder lessened considerably and she stopped taking antidepressants.
12-STEP RECOVERY
Contemplative Outreach offers Centering Prayer workshops for people in 12-Step Recovery groups. The 11th Step seeks “through prayer and meditation to increase our conscious contact with God.” Workshop presenters are people in recovery themselves, and their vocabulary is tailored to the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, surrendering to God as a Higher Power. The purpose is to integrate the 12 Steps with the Christian contemplative tradition of Centering Prayer in order to elaborate a journey of healing. Recom- mended further reading is Keating’s Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps.
CROSS-CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS
While the method of Centering Prayer itself remains the same across cultures, it sometimes is contextualized differently depending on the country or denomination. For example, a Pentecostal pastor found that his congregation did not like the term Centering Prayer and so he renamed it “Abiding Prayer,” which they embraced. In France Center- ing Prayer is called Prier dans le Secret (Prayer in Secret).
The choice of language in conveying the theology of the prayer can be crucial in making it “tasty” enough to try, observes Hee-Soon Kwon, professor of pastoral care and counseling at the Methodist Theo- logical University in Seoul, Korea, where Kwon has offered Centering Prayer to seminary students and the wider community. Kwon consid- ered the first Korean translation of Open Mind, Open Heart to be abrasive to some South Korean Protestants because of its Catholic terminology. So she translated a second version with a Protestant sensibility. For example in South Korea, the Catholic name for God is “God in Heaven” (Hanunim), while the Protestant name is “Only One God” (Hananim).
At a workshop in the Philippines, Fr. Carl Arico, cofounder of Contemplative Outreach, remembers needing to use the affective practice of lectio divina first in order to engage participants in Centering Prayer; whereas in Great Britain, his audience preferred a more intel- lectual theological discussion of the prayer’s value before they warmed up to the prayer.
One has to be open-minded in teaching the prayer in order to meet people where they are, concludes Isabel Castellanos of Exten- sio´ n Contemplativa Internacional, the Spanish-speaking arm of
Contemplative Outreach. Latin America has a strong charismatic move- ment and sometimes people come to the Centering Prayer workshops looking for experiences when they begin the prayer: “ ‘I see these clouds and angels,’ they say. ‘Well if you see clouds and angels, you let them go and return to the sacred word,’ ” Isabel responds. “ ‘What?!’ ” partic- ipants incredulously ask. “Yes,” Isabel replies, ever so gently.
CONCLUSION
Centering Prayer is a form of Christian meditation that provides a practical way to rest in God in a hectic world and offers a psycho- spiritual healing paradigm that has been embraced by thousands of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, denominations, and countries. Centering Prayer’s ancient biblical and theological sources prove it to be an integral Christian practice that is easily acces- sible using four guidelines, with recommended accompanying daily practices. Promising empirical research into the prayer’s beneficial bio-psycho-spiritual effects include its healing impact on stress. The relevance of Centering Prayer to today’s world is shown in examples of its applications inside the church setting and outside in a university classroom, psychotherapeutic treatment plan, prison, hospital, and 12-Step recovery workshop.
The cross-cultural aspects of this prayer, while lightly touched upon in this chapter, open a vista to research that remains to be done in this area, for example, looking at the importance of cultural context in the appeal of beginning and sustaining a contemplative prayer practice. Another promising area is exploration of the similarities of the theologies that undergird the meditation practices of different mystical traditions, for example the emptying practices in Buddhist
S´ u¯ nyata¯, Jewish Ayin, and Christian Kenosis.25 What implications does
a shared experience of silence through different meditation methods have in healing a world broken by wars and theologies?
REFERENCES
1. For a scholarly treatment of the ancient origins of Christian mysticism, see McGinn, B. (2007). The foundations of Christian mysticism: Vol. 1. The presence of God: A history of Western Christian mysticism. New York: Crossroad. For a pas- toral treatment of the subject, see Arico, C. (1999). A taste of silence: A guide to the fundamentals of centering prayer. New York: Continuum.
2. Miles-Yepez, N. (Ed.) (2005). The common heart: An experience of interre- ligious dialogue (p. 41). New York: Lantern Books.
3. Kavanaugh, K., & Rodriguez, O. (Trans.) (1991). The collected works of St. John of the Cross (p. 645). Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies.
4. Keating, T. (1981). The heart of the world: An introduction to contemplative Christianity (p. 233). New York: Crossroad.
5. Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1997). 2nd ed. (pp. 651–652). United States Catholic Conference. Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
6. Bourgeault, C. (2008). The wisdom Jesus: Transforming heart and mind— a new perspective on Christ and His Message (p. 142). Boston: Shambhala.
7. Wong, J. (2005). The Jesus Prayer and inner stillness. Religion East and West, 5, 86.
8. Ibid., 88.
9. Swan, L. (2001). The forgotten desert mothers: Sayings, lives, and stories of early Christian women (p. 58). New York: Paulist Press.
10. Cassian, J. (1985). Conferences (pp. 123–124). C. Luibheid, Trans. New York: Paulist Press.
11. Keating, T. (1986). Open mind, open heart: The contemplative dimension of the Gospel (p. 43). New York: Continuum.
12. Keating, T. (1994). Intimacy with God (p. 68). New York: Crossroad.
13. Keating, T. (2008). A traditional blend. In Spirituality, contemplation, & transformation: Writings on centering prayer (p. 5). New York: Lantern Books.
14. Keating, T. (n.d.). The method of centering prayer: The prayer of consent. [Brochure]. Butler, NJ: Contemplative Outreach. Available online at http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/site/PageServer?pagename
=about_practices_centering.
15. Bourgeault, C. (2004). Centering prayer and inner awakening (p. 94). Cambridge: Cowley.
16. Keating, T. (1999). The human condition: Contemplation and transfor- mation. The Harold M. Wit Lectures, Harvard University Divinity School. New York: Paulist Press.
17. Frenette, D. (Speaker). (n.d.). Contemplative service: Intention/ attention. In The practices that bring the fruits of centering prayer into daily life (CD recording available at http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/site/ PageServer?pagename=store). Butler, NJ: Contemplative Outreach.
18. A brochure published by Contemplative Outreach outlining a format for both individual and group practice of lectio divina may be found online at http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/site/PageServer?pagename
=about_practices_lectio.
19. Keating, Open mind, open heart (pp. 133–134).
20. Ferguson, J., Willemsen, E., & Castan˜ eto, May Lynn V. (2009). Centering prayer as a healing response to everyday stress: A psychological and spiritual process. Pastoral Psychology, DOI: 10.1007/s11089-009-0225-7. See also J. K. Ferguson. (2006). Centering prayer as a healing response to everyday
stress at a Roman Catholic parish in Silicon Valley. Unpublished doctoral disserta- tion, Pacific School of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley.
21. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophic living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness (p. 368). New York: Dell.
22. Sperry, L. (2004). Integrative spiritually oriented psychotherapy: A case study of spiritual and psychosocial transformation. In P. Scott Richards (Ed.), Casebook for a spiritual strategy in counseling and psychotherapy (pp. 141–152). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
23. Ibid., 144.
24. Ibid., 146.
25. Cynthia Bourgeault is exploring the similarities of contemplative prayer practices from different world religions in her work at Spiritual Paths Institute in Santa Barbara, California, http://www.spiritualpaths.net/.
CHAPTER 6
