Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer
A Resource Page for Contemplative Practice

Join Us! Lent Centering Prayer Practice

Susan Williams and Emily Chatfield-Lusto invite you to practice Centering Prayer with them during Lent. Sessions of 20 minutes will be led via Zoom twice a week—on Tuesdays and Fridays at 12:00 noon—beginning Tuesday, February 16. We will be incorporating breath work, chant, and body prayer into the sessions. After March 7, Tuesdays sessions will be held in person.
Tuesday Zoom link Friday Zoom link

Take Two Minutes to Center. Here’s a guided 2-minute practice of centering offered by the Center for Action and Contemplation.

More resources

Books
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault
The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice by Cynthia Bourgeault
Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating
Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating
Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer by Richard Rohr

Videos
Thomas Keating: A Rising Tide of Silence (available on Amazon Prime) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2MrMDpwchA
What Is Contemplative Prayer? By Richard Rohr
https://youtu.be/b0o5J0-8OA0
Contemplation as Luminous Seeing by Cynthia Bourgeault
https://youtu.be/LaaA5hJAI0c

Practice of Lectio Divina by Abbot Austin Murphy, OSB
A brief overview of the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina by Abbot Austin Murphy, OSB, of St. Procopius Abbey
https://youtu.be/7d1BP-CeVoA

The Road to Emmaus #2 by Daniel Bonnell

Music & Chants
Wellsprings of Life: Quaker Wisdom in Chant by Paulette Meier
“Concepts as subtle and challenging as inner stillness, non-attachment, and the indwelling Christ Spirit come powerfully alive through these mystical chants. One can drink these chants in, almost like an elixir of hope!"
https://www.paulettemeier.com/store/p79/Wellsprings_of_Life%3A_Quaker_Wisdom_in_Chant.html

Wisdom Chants by Darlene Franz
Darlene’s work… cultivates the expansion of attention and presence, deepening of embodied awareness, and freeing of personal and collective energies blocked by habit and conditioning. Carried into daily life, such chant practice can bring meaning to ordinary experience, enliven prayer and meditation practice, and enrich outward expressions of service.
https://wisdomchant.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmbWRZfOgwc
“Psalm” by John Coltrane
Richard Rohr included a link to this jazz expression as a form of Lectio Divina, or sacred reading. He wrote: “We invite you to contemplate the soulful music of saxophonist John Coltrane’s composition “Psalm” from his album A Love Supreme. He put this handwritten poem/prayer on the music stand in front of him and played it as if it were music. Practicing Lectio Divina with this song may deepen your sense of prayer and add possible ways to pray. That is one of the beauties of Lectio Divina: it encourages us to “pray always.”

Additional Resources
“The Welcoming Prayer helps to dismantle acquired emotional programs and to heal the wounds of a lifetime by addressing them where they are stored — in the body. It contributes to the process of transformation in Christ initiated in Centering Prayer.” ---Contemplative Outreach
https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/welcoming-prayer-method/