The Dangers of Centering Prayer

[Joysong]

Dear Dave,

It is always my joy to read your posts and share insights. After pouring over the linked reference above, I kept thinking about the simplicity of Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God. It seem to me that all of the stuff I spent hours studying in Larkin’s treatise could be reduced to the simple recollection practiced by our little Brother.

Also, my guess is that neither he, nor St. Therese of the Child Jesus, had to read volumes of brain teasers to learn how to pray and love the Lord. They simply looked at Him, and loved! How beautiful! I had no further desire today to examine the textbooks, but just to go to God and be in His holy presence. Ahhhh!

Carole

 

[DBT]

Hi Carole !

Yes, Brother Lawrence is my refuge . . . the place I go where “thinking” doesn’t count for much but “be-ing” counts for everything.

I can’t believe I didn’t notice it, but I just re-read the quote I provided above and St. Teresa talks about the trials of “taxing our brains.” So I feel like we’re all in good company if her brain sometimes got a bit fried too

Best wishes.
Dave

 

[Joysong]

Dear Buzzcut,

Buzzcut:

You say that St T had tried “this type of contemplation, where one does not labor with the understanding” without success. I don’t think she was without success. She says “one reaches contemplation more quickly along this way.” So I think she was successful. It’s just that she found it very hard as she was distracted by many thoughts. Hence her preference for using a book to recollect herself.

Isn’t it great that two heads are better than one? I never thought about it in that light before, but I did want to mention something that seems important. If you look at the paragraph immediately preceding St. T’s words, she mentioned that she had experienced both the supernatural Prayer of Quiet and the *Prayer of Union. *From the studies you have done, I trust you recognize that both of these are granted to very proficient pray-ers.

Lest I become a broken record, I will emphasize a final time, that St. Teresa at least had a solid basis for recognizing truth from error, for these supernatural gifts of contemplation leave no doubt whatever that one has been united with God, especially in the latter experience. Not so with a beginner in CP who has not even laid the proper foundations and gradually come to recognize the Shepherd’s voice. Very possible to be misled.

Once again, since I have not attended the workshop, I would greatly hope that the proponents of CP are also teaching their attendees to lay the proper foundations outside of, and in addition to the actual practice which is supposed to last 20 minutes. I hopefully trust it is not just a method to lay aside reading, mental prayer, etc., in order to quickly jump to contemplation.

http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Carole

 

[Joysong]

Hi Dave,

It’s getting late, and I did want to acknowledge your good post There was a fine piece in Larkin’s article that came to mind and it seems to address what you wrote. I’m far too weary to look for it now, but I’ll try to find it tomorrow for you.

Enjoy your evening in the ‘quiet,’
Carole

 

[buzzcut]

DBT, appreciate the friendly nudge LOL but that would take us into a whole other area of discussion. No, I was just reflecting that we have one OCDS group in our diocese and 12 centering prayer groups. Now, I appreciate that they’re different things, but why not one OCDS group and 12 carmelite prayer groups? Someone needs to make the writings of the saints more accessible, and present them in a form where ordinary people can benefit from them, with simple workshops and retreats. That’s what the centering prayer folks did.

Joysong – yes, the simple introductory material from the centering prayer people does recommend daily reading of Scripture, and also an “active” prayer to use in the course of everyday life. But I got the idea that everyone at the workshop was a committed Christian anyway. There was no point in telling people to start going to Mass, for example, because everyone already was.

I did notice that the Larkin article discussed almost the same passages as we had been doing here! But I still think the mystical absorptions are something else entirely. I looked up the Life chapter 22, which is what Larking was quoting from, and it refers to a danger after the prayer of union. I think that’s far ahead of where we are now, and therefore something entirely different altogether.

DBT – yes, I reached that point of view also – that what centering prayer is all about is a “sliver” of the prayer life, namely the preparation for the prayer of quiet, with the focus being on dealing with distractions (and not, of course, on “doing” anything to “make” the prayer of quiet happen, which would be impossible).

I also looked up the middle chapters of Ascent Book 2 that Larkin quotes from. For example Ascent II.9.1 is talking about what is needed for the advanced stages of prayer. What is needed is faith. In fact intellectual considerations are a positive impediment at this stage, says St John. The basis for the prayer of union is pure faith. So I can see centering prayer, with its one-word prayer of intent, as an act of faith.

And now my brains are fried too, second day running, so I’ll stop here!

 

[Joysong]

Dear Dave,

DBT:

Here is the quote I was referring to in post # 36. It’s from Fr. Dubay’s summary of the 4th mansions in “Fire Within.”
The most we should do is occasionally, and quite simply, to utter a single word, like a person giving a little puff to a candle, when he sees it has almost gone out, so as to make it burn again; though, if it were fully alight, I suppose the only result of blowing it would be to put it out. I think the puff should be a gentle one because, if we begin to tax our brains by making up long speeches, the will may become active again. (p.92 Fire Within - him quoting the Way of Perfection)

The reference is in Ch. 31:7, but she is giving instruction as to what the person can do while experiencing the supernatural Prayer of Quiet in order to attend to God’s presence. If the mind begins to make a lot of reflections or becomes active while receiving the divine favor, it will prevent the will from being in Quiet with God. Remember, too, Dave, that in this favor, only the will is captive, unlike the Prayer of Union, wherein all faculties are suspended. I don’t believe this instruction has a single thing to do with CP, which is not supernatural infused prayer spoken about here.

DBT:

The principal practice in Centering Prayer is to choose a word that represents our intention to consent to God’s presence and action within us – it could be God, Abba, Jesus, peace or some other word - and to return to that word whenever we feel our intention growing fuzzy (p57 Intimacy With God).

From Larkin’s article, pg. 399:

Active recollection moves the center of consciousness from the outside to the Presence within, closing one’s eyes literally and as the symbol of rejection of outside competitive forces (W,28,6). In passive recollection, the movement within just happens and an intense recollection ensues. Until the Lord moves in this sovereign way, Teresa counsels the readers to practice, not discursive prayer, but simple attention to what the Lord is doing.

She vehemently opposes stopping the mind" (IC, IV, 3, 4 and 6) or holding one’s breath, or trying not to stir or to allow the intellect or desires to stir. The ill-conceived effort to “stop thinking” will likely produce the opposite effect. Simple attention to the experience or to supportive imagery is the best human cooperation. In Teresa, there are no dichotomies between imageless and imaged contemplative prayer. Attention to the divine presence is capital; “shutting oneself within oneself” is the defense against exteriority.

Pg. 400 states: “Her method is a model of simplicity: get in touch with the Lord present within and nurture that presence by simple reflections and affections.”

Another good reference is in the latter part of Life, Ch. XIII :

What I say we must not do is to presume or think that we can suspend it (the mind) ourselves; nor must we allow it to cease working: if we do, we shall remain stupid and cold and shall achieve nothing whatsoever. When the Lord suspends the understanding and makes it cease from its activity, He gives it something which both amazes it and keeps it busy, so that, without reasoning in any way, it can understand more in a short space of time than we, with all our human efforts, in many years. And I say once more that, although the fact is not generally realized, there is no great humility in this: it may not be sinful, but it certainly causes distress, for it is lost labor.

I still am not convinced about CP, for the reasons above, but I will concede that it may work for “some.” I do not believe it should be taught in a wide-scale group promotion, nor should children or beginners in prayer be exposed to it whatsoever. Amen.

http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Carole

 

[DBT]

Hi Carole -

Very good post . . . and I agree with what you’re saying. The problem for me is providing context to readers when I simply give one quote.

The quote I gave from Fr. Keating was drawn from his chapter titled “The Will and Intention during Prayer” (I think that’s it) from “Intimacy With God” and he made many of the same points you just made. The frustrating part for me he just starts off at that point (the 4th Mansion) . . . without explain how one got there . . . or where one is going.

Going back to something Buzzcut said about centering prayer being more accessible and easy for most people . . . well that’s how I see this book being presented to it’s audience. Without meaning to be crass, it comes across to me as a kind of “Prayer of Quiet for Dummies.” No discussion of what came before . . . and nothing for what comes after. Context is lost on the reader.

Fr. Keating seems to know what he’s talking about (at least in this book) and I doubt he would deny or challenge anything St. Teresa or St. John taught. In fact I kind of see this book as his personal interpretation and adaptation of the Carmelite saints. While I like parts of what I see, it leaves me in a kind of a void . . . hungering for so much more.

The biggest problem I see is that he just glosses over so many things . . . so many essential things . . . that I fear the significance of living a life of virtue in preparation for the gift of contemplation might be completely lost on the reader. And when you get right down to it, it is this slow daily slog of growth in holiness and the virtues that is really important . . . not the contemplation itself.

And in this glossing over of things I think Fr. Keating upturns the apple cart and, probably unintentionally, changes the whole focus of what St. Teresa and St. John intended. It is from this weakness in presentation, I think, that people sometimes get the mistaken belief that contemplation can be reduced to a simple technique. And that’s a huge problem, in my opinion, when CP is presented to people who are not ready for it. While I think it’s safe to say St. Teresa would probably have a problem with some of the content of CP . . . she would probably be truely horrified at it’s marketing toward those not yet ready.

I find it kind of ironic that I think Fr. Keating would agree with many things you (and I) are saying in these posts . . . but his presentation of things seems to make him his own worst enemy. At least in my opinion.

Dave.

 

[Joysong]

Hi Dave,

Without meaning to be crass, it comes across to me as a kind of “Prayer of Quiet for Dummies.” No discussion of what came before . . . and nothing for what comes after. Context is lost on the reader

Excellent observation, with which I agree! In the hoards of chapters I have been reading this week for this thread, I found this in Life XV:
St. Teresa:

Returning now to what I was saying, the great foundation which we must lay, if we are to be delivered from the snares and pleasures sent by the devil, is the initial determination not to desire these pleasures, but to walk from the first in the way of the Cross.

I would love to see the fruits of CP in the persons that practice this. I read an article by an advocate of CP who demonstrated a real lack of humility. The approach was anything but love of God, but dwelt more upon extraordinary experiences that one might obtain if they “center.”

As for you and I, Dave, it seems we could both bear witness to Our Lord having drawn us with cords of love, and having taught us the ways of prayer through the desire we have to simply be with Him and follow His teachings. I know your fidelity to adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. :yup:

When I learned prayer, I was kind of like the penitent woman who just poured out her tears at Jesus’s feet. I loved much! The rest just happened as a natural consequence of meditative reading, loving, being, avoiding venial sins, etc. The Lord, in His great love, just takes us where He wills after that. I cannot ever remember practicing a technique to get there! Love paves the way, and it is though our love that we captivate the heart of Christ.

I’m sticking to simplicity, Dave!

Warmest regards,
Carole

 

[Joysong]

Incidentally, Dave,

I have two of Father Dubay’s books, but not Fire Within. You seem to feel the same way I did after reading them. He leaves a good deal unanswered, more or less just whetting our appetite, but not providing the morsel. I thought it was just my personality.

Remember how St. Therese could find little or no nourishment from books other than her two very favorites? I assumed it was the same thing with my reading Father’s books, for many, many people are helped by him - just not me. However, I highly esteem him and think he has a solid background of authentic teaching.

 

[buzzcut]

DBT:

Without meaning to be crass, it comes across to me as a kind of “Prayer of Quiet for Dummies.”

Yes! I am at last beginning to understand what Fr Keating is talking about. It is like a preparation for the prayer of quiet, expressed in a simple one-word prayer of intent. Where it differs from St Teresa’s description is that there is no intellectual reflection and considerations, at least not during the prayer period itself. One proceeds on pure faith, cf. the middle chapters of Book 2 of the Ascent. So here we get back to St John of the Cross’s three signs – at what point is one ready to proceed on pure faith?

DBT:

Fr. Keating seems to know what he’s talking about (at least in this book) and I doubt he would deny or challenge anything St. Teresa or St. John taught.

In an interview he said:

The prayer of quiet will expand when the will is grasped by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit. This stage is all laid out very beautifully and charmingly in St. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle.

Source: beliefnet.com/story/2/story_217_6.html

Joysong:

From Larkin’s article, pg. 399: Quote: She vehemently opposes stopping the mind (IC, IV, 3, 4 and 6) or holding one’s breath, or trying not to stir or to allow the intellect or desires to stir. The ill-conceived effort to “stop thinking” will likely produce the opposite effect.

Joysong, I hope you’re not confusing centering prayer with an attempt to stop thinking.

**Thoughts are an inevitable, integral and normal part of Centering Prayer. **

Source: centeringprayer.com/methodcp.htm

Centering Prayer as taught by Contemplative Outreach is a fairly nuanced practice. You can’t always rely on what people say about the instruction they received. I have found that even after several years, people may not have fully understood how to do Centering Prayer.

Source: centeringprayer.com/newsltrs/resting_in_god.htm

 

[DBT]

Joysong:

When I learned prayer, I was kind of like the penitent woman who just poured out her tears at Jesus’s feet. I loved much! The rest just happened as a natural consequence of meditative reading, loving, being, avoiding venial sins, etc.

And doesn’t that cut right to the heart of the matter

Contemplation, simply put, is a love affair - a melding of hearts between creature and creator. End of subject. If I could boil all of the teachings of Carmel down to a single word -it would be Love.

And maybe that’s why my exposure to CP has left me shaking my head. While I admit I see faint echos of the Carmelite Doctors - I have to say where’s the love?

What I see, at least to me, is cold . . . clinical . . . sterile . . . austere . . . impotent. A technique presented to appeal to the *vanity of the mind * can not unleash the fire of the heart. Only God can do that.

Oh well, better stop with that.

 

[Joysong]

Dear Buzzcut,

Joysong, I hope you’re not confusing centering prayer with an attempt to stop thinking.
That is how I interpret the guidelines you furnished:

1. When engaged with your thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

• “Thoughts” is an umbrella term for every perception, including sense perceptions, feelings, images, memories, plans, reflections, concepts, commentaries, and spiritual experiences."

Pennington’s book advised that whenever ANY thought enters, including worthy thoughts about God, scripture, and the like, we void them and return to the sacred word, in order to center on God.

Isn’t this “stopping the mind” … interrupting and eliminating the flow of any thought whatsoever? And why? To focus on God, without any image, in pure faith — for 20-30 minutes? Do you realistically believe this is possible for a beginner? For a child?

If St. Teresa, who had already experienced supernatural gifts of prayer, found it almost impossible, even though she knew God experientially, how much more would a mere novice have monumental difficulty?

Contemplatives who already know God, are able to “center” using acquired recollection, but I’m not aware that they need a sacred word to remain recollected. What keeps them captive is their love of God, just like Brother Lawrence. But what comes first? Does one love God and then try to center on Him? Or does one use a technique, hoping it will engender love of God? Someone one said that we cannot love what we do not first know.

I’m sorry, Buzz, I just can’t get excited about this, no matter how much I try to be open to it. There always remains a check in my spirit that does not permit me to embrace the idea. If you feel God is calling you to it, well and good, since you have studied and are alert to problems.

It occurs to me that none of our really magnificent saints have ever written about this extraordinary techinque as a means to growing close to God. Never have I seen it with St. Ignatius, St. Frances de Sales, St. Catherine of Siena, all of whom I read extensively.

As I mentioned before, how is it that God never showed His holy ones this “breakthrough” in 2000 years of history? I truly must stick with the basics they taught.

http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Carole

 

[Joysong]

Dear Buzzcut,

Buzzcut:

Yes! I am at last beginning to understand what Fr Keating is talking about. It is like a preparation for the prayer of quiet, expressed in a simple one-word prayer of intent.

So, my friend, are we to understand that if one centers for 20 minutes using a chosen sacred word, the person has done the necessary preparatory work in their intent, and is likely, therefore, to receive the prayer of quiet?

I think not! Perhaps it could be assumed by the practitioner that one is receiving this gift, but I really do not believe that a technique is capable of commanding God to bestow Himself in supernatural contemplation. No foundation, no humility, no supernatural gift, I’m afraid. Again, it is the fruit that will determine its genuineness, huh?

I don’t want to discourage you, but if a person who has not laid the groundwork in practicing prayer and virtue, comes to the workshop and attempts centering, I fail to see that God will accomodate them just because they practice this method. If I do A, then God will surely grant me B. Those who promote the method in workshops fail to realize the degree of readiness in their subjects, or lack thereof.

Carole

 

[buzzcut]

Hi, Joysong, the correct attitude toward “thoughts” (by which the centering prayer people mean any kind of distraction) is a very subtle, and yet tremendously important point, and one which has taken me a long time to understand. At the workshop it was explained as being like watching boats go by on the ocean.

Although I find centering prayer interesting, and challenging to understand, I don’t think it’s for me at this point. When I sit down to pray, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for an hour, I follow the advice of St Teresa of Avila and pray like her, as best I can. St John of the Cross provides a sort of theoretical background that I draw on from time to time. However, I don’t rule out centering prayer as a possibility for me in the future. I don’t know how my prayer life will unfold. Perhaps what I learned at the workshop may prove beneficial at some point to come.

What I do admire abour Fr Keating and his colleagues is that they’ve taken the contemplatve tradition, this great treasure of the church, and made it accessible to a wider audience. There are plenty of people around like me who aren’t consecrated religious, and for whom even OCDS is not do-able. Okay in my case I read the books by the saints but not everyone wants to do that. So to offer ordinary people this opportunity to come into contact with a form of contemplative prayer is, I feel, a great gift. And that is exciting.

As I understand the history of the centering prayer movement, the Trappists’ original intent was to offer centering prayer retreats only to priests. They thought the priests would then take it back to their parishes, and what happened after that would be up to the priests. It was a surprise to the Trappists when laypeople started asking if they could come to learn centering prayer too.

As to assessing whether or not people are ready for centering prayer, the de facto method of assessing readiness today is that people are self-selecting. Bear in mind though that there is a whole additional formation program beyond the beginners’ workshop I took.

 

[Joysong]

Dear Buzzcut,

I am so grateful for your patience and kindness in trying together to understand a very complicated process. Thank you, indeed for all your sharing. It seems we have exhausted the topic thoroughly enough to go forward on our own path as God is leading each of us. I truly pray that we will be rich in grace and in love.

Best regards, always,
Carole

 

[DBT]

buzzcut:

I don’t know how my prayer life will unfold.

Hey Buzz!

I wish I had some words of wisdom to offer . . . but I really don’t. All I can say is that there are no easy answers . . . and no short cuts. The only tangible thing I can say is yet again another paraphrase of St. Teresa: The important thing is not to think much but to love much.

I know that was a very hard thing for me to learn. I spent several years reading the Saints with purely an intellectual curiosity. But at some point I found, to my great suprise, I actually wanted to live the life they lived. I wanted to know God the way they did. And that’s when I began to realize the answers to the kind of questions you’re asking aren’t found in the mind but in the heart. Sorry, but that’s the best answer I can give. Love is the key to everything . . . and it’s the very thing that seems to get lost in these threads with discussions of stages, states and so on. It’s really not about analytical things . . . but it probably seems that way to some who are following along.

Not to get to personal, but do you pray about all this? For I believe if you truely want to know God in this way - and are willing to say YES to *all it entails * - then I would not be suprised at all if God were to grant your prayer. Please don’t feel like you need to answer.

But please know that when I say this that contemplation is a way of life . . . not something one does as a particular type of devotion. It permiates every aspect of life and is part of you 24/7. It is who you are. Yes there are joys and consolations . . . but there’s also a much heightend sense of suffering - both yours and for others. At some point you might even find yourself asking for suffering as a way to help others and to love God in a very burning way. And that can be pretty scary. It is living the Gospel in a pure, un-compromising way. It’s carrying your cross . . . no, more than that, it’s asking for it.

Well, better stop now. I’m rambling again.

Your friend.
Dave.

 

[buzzcut]

DBT, Joysong, I’ll just say Amen and thank you for the privilege of discussing these things with you both.

 

[Joysong]

Dear Dave and Buzzcut,

I had the most unusual bit of self-knowledge this morning after I awoke and lazily spent a few moments in bed reflecting. Prior to my conversion, whenever I prayed to God, which was rare, I would address Him as outside myself “up there in heaven.” After I converted and was receiving Jesus so often in communion, I always spoke to Him as present within me. Nobody taught this to me, nor did I read about it in those early days . . . I just knew to find Him there - within. And that is how I prayed for the rest of my days up to the present.

That is, until I go to adoration, and I never realized I do this, but I speak to Jesus as “over there in the monstrance” rather than within me. I picture myself kneeling close to Him there making petitions to which He is listening, and I gaze quite often toward Him in the monstrance.

With a startle, I understood that one could gaze on the monstrance, instead of upon a sacred word as taught in CP. Funny thing, I doubt I could do this for twenty minutes straight, eliminating any other thought or petition, and just “see” monstrance as a point of centering upon Jesus. If other thoughts inject themselves instead of “monstrance,” the CP teaching is to reject them and return ever so quietly to “monstrance.” Although I have known contemplative prayer, I am quite surprised that, like St. Teresa, I cannot keep my mind solely on this point of contact for any length of time, either. It would give me a headache and cause real interior distress.

Besides, looking “over there at the monstrance” has proven to remove me from centering within where I normally find Christ. Wouldn’t it be the same with a chosen word? To remove interior focus which is my norm, in order to focus on a word?

What bothered me somewhat as I discovered this today, is that I make an outward projection toward Jesus when at adoration, unlike all other times when I address Him within me. Do either of you do this also? Dave, you go to adoration regularly, so I am interested in your feedback. Keep in mind that I love to go to adoration, so this is not to say that I find it to be a less beneficial mode of being in prayer.

Carole

 

[springbreeze]

Dear Carole

Just a quick note about avoidance of distractions in prayer. I believe this to be a damaging thing to do. If there are distractions we should look to them and realise that our Lord is using them as a tool to show us what we are attached to and address that.

I would be very wary of sweeping distractions from the mind. I don’t think it is something a person should worry about to have distractions. It can lead to the conclusion that distractions are a detrimental force impossible to overcome when they should be recognised as a tool the Lord may be using to reveal one’s attachments in life. They lead one to a humble awareness of what is needed to purify the heart and choose God.

This is why I cannot entertain CP as a way of prayer but more of a preamble to prayer to prepare the heart mind and soul for prayer. I may change my opinion on this when someone can explain the fruits of CP to me. I have not heard of any of the fruits of it yet.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[AServantofGod]

There are many forms of prayer. I don’t see anything wrong with contemplative prayer; I look at St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Therese of the Child Jesus. I think some times we need to stop the talking and listen for God’s still small voice.