CEntering Prayer-Meditation

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Letter

Dear friends,

Stabilising our Practice

      If we want to stabilise and regularise our practice, be it Centering Prayer-Meditation or some similar practice, we may need to remember the experience of other meditators.

­­­     It helps to do our sitting at the same time each day.  For most people, early morning is the best time.  It’s useful to decide how long to sit for,  because if the duration of a sitting is too short, one’s practice may not really get established; and if it’s too long, there might later be discouragement at not being able to keep to the same “standard” that one has set oneself. A soft chime or other electronic timer can take away the worry about time, if this afflicts us.

    We sit with the intention to be present.  We let go of expectations.

     Do we find ourselves sitting only when things are going well, and our mind is at ease and untroubled by difficult emotions? In that case the meditative state may not have enough access, as it were, to the more troubled times of our life. But at those troubled times, we particularly need the deeper levels of consciousness to be somehow accessible. 

     God dwells always in our hearts, but opening the depths of the heart to the divine during emotionally and mentally troubled states may open us better to the unconditional love, compassion, and forgiveness that is divine grace.  Troubled states may be thought of as part of the sitting practice.   Similarly, boredom, restlessness, and sleepiness may be better seen as part of the practice.

     Or do we maybe find ourselves sitting only when we are troubled, so as to seek peace? In that case the meditative state may not become stabilised as part of our ordinary day-to-day life.

     It helps a lot to be able to sit with others occasionally, or weekly.  This is for psychological and emotional reasons, but also because grace and Presence seems to be shared and amplified at those moments. “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Mt 18:20) 

Peace, love

Tony

Weekly Practice Group

On Wednesday afternoons from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm CET or Central Europe TIme (Rome, Paris, Malta) an online session with CP practice is held by a small interdenominational Christian group.  You are welcome if you already practice CP or seriously wish to try.  The international group members from Malta, Switzerland, Poland, USA are from three Christian denominations - Catholic, Anglican, Mennonite - and more will be welcome.  Session language: English

To contact the group, phone Tony on (+356) 7932 6725 during CET office hours, or write to efs@antidemalta.org .  If you do not already practice CP you will need one-to-one online support at first, for which there is no charge.  In such a case, check out the Contemplative Outreach website www.contemplativeoutreach.org for any basic quesitons you may have.  That site also has leaflets in several languages about the practice.

What is Centering Prayer ?

 Centering Prayer is a method of meditation used by Christians placing a strong emphasis on interior silence.

Centering prayer cultivates a disposition of interior silence intended to make room for God. It is a way of disposing ourselves to receive the gift of contemplation, an encounter with God's presence.

You can download the illustrated transcript from a talk by Thomas Keating, one of the main founders and promoters  of CP.  The illustrated transcript PDF document is here in English or in Maltese.  The diagram below is from the transcript. You can also download the talk itself, with English and Maltese captions, as Part 1 and Part 2  in the form of .MP4 files (play using Media Playwww.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWvxwfN_CE&t=120ser etc. size .3GB, .4GB).  If you wish to view Fr Thomas Keating explaining the guidelines online, you may wish to start on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWvxwfN_CE&t=120s .

Meditation with content is called kataphatic; meditation without content is called apophatic. In the Christian context, meditation with content is thinking about God or evoking feelings about God; by contrast, Centering Prayer, which is apophatic, is consenting to God and resting in God.

Meditation with content is called kataphatic; meditation without content is called apophatic. In the Christian context, meditation with content is thinking about God or evoking feelings about God; by contrast, Centering Prayer, which is apophatic, is consenting to God and resting in God.

The international network maintan3ed by the late Fr Thomas Keating, Benedictine Trappist monk and abbott, is called Contemplative Outreach. In its website www.contemplativeoutreach.org you can find the history, resources, inspiration, and other items that you may wish to explore in relation to Centering Prayer (CP) and Lectio Divina..

There is an app from Contemplative Outreach for Android phones downloadable from the usual Play Store. The guidelines for CP, from Contemplative Outreach,  are very simple:

Guidelines for the Practice of Centering Prayer

The Four Guidelines to Centering Prayer (from Contemplative Outreach

1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's presence and action within.
2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God's presence and action within.
3. When engaged with your thoughts*, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes,

(*) thoughts include body sensations, feelings, images, and reflections

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