Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer evolved from the silent Christian contemplative prayer that traces its roots to the Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christian monasticism. The method consists of building spiritual muscle through the letting go of thoughts and feelings so as to be fully present before God.

The theological basis for Centering Prayer exists in the principle of kenosis, Jesus’s self-emptying love that formed the core of his own self-understanding and life practice (Philippians 2: 6-11). When we pray in this way we are displaying our solidarity with Christ. Cynthia Bourgeault writes in The Heart of Centering Prayer, “Every time we’re willing to let go of our engagement with a thought, no matter how captivating, and return to that simple, open-ended awareness, we are in spirit participating—in solidarity with Christ—in that great gesture of self-surrender through which the world was redeemed. Slowly, steadily, Centering Prayer patterns into its practitioners what we would call the quintessential Jesus response: “the meeting of any and all life situations by the complete, free giving of oneself.”

Contact

Julie Honsey ([email protected])

Meeting Times

Tuesdays 10:30 – 11:30 Upper Room