Centering Prayer is a Key Meditation

by Jael SC · January 11, 2017

Fr Anselm Prior OFM, Pretoria – Further to recent discussions on your letters page regarding Centering Prayer, Is Centering Prayer a New Age Fad?, this form of meditation has been defined as “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, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship.”

I was first taught Centering Prayer by the late Fr James Fitzsimon SJ.

Not only have I continued to use this form of prayer, but I have taught it to many hundreds of people during the workshops I conducted on four continents during my 13 years at the Lumko Institute.

The positive responses of so many who found this a fruitful form of prayer clearly manifests its efficacy.

It was introduced by Cistercians who had been asked by the US bishops’ conference to offer a form of prayer which could be used by busy people who felt they had little time for daily prayer. Fr Thomas Keating is the author of many books on the subject.

If anyone wishes to know more about this method of prayer, go to www.contemplativeoutreach.org, from which the above definition was taken.