Has any diocese banned centering prayer?

[blessedstar]

I understand what you are saying and I have no intentions of division because one person can pray the Rosary and the other cannot and that does not mean the Church is divided and to suggest that would be nonsense. Neither anymore is there division over Latin Mass and Vernacular Mass as the two will exist in peace alongside each other and I have hoped and prayed for that for a long time.

To say I am misunderstanding would be to go against my conscience and I can’t in all clear conscience say that centering prayer is good. The links I have provided aren’t scare mongering to knock on the head a prayer method, they are legitimate concerns and have been provided from reputable sites. I found most of those links by searching the CA Forum where people can pose a question and either Father or another member of staff answers the question.

I am not a learned person and I have always maintained I do not need to be to be drawn close to God. But what I find in these times is that everything what has been held fast for 2000 years is being tampered with, rejigged, reorganised, diluted, infiltrated and to what end? The Church is reducing especially in Europe, where will it lead?

Like I say I am not learned. I am simple and I follow a simple way of life especially in prayer. I do my poor best to live as a Carmelite and follow the Little Way of St Therese. I try not to spend a second entering into myself, I tried to spend every second entering into the ‘other’ to only see my own poverty. When I pray ‘I raise my mind, heart and soul to God’ and it is true I need not say a word to do that, but it is also true that I do not need a mantra, nor do I not need to empty my mind etc. I believe my mind should work as it does when I am actively going about my day as it does in prayer as everything is prayer.

If you ask me to give you a long exergesis on why I disagree with centering prayer I cannot. It is in my conscience and all that I can describe it as is this, it feels foreign and at odds with my prayer life as I know it with Jesus and in my faith. It is not natural ascending to the supernatural. It is humanistic.

I also believe devout Catholics can and do go down paths that they would be better not going onto, it doesn’t call into question their deep faith, it calls into question the method.

As I have said do as you will. We do not have to agree, that does not make either of us demons.

In the Living Prayer of my life.

 

[the_phoenix]

How I Like to Envision “Centering Prayer”: Firmly Focused on Our Eucharistic Lord, King and CENTER of All Hearts

First, please allow me to quote not just one, but two Popes, and both in the same paragraph yet! Pope John Paul II, and Pope Paul VI:

Jesus Christ stands at the CENTRE not just of the history of the Church, but also the history of humanity. In him, all things are drawn together (cf. Eph 1:10; Col 1:15-20). How could we forget the enthusiasm with which the Second Vatican Council, quoting Pope Paul VI, proclaimed that Christ is “the goal of human history, the focal point of the desires of history and civilization, the CENTRE of mankind, the joy of all hearts, and the fulfilment of all aspirations”? (1) The Council’s teaching gave added depth to our understanding of the nature of the Church, and gave believers a clearer insight not only into the mysteries of faith but also into earthly realities, seen in the light of Christ. In the Incarnate Word, both the mystery of God and the mystery of man are revealed.(2) In him, humanity finds redemption and fulfilment.

Quote taken from the
APOSTOLIC LETTER
MANE NOBISCUM DOMINE
OF THE HOLY FATHER
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY
AND FAITHFUL
FOR THE YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST,

which can be seen on the Vatican website:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20041008_mane-nobiscum-domine_en.html

Please note that I added emphasis to the word “centre” by using caps, and that yes, “centre” is spelled in British English rather than the American “center.”

For truly worthy “centering prayer,” may I recommend the nearest Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, where instead of gazing inwards on one’s self, you can gaze upon Jesus Really Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? I know where I’d rather turn my gaze … Jesus, because where He is, there is Heaven!

~~ the phoenix

 

[blessedstar]

For truly worthy “centering prayer,” may I recommend the nearest Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, where instead of gazing inwards on one’s self, you can gaze upon Jesus Really Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? I know where I’d rather turn my gaze … Jesus, because where He is, there is Heaven!

~~ the phoenix

Beautiful.

When I look at Jesus I see everything I am not and when He looks at me He sees what He will make of me.

In the Living Prayer of life

 

[BarbaraTherese]

“He who is not against me is with me - a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand”

---

St. Augustine: “In non essentials, liberty - in essentials, unity - and in all things love”.

I think that a person ‘Centre Praying’ (while not really knowing what it is I must confess) can be praying with a more sincere and loving heart than one praying by alternate methods. While our classical mystical and spiritual writers have written of the more common methods or ways leading to contemplation, it would be very wrong to confine God’s actions to one way or method. Contemplation remains God’s Gift and in no way whatsoever can it be earned or precipitated. What precedes it (in our human logic)is God’s Will even as God’s Will and His Actions remain one in God Himself - conteplation is a gift of God, unearned and unprecipitated by any method whatsoever.

Also, in reading this thread I wondered if there was one common definition of what exactly contemplation is, that is shared by all?

Blessings - Barb
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_14_5.gifJMJ

 

[blessedstar]

“He who is not against me is with me - a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand”

---

St. Augustine: “In non essentials, liberty - in essentials, unity - and in all things love”.

Less perfection, more unity (said by a Saint, I can’t remember which one.)

 

[DBT]

This is probably a complete waste of time but I’m posting it anyway since this is perhaps the most concise definition of true and false emptiness that I’ve ever seen. “Emptiness”, of course, being a common beef against CP.

This is drawn from Bl. John Ruusbroec’s “The Spiritual Espousals.” The key to everything is the intention by which the soul approaches God through it’s way of prayer. Importantly, he states: “Let each person examine and test himself.”

By these tests, I believe, the soul can learn to know whether the contemplation that flows from his/her way of prayer (whatever it may be) is true union with God or simply self-absorbed navel gazing.

True Emptiness
Sometimes a person living the interior life turns within himself in a simple way in accordance with his inclination toward blissful enjoyment. This occurs above and beyond all activity and all virtue, by means of a simple, inward act of gazing in blissful love. Here such a person meets God without intermediary, and an ample light, shining from out of God’s Unity, reveals to him darkness, bareness, and nothingness. He is enveloped by the darkness and falls into a modeless state, as though he were completely lost; through the bareness he loses the power of observing all things in their distinctness and becomes transformed and pervaded by a simple resplendence; in the nothingness all his activity fails him, for he is overcome by the activity of God’s fathomless love, while in the inclination of his spirit toward blissful enjoyment he overcomes God and becomes one spirit with him.

Through this unity in the Spirit of God such a person enters a state of blissful savor and there possesses God’s essential being. Being immersed in his own essential being, this person becomes filled with the fathomless delights and riches of God. From out of these riches there flow into the unity of the higher powers an embrace and a fullness of felt love, and from this fullness of felt love there flows into the heart and into the corporeal powers a felt and deeply penetrating savor. By means of this influx such a person becomes interiorly unable to move and powerless over himself and all his activity. In the inmost part of his being, in both soul and body, he neither knows nor feels anything except a unique resplendence accompanied by a felt sense of well-being and a penetrating savor.

This is the first mode, which is characterized by emptiness, for it empties a person of all things, lifts him up above all virtues and activities, unites him with God, and provides a firm and stable basis for the most fervent interior exercises which a person can practice.

I’ll post false emptiness shortly . . .

Dave.

 

[DBT]

. . . And now false emptiness from Bl. John Ruusbroec’s “Spiritual Espousals:”

False Emptiness
Anyone not drawn and enlightend by God is untouched by love and has within himself neither an active devotion full of desirous longing nor a simple, loving inclination toward blissful rest. Such a person cannot be united with God, for all who live without supernatural love are turned back upon themselves and seek their rest in things which are apart from God. All creatures are naturally inclined toward rest and therefore both the good and bad seek rest in many different ways. Now notice that whenever a person is bare and imageless in his senses and devoid of activity in his higher powers, he enters a purely natural state of rest. All persons can find and possess this kind of rest in themselves by merely natural means, apart from God’s grace, provided only that they can become empty of images and all activity. But a loving person cannot rest in such a state, for charity and the interior touch of God’s grace do not lie inactive. For this reason an interior person cannot long remain in this state of natural rest.

Consider now the way in which a person practices this natural rest. It consists in sitting quietly in a state of idleness, without any interior or exterior exercises, in order to find rest and have it remain undisturbed. But it is not lawful to practice this kind of rest, for it produces blind ignorance in a person and makes him sink down into himself in inactivity. Such rest is nothing other than a state of empty idleness into which a person falls and in which he becomes forgetful of himself, of God, and of all things as regards any activity. This kind of rest is contrary to that supernatural rest in which a person possesses God, for the latter is a loving immersion of oneself characterized by a simple act of gazing in incomprehensible resplendence. This rest in God – which is always sought actively with fervent desire, found in blissful inclination, eternally possessed in a loving immersion of oneself, and still sought even when already possessed – this rest is raised as high above merely natural rest as God is raised above all creatures.

For this reason all those persons are deceived who have the intention of immersing themselves in a state of natural rest, neither seeking God through desire nor finding him in blissful love. The rest which they possess consists in an emptying of their inmost being, something to which they are inclined by both nature and custom. One cannot find God in this state of natural rest, but it does bring a person into that state of emptiness which can be attained by pagans, Jews, and all persons, no matter how evil, provided only that they can live in their sins without suffering the reproaches of conscience and can empty themselves of images and all activity.

The rest which one attains in this state of emptiness is both satisfying and deep. In itself it is not sinful, for it arises naturally in everyone whenever he empties himself of activity. But if a person seeks to practice and possess it without performing works of virtue, then he falls into spiritual pride and a state of self-complacency from which hardly anyone ever recovers. Such a person sometimes thinks that he has obtained and become what he will in fact never attain.

Careful reading of John Ruusbroec’s words reveal that it is a fine line between true and false emptiness. Intention is everything. And the fruit of the prayer will prove itself in habitual acts of virtue. Fruit, or lack thereof, is often obvious for all to see. But who of us can see the intention of another’s heart? Again, “Let each person examine and test himself.”

Dave

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Less perfection, more unity (said by a Saint, I can’t remember which one.)

Hi BS…I must admit I was really jolted when I read your quote …and again I need retreat into definitions. My concept is that we are united and find our unity in love always and everywhere regardless of whatever -or at least it sure is worth striving for as God is Love and Love summarizes our ‘Gospel and Spiritual Quest’ - is its essence, its heart and soul. And too God is Perfection. Perhaps it is because of my associations that I was jolted.
Perfection for me is a strange quantity - I dont really understand usually what exactly is meant by using the term in the day to day operation and use of it. Perfection I ‘see’ hanging on a cross - Perfect Love.
That is, what is the definition of the perfection we need less of?
In what is the unity we need more of?
The quote leaves me with only questions…and not at all a bad thing! A student desired to be a mathematician and always believed the answers in the book. He never did become a methematician. The answers in the book, incidentally, were correct.

Whatever!..Cheers! Blessings …Barb
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_4_12.gif iHs

 

[blessedstar]

Hi BS…I must admit I was really jolted when I read your quote …and again I need retreat into definitions. My concept is that we are united and find our unity in love always and everywhere regardless of whatever -or at least it sure is worth striving for as God is Love and Love summarizes our ‘Gospel and Spiritual Quest’ - is its essence, its heart and soul. And too God is Perfection. Perhaps it is because of my associations that I was jolted.
Perfection for me is a strange quantity - I dont really understand usually what exactly is meant by using the term in the day to day operation and use of it. Perfection I ‘see’ hanging on a cross - Perfect Love.
That is, what is the definition of the perfection we need less of?
In what is the unity we need more of?
The quote leaves me with only questions…and not at all a bad thing! A student desired to be a mathematician and always believed the answers in the book. He never did become a methematician. The answers in the book, incidentally, were correct.

Whatever!..Cheers! Blessings …Barb
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_4_12.gif iHs

Less perfection, more unity. I first heard this during the beginning of my formation and it puzzled me back then. How could striving for perfection be a source of disunity? But it can be. Last night I was praying Ecclesiastes in there there is a bit that speaks of not being too righteous, not being too wicked etc. I then thought of Jesus working miracles on the Sabbath and healing people and how the Pharisees perceived His actions.

I think we have ideals of what perfection is, we also have ideas of what contemplation is most often our ideas are not what it actually is. Perfection also is drawn from the conscience and to not have patience with our own and other’s consciences whilst they are formed is a source of disunity.

I believe perfection consists not in striving selfishly without seeing the need to be united to each other. Jesus knows we are not perfect, yet He desires to be united to us. Jesus doesn’t demand we be perfect to receive Him at Holy Communion but He does desire we are not gravely disordered at the time (not being ‘too wicked’ because all of us are sinners and at least are a little wicked). Jesus does however encourage the intent to be perfect whilst He also knows we cannot achieve this perfection, well that is, not by ourselves. There is no mercy towards others in ‘too righteous’ and though Jesus is perfect He is merciful. Only Jesus is truly righteous and in Him we are made righteous as St Paul says, but He does not use His righteousness to display disunity.

It is easy in the pursuit of perfection to go too far either way being too righteous or too wicked. We can fall into being too righteous and cause ourselves to be at odds with our brothers and sisters who too are striving for union with and perfection in Jesus. On the other hand it can cause us to be deflated and weary, giving up on the pursuit of perfection, seeing it is a mountain we cannot climb and so can throw the towel in leading to abandonment of the way of perfection and losing courage backslide into sin and thus offend God and sin against each other causing rifts that destroy unity and require God to heal with mercy and forgiveness.

I think the Saint who made this statment was primarily speaking of religious community life, but it is also true of everyday living in the world.

If we are to strive for perfection, I believe the Saint is saying, balance striving for perfection with love and service of brother and sister and in unity love each other first and foremost and perfection will follow on from this in Jesus. I am sure this Saint sinned too, but he persevered in Jesus and that is why he is a Saint, he carried on despite himself. The only thing we all have in common, believer and unbeliever is that we are all sinners.

In my Living Prayer of life

 

[BarbaraTherese]

… …

I have a lovely homily here somewhere by a Benedictine Prioress recently deceased. She takes an example of a nun who could not strike a right note in choir and always seemed to sing the loudest…hence was an annoyance in choir. Mother pointed out that this same nun was a very generous person…always willing to give of her time and anything else that was asked of her with such good heartedness. We can learn from her, Mother, said. In other words we all sing off key sometimes and to the annoyance of others…but then there are our virtues that these same annoyed others could well strive towards. Or that old and very true adage “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

I am afraid my mind is just switching off and I finding it very hard to concentrate. Sorry and apologies!

…Cheers BS! Barb

 

[blessedstar]

… …

I have a lovely homily here somewhere by a Benedictine Prioress recently deceased. She takes an example of a nun who could not strike a right note in choir and always seemed to sing the loudest…hence was an annoyance in choir. Mother pointed out that this same nun was a very generous person…always willing to give of her time and anything else that was asked of her with such good heartedness. We can learn from her, Mother, said. In other words we all sing off key sometimes and to the annoyance of others…but then there are our virtues that these same annoyed others could well strive towards. Or that old and very true adage “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

I am afraid my mind is just switching off and I finding it very hard to concentrate. Sorry and apologies!

…Cheers BS! Barb

Beautiful

By the way I don’t think there is anything wrong with your mind or your concentration. A mind likes yours goes at a hundred miles an hour and from time to time needs to slow down only to rev up again to a hundred miles an hour! There is a time for everything, slow and fast.

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[blessedstar]

I found the quote and who said it taken from:

carmelite.org/tradition.htm

St Teresa of Avila reminded us that Carmelite communities are meant to be communities of friends who are friends with Jesus Christ. Distinctions which create divisions or hierarchies, whether secular or religious are to be vigorously shunned. Carmelite life undermines any claim to privilege other than the supreme privilege of being loved by God. Teresa challenged her sisters to strive for a high ideal: “all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped.” St Philip Thibault, leader of a 17th century reform of Carmel, offered as his motto:** “More unity, less perfection!”**

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[ncjohn]

Good morning blessedstar.

In reading what you wrote I came to why I was so confused by your intensely emotional statements in your original post.

Here you said:

It is easy in the pursuit of perfection to go too far either way being too righteous or too wicked. We can fall into being too righteous and cause ourselves to be at odds with our brothers and sisters who too are striving for union with and perfection in Jesus. On the other hand it can cause us to be deflated and weary, giving up on the pursuit of perfection, seeing it is a mountain we cannot climb and so can throw the towel in leading to abandonment of the way of perfection and losing courage backslide into sin and thus offend God and sin against each other causing rifts that destroy unity and require God to heal with mercy and forgiveness.

Your previous posts came across as one seeming “too righteous” and disregarding the very valid attempts of other brothers and sisters who are also striving for union with God.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not disparaging your right to have your opinion. What I am suggesting is that others can sometimes have a different view, and perhaps a knowledge of things that we do not. Just because I can’t understand something doesn’t mean that it isn’t understandable by others, or that others may just know something from either their experience or their study that I don’t.

As Dave noted below

DBT:

Intention is everything. And the fruit of the prayer will prove itself in habitual acts of virtue. Fruit, or lack thereof, is often obvious for all to see. But who of us can see the intention of another’s heart?

If we can look at the fruits of those around us we can often see the effects of their prayerful life. We cannot however determine the intention of their heart, but should feel bound to accept that intention as articulated, absent evidence to the contrary.

I guess, in the end, my question is whether, rather than wishing to see it wiped from the face of the earth, you might at least be able to *consider *that some may know something you don’t on this subject and be able to participate in this prayer form as it is intended for the glory of God?

I know you to be a prayerful person, trying to be at one with God and in unity with your brothers and sisters–as am I–and I hate to see us so at odds over our honest attempts to achieve this.

Peace,

 

[blessedstar]

*On one occasion, Teresa of Avila heard these words in prayer: “Seek yourself in me!” She asked a number of her friends and directors in Avila the meaning of “Seek yourself in me!” Among the respondents were a lay spiritual director, Francisco de Salcedo, her brother Lorenzo de Cepeda, and John of the Cross. These gentlemen met to discuss their responses but Teresa was absent. So they sent their replies to her.

In imitation of academic sparring sometimes practiced in the schools, Teresa playfully determined to find fault with each answer and gently mock it. We do not have their responses, but we do have her rejections of their answers. One respondent, Francisco de Salcedo, quoted St. Paul frequently, and then closed his response with a humble statement about having “written stupidities”. Teresa then chastised him for characterizing the words of St. Paul as “stupidities”. She said she had a mind to hand him over to the Inquisition.

John of the Cross must have responded that “Seek yourself in me” required that she be dead to the world in order to seek herself in God. Teresa’s answer to him was a prayer to be saved from people as spiritual as John of the Cross. His answer was good for members of the Company of Jesus, she said, but not for those she had in mind. Life is not long enough if we have to die to the world before we find God. Teresa pointed to the gospels and observed that Mary Magdalene was not dead to the world before she met Jesus; nor was the Canaanite woman dead to the world before she asked for crumbs from the table. And the Samaritan woman had not died to the world before encountering Jesus at the well. She was who she was and Jesus accepted her. Teresa closed her response to John of the Cross by thanking him for answering what she did not ask! (8)*

carmelite.org/welch/soh4.htm

Why must we agree in order for us not to be at odds?

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[blessedstar]

*One contemporary author observes that a serious problem in spirituality today is a naiveté about the desire or energy that drives us. Our God-given spiritual longing, which may be expressed in numerous ways, including creative, erotic energy, is dangerous for us if not carefully tended. We are naive about this deep desire within us and are not alert to its danger. Without a reverence toward this energy and ways of accessing it and keeping it contained, most adults waver between alienation from this fire and therefore live in depression, or allow themselves to be consumed by it and live in a state of inflation.

Depression, in this sense, means the inability to take child-like delight in life, to feel true joy. Inflation refers to our tendency, at times, to identify with this fire, this power of the gods. “…We are generally so full of ourselves that we are a menace to our families, friends, communities, and ourselves.” Unable to handle this energy we either feel dead inside or are hyperactive and restless. “Spirituality is about finding the proper ways, disciplines, by which to both access that energy and contain it”.(2)*

and

*Psyche’s images are freighted with spirit’s yearnings. They may stir up and express our longings for peace and justice, they may open us to profound repentance, they may throw light on our existence and illumine our path, they may provide hopeful scenarios of our future beyond this life, as Thérèse’s did. But, none of them is adequate to finally and fully express the desires within us, the desire that we are. Our deepest yearning to know and to love, to be one with, all there is, is never fulfilled. Our deepest hungers never find sufficient food in this life. Our wants are given voice, but what do we want?

Theologian Bernard Lonergan believed that if we follow the trail of our deepest desires, expressing them in truth, facing them, and responding to their call in our lives, we will undergo conversions. Our wants, our desires will be purified and transformed, until more and more we want what God wants in a consonance of desire.*

In life we may find that every time we have the good intention to educate some poor creature we see as impoverished, we find it is ourselves that are converted and learn something of our own poverty.

I have said what I have said and say it out of my own poverty as I am formed in conscience.

I make no excuse for my own poverty, I am waiting on the Lord to reveal to me and to make me rich where I am poor. This may prove to be that I at some point am bound to agree with you and it may also be at some point you are bound to agree with me. Until then there is no need to be at odds out of a desire.

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[JimR-OCDS]

If you ask me to give you a long exergesis on why I disagree with centering prayer I cannot. It is in my conscience and all that I can describe it as is this, it feels foreign and at odds with my prayer life as I know it with Jesus and in my faith. It is not natural ascending to the supernatural.

Blessedstar,
here lies the problem. You know nothing about Centering prayer, but your expressing your gut feelings about it, which are formed from erroneous information about it, from critics who have their own agendas.

Let try to help straighten you out. The method of centering prayer, is not new. It has been around since the ancient Hebrews. It was practiced in the Catholic Church for centuries. Repeating a verse from Sacred Scripture, while placing yourself in the presence of God, is not new.

Its like some one saying, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is new. Yes, the prayer words, are new, but the concept is not. When we pray the Chaplet, we are to meditate on the mercy of Jesus. The words of the Chaplet are not whats important, but the intention of our will, toward the Mercy of Christ.

Centering Prayer is no different. It is using a prayer word, in my case I use, " Lord Jesus," while we turn our attention toward Christ, who dwells within us.

In both the Chaplet of Divine Mercy or Centering Prayer, when we find ourselves being drawn away from prayer, buy wandering thoughts, what do we do? We return to the prayer, to bring our intention to Christ.

The focus of both prayer methods is, embracing the presence of God.

If you allowed yourself to read what the source of Centering Prayer, Fr. Keating, teaches about it, you would find nothing different than what I explained above. However, he is more articulate in explaining it.

I’m a Secular Order Discalced Carmelite. The spiritual assistants of my OCDS group, all know what Centering Prayer is, and some use this prayer method it as well. Some of the members of my group used this prayer method and some didn’t even know they were doing it, until Centering Prayer was explained to them. For the most part, they see the relationship Centering Prayer has in helping people open to contemplative prayer, as taught by St.Teresa and St. John of the Cross. There were some who rejected it as you do, but it was due to their own misunderstanding of it, and they just refused to learn about it.

The people who claim that Centering Prayer came out of traditions in Eastern Religions, are just plain wrong.

Again, you don’t have to do Centering Prayer, but to tell people its dangerous and should be avoided, is just plain wrong, especially when you don’t actually know what it is. Its like protestant fundamentalist telling people that the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is based on pagan practices, and should be avoided. I’ve had fundamentalist tell me this.

In Christ
Jim

 

[blessedstar]

You are telling me I don’t know what it is because I have concerns about this prayer method. Like you, I can read what centering prayer is and understand what it is. I can also see you have a good intention when you practise centering prayer.

Still that doesn’t mean it is free from error and as best as I can I am obeying my conscience which is not a gut reaction based on impulses but is an ordered and informed (as far as can be) searching of the soul. If I cannot express in words all the reasons why this prayer method is not acceptable does that mean I have no grounding. I simply say I cannot express it, but that does not take away from what I know.

I have been told not to practise this prayer method and so has everyone else in our community. It is not part of our formation, it is not promoted, taught or discussed. Am I to disobey this because you tell me there is nothing questionable with centering prayer? And am I to promote it because you say there is nothing questonable with this prayer method? Will my prayer life die if I do not entertain this method?

Am I to agree with you because you want me to? Are you to agree with me? You do as you will, you are free to.

Am I to be silent just because you don’t like or agree with what I say? Have I told you to be silent?

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[JimR-OCDS]

How I Like to Envision “Centering Prayer”: Firmly Focused on Our Eucharistic Lord, King and CENTER of All Hearts

First, please allow me to quote not just one, but two Popes, and both in the same paragraph yet! Pope John Paul II, and Pope Paul VI:

Quote taken from the
APOSTOLIC LETTER
MANE NOBISCUM DOMINE
OF THE HOLY FATHER
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY
AND FAITHFUL
FOR THE YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST,

which can be seen on the Vatican website:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20041008_mane-nobiscum-domine_en.html

Please note that I added emphasis to the word “centre” by using caps, and that yes, “centre” is spelled in British English rather than the American “center.”

For truly worthy “centering prayer,” may I recommend the nearest Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, where instead of gazing inwards on one’s self, you can gaze upon Jesus Really Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? I know where I’d rather turn my gaze … Jesus, because where He is, there is Heaven!

~~ the phoenix

In Centering Prayer, we don’t gaze inward on ourselves, but on Christ, who dwells within.

Jim

 

[Bennie_P]

In Centering Prayer, we don’t gaze inward on ourselves, but on Christ, who dwells within.

Jim

But this isn’t what is being taught by the pormoters of CP.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

You are telling me I don’t know what it is because I have concerns about this prayer method. Like you, I can read what centering prayer is and understand what it is. I can also see you have a good intention when you practise centering prayer.

What you say about it, exposes your misunderstanding about it.
Yes, you can read about it, but you can read about if from the founder of it, or from the critics. So far it seems, you’ve limited yourself to reading the critics and accepting what they say about it as gospel truth.

OK, so you don’t want to read Father Keating’s works on Centering Prayer, so lets just stick with the people, like myself, in this forum, who do Centering Prayer.

What have I said in explaining what Centering Prayer is, that you find concerning?

Jim