I am stunned. I have been a Catholic since baptism, just weeks after my birth day, 64 years ago. I have worked in the Church for the past 28 years, have taken graduate level courses on centering prayer, and yet have only recently come to adopt this method for myself. What took me so long, I think! And now I sit here, looking at my computer screen, bewildered as to how to share with you the wonder that I have discovered. Centering Prayer is, according to the contemplative outreach website, “a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God’s presence within us, close than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship.” Does that tell you anything? It is a type of prayer in which we put our own agendas completely aside and wait on God. We dismiss any thoughts worries, problems, ideas – anything which is our agenda, and wait on God to come to us, usually at an unconscious level. It is as easy, and as difficult, as that. Why difficult? -because we have minds, and the job of the mind is to think. To suspend that function, i.e., to let go of our own agendas, takes practice and discipline. To find God in silence, which is really the only appropriate medium, is the goal, for anytime we use words, we immediately limit God, who is limitless, unfathomable to the human mind. I can only tell you that I have been practicing this 40 minutes per days for the past five weeks (2 20-minute periods daily) and I have been given the gift of consolation. I feel joy: true, deep-down joy. I can’t explain it; I don’t know if it will be a lasting thing, or if it is encouragement to continue in this type of prayer…I don’t make any claims, other than it is. If you have an opportunity to take a contemplative prayer workshop (they are everywhere, in every city), you might consider it. This may not be for you, but then again, it may just be the door to something you have never even known possible.
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS BLOG ARE MINE ALONE AND
DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF MY EMPLOYER.
