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beng
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Same “term” doesn’t mean same “concept”
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AlanFromWichita
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Perhaps you have not read what the Catechism says about the three types of prayer, vocal, meditative, and contemplative.mhansen:
NO! This is pure fallacy! Contemplative prayer is a gift and we are not given the same gifts.
From para 2704 on vocal prayer, “Thus vocal prayer becomes an initial form of contemplative prayer.”
From para 2708 on meditative prayer, “This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.”
Para 2724 on contemplative prayer, “Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love. It achieves real union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it makes us share in his mystery.”
Now, if vocal prayer is an intial form of contemplative prayer, and if meditative prayer should go further into union with Christ, and if contemplative prayer achieves real union with Christ, then how can you say we are not all called to contemplative prayer? While it is certainly true that many Catholics have never heard of it, that sounds like poor catechesis to me.
Alan
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tru_dvotion
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AlanFromWichita
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True, and as you have characterized “centering prayer” it is not the same concept as taught by Keating and others, regardless of your supposedly learned sources. They have, as mhansen has tried to point out, mischaracterized it.
Please answer me this, then, since Dubay’s book lists “centering prayer” both as an impediment and as a teaching of St. Teresa, then can you explain how the current CP which your authors despise differs from what St. Teresa taught? If not, then are you willing to admit there might be different “flavors” of centering prayer available? If that’s the case, I’m curious what experience you have with it and what flavor it was? If you thought it was about mantras, about concentration, shortcuts to holiness, and all that then you must not have been attending meetings sanctioned by Contemplative Outreach – if you were, and they were teaching that nonsense, then I’d like to know so I can forward to my friend who’s the Kansas rep for CO so he can look into it.
Alan
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tru_dvotion
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Very kind offer Alan, but no thanks.
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AlanFromWichita
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So then what do you say to the Catechism that Christian prayer should go farther, into union with Him? You don’t think this applies to all Christians, or do you think this means that contemplative prayer is just going to fall out of the sky onto a lucky few without regard to any attempt they make at specifically disposing themselves, through interior silence, to this gift?
It is ridiculous that the whole concept of sitting in silence for 20 minutes, trying to clear you mind, can stir up such an fearful emotional response in so many people. These emotions come from the false self, which you will lose as you progress in the spiritual journey toward union with Christ. It is not surprising that those who try it for the first time are uncomfortable, as the active life, due to original sin and society, has caused us to have a non-stop stream of noisy flow of thoughts through our heads.
Alan
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beng
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Look at the quote I got from the centeringprayer.com. It’s my first post on this thread.
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beng
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I don’t get it.
Read the link to the article from THIS ROCK. It seems that CP are teaching non-sense.
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AlanFromWichita
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Huh? Are you talking about this:
Our primary focus is to contribute to the renewal of the Christian Contemplative Tradition. As a contemporary re-expression of the Tradition, we offer the method of Centering Prayer as found in the book, Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating and currently taught by Contemplative Outreach.
OK, I’m looking at it. What about it? I said the authors who have written against CP have mischaracterized it. How does this quote relate to that accusation?
Alan
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AlanFromWichita
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I am beginning to wonder if you are even interested in learning about centering prayer, or if you would rather cling to those things you already believe.
You have found some authors who are against centering prayer, but they make incorrect statements about what Keating teaches so they are not credible.
I have offered you real information on what they teach, and others have piqued my interest in what St. Teresa teaches that the author Dubay calls “centering prayer” and you’re not interested in that. I don’t know the basis of your fear in centering prayer, but it appears that you are not ready to get past it.
Alan
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tru_dvotion
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beng
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The centeringprayer.com itself state that they used Keating.
Btw, read the artifcle from THIS ROCK on catholicculture.org on that link I gave and p(name removed by moderator)oint me the mischaracterization of Keating’s method.
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AlanFromWichita
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Right. In fact, Keating is a founder of Contemplative Outreach, whose website contemplativeoutreach.org gets you to the same place as centeringprayer.com.
I think you guys are just trying to wear me out. I’ve read and commented on this article before, but I suppose I will again, at least until I have to quit. At first glance I noticed some misconceptions that don’t even have to do with CP.
It seems this guy Dreher would deny the indwelling spirit that Jesus gave us. He would also deny the divine portions of ourselves. Many Christians make this mistake, not realizing that we are children of God by adoption. Jesus was nearly stoned for saying He was a son of God, because of the same misconception that Dreher seems to exhibit here. Dreher seems to think we are entirely detached from God, and should keep that in mind with our prayer. Then Dreher makes the odd assertion that “In the view of centering prayer, the immanence of God somehow makes the transcendence of God available to human techniques and experience.”
That assertion is odd, partly because I’ve never heard of the word “immanence” so I don’t know what the heck he’s talking about. Academic-ish gobbledigook, it sounds like to me.
Next the bit about “mantra.” Keating has taught extensively about this, and other posters have already pointed out that CP does not involve a mantra. It does use a word repeated occasionally, but not “to go deep within oneself” as Dreher claims, but to help achieve interior silence.
Then Dreher goes on to a straw man argument about “Eastern Religions” which is fascinating but beside the topic. Then Dreher pays some verbal homage to the “indwelling God,” contradicting himself from the earlier paragraph, and repeats the issue that we are trying to somehow capture God with techniques. The technique is simply to simply ourselves and our rampant running minds for a little while to achieve interior silence, thus inviting God to touch us unperturbed by our thoughts. Whether the Holy Spirit does or does not so this in any given session is completely out of human control, as Keating clearly teaches and Dreher here again mischaracterizes.
This is too easy. This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I wish I could get paid for writing things I knew nothing about. Since you wanted a point by point refutation of Dreher’s article, I’ll go on after a quick break in a separate post.
Alan
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beng
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I did not know whther you have commented on this or not. You have mentioned it briefly tho.
No he didn’t:
The confusion of technique over encounter arises from a misunderstanding of the indwelling of God. The fact that God indwells us does not mean that we can capture him by techniques. Nor does it mean that we are identical with him in our deepest self. Rather, God indwells us by grace which does not blend human and divine natures. On the contrary, it perfects and empowers our limited human faculties, so that we can relate to him.
Eh? We have a DIVINE portion? Do elaborate.
Doesn’t mean that we’re divine.
Jesus has every right to say that He is a divine person BECAUSE HE IS! We are not.
Probably it’s not called immanence" in the CP community but there is such concept and for practical sake Fr Dreher call it with the term.
What’s an interior silence?
Can’t you do it without vain repetition (Mat 6:7)?
It’s because the monks who came up with this CP learn it from some Hindus.
You’re mishcarcterizing what Fr. Drehrer says.
Let me see if you can contact him.
Ok.
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AlanFromWichita
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Bob Baran:
As you see, there are people with heated opinions over centering prayer. I have some experience in this area. I have attended centering prayer/lectio divina meetings now, on and off, for over three years and listened to many hours of teaching videotapes on the spiritual journey, the Cloud of the Unknowing, centering prayer, and many other topics by Keating and others.
Without exception, the articles I’ve seen which have been critical of centering prayer with claims of “dangerous” or “new age” have mischaracterized it. The articles smack of the same type of shallow reporting that opinion pieces in the secular press often show; they do just enough research to get a few good sound bites, then add a nefarious context. If these people had actually taken the time to study or watch Keating et al, they would perhaps have learned better.
Not all devotions and prayer forms are for everyone. You may not like centering prayer. Since others have reported bad experiences with centering prayer, I wonder whether some of these groups are, in fact, teaching it wrong. You might want to check whether your local meetings are connected with Contemplative Outreach. If you want more information, feel free to PM me. I am not an expert and am by no means certified to teach CP, but I know a great deal more about it than the average religious pundit, it would seem.
Alan
Dear Bob,
As you see, there are people with heated opinions over centering prayer. I have some experience in this area. I have attended centering prayer/lectio divina meetings now, on and off, for over three years and listened to many hours of teaching videotapes on the spiritual journey, the Cloud of the Unknowing, centering prayer, and many other topics by Keating and others.
Without exception, the articles I’ve seen which have been critical of centering prayer with claims of “dangerous” or “new age” have mischaracterized it. The articles smack of the same type of shallow reporting that opinion pieces in the secular press often show; they do just enough research to get a few good sound bites, then add a nefarious context. If these people had actually taken the time to study or watch Keating et al, they would perhaps have learned better.
Not all devotions and prayer forms are for everyone. You may not like centering prayer. Since others have reported bad experiences with centering prayer, I wonder whether some of these groups are, in fact, teaching it wrong. You might want to check whether your local meetings are connected with Contemplative Outreach. If you want more information, feel free to PM me. I am not an expert and am by no means certified to teach CP, but I know a great deal more about it than the average religious pundit, it would seem.
Alan
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AlanFromWichita
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Oh, I did, did I? From what you just got done quoting from Dreher,AlanFromWichita:
You’re mishcarcterizing what Fr. Drehrer says.
Dreher:
The fact that God indwells us does not mean that we can capture him by techniques.
Sounds to me like an assertion that we are trying to somehow capture God with techniques.
In case it was the “contradicting himself” part you took issue with, let’s see the part I was talking about:
Dreher:
There he is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him. Christian prayer, on the contrary, centers upon God in a *relational *way, as someone apart from oneself. The Christian knows a God who is personal, yet who, as Creator, infinitely transcends his creature. God is wholly other than man.
It sounds like a contradiction to me. He says God is wholly “other” than man, as opposed to God indwelling him. Then later in the article he acknowledges the indwelling God. He flip flops more than Kerry, it would seem, based on whatever sounds right for that particular paragraph.
I have to go now. It’s been fun, but I’m getting weary of this; maybe I won’t finish Dreher’s article because all you do is refute what I say with no points to make on your own. You remind me of Monty Python’s “argument clinic” where all they did was negate what the person said, not have an actual intellectual argument.
Alan
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beng
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Not to be demeaning but the truht is this line of reasoning is always used by those who do questionable practice. Anyone who follow any “tongues” or “Charismatics” threads with me in it will see a patern.
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beng
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*Centering prayer differs from Christian prayer in that the intent of the technique is to bring the practitioner to the center of his own being. There he is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him. *
He means that you wanna capture God that is inside you by going into yourselves. Which is exactly what you mean when you said about our divinity.
Can’t you even read without bias? This is what he said with emphasis followed by an explanation:
The confusion of technique over encounter arises from** a misunderstanding of the indwelling of God**.
This means that there’s a misunderstanding of the concept of “indwelling of God” within the CP. Not that there’s no such thing ever about “indwelling of God”.
Fr Drehrer then continue that the mishcaracterization of "indwelling of God is:
The fact that God indwells us does not mean that we can capture him by techniques. Nor does it mean that we are identical with him in our deepest self.
Now, isn’t that what you’re talking about? Seeking your own divinity?
Then Fr Drehrer explain what true Christian means of indwelling with God:
Rather, God indwells us by grace which does not blend human and divine natures.
Let me repeat again, DOES NOT BLEND HUMAN AND DIVINE NATURE! And you’re saying that we have divinity
Please stop the blanket statement and deal with the argument.
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AlanFromWichita
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What line of reasoning? I don’t get the impression you know anything about CP except what a few sensational but shallow articles reported. The reason I’m not agreeing with them is that I have listened to Keating’s teachings enough to know what he does and does not say, and this article mischaracterizes the practice by saying it has a mantra, which is false, that says we are striving to go deep into ourselves instead of toward God which is false, and makes other false claims.
As you your assertion that the “sacred word” is vain repitition, then perhaps you should read the Cloud of the Unknowing, which even Dreher was smart enough not to try to knock. Although he did pick out a couple of quotes from the Unknowing, he falsely claimed that centering prayer is somehow against the teachings of the unknown author, whereas to someone like me who has read the book twice and listens to Keating’s teachings, it is completely evident that centering prayer is no more and no less faithful to the Cloud and its teachings.
You seem like an intelligent and passionate person, but you seem strangely willing to stake your own personal credibility on authors who clearly have not done their research. If you personally know of such an author who claims to be an expert at CP, ask him/her to contact me – on this very thread will do fine – and I’d love to discuss it. So far the only people I’ve read or heard about who think CP is satanic, new age, or whatever, are people who have not taken the time or energy to actually learn it. Either that, or they are only feigning ignorance for the sake of some agenda.
If you don’t want to do centering prayer, that’s fine. I wouldn’t engage in a prayer form I was afraid of either. Just because there are those who oppose it doesn’t make it wrong.
Alan
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AlanFromWichita
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I’ve dealt with your argument enough. No matter what I say you are going to jump back and quote your article. I do not have enough bandwidth in my typing finger to singlehandedly refute every ignorant statement made about one of my most favorite devotions that has helped me tremendously at a critical time in my life. I suppose if I wanted I could find plenty of articles from ignoramuses who say that Marian devotion is wrong, the rosary constitutes vain repitition or evil chanting, or that abortion is morally licit, ya da, ya da, even Catholics who say so, and shove them at you and expect you to refute them.
I’ve read the rock article, it has no merit because he makes false statements about what Keating’s people teach. If you have some inside track on this author, get him on the line. Otherwise, you are just repeating yourself and regurgitating his ignorance. It’s clear that Dreher has not read or heard even 5% about centering prayer that I have. Although I am not an expert, by comparison to Dreher I apparently am, so you should be asking me about CP if you want to know about it. If you just want to trash it without taking the risk of actually learn something about it, then just keep clinging to your sensationalistic articles as if they were written by God Himself.
Alan
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