Centering Prayer
St. James' Centering Prayer group meets in the Hopper Room each Monday evening. The door is shut, the lights are turned down or out, and we pray silently beginning at 6:00 p.m. sharp. Please understand if we do not answer the door after 6:00 p.m. The silent prayer is a contemporary form of ancient Christian contemplation going back at least to medieval monastics, perhaps to Jesus himself. It is not eastern meditation pretending to be Christian. It is just a way to be still and know that God is God.
After a 20-minute session of centering prayer, we discuss a work of Christian mysticism or spiritual discipline. We recently read Cynthia Bourgeault's Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, one of those rare books that manages to be useful to the beginner and the experienced. Although any time is a good time to see if centering prayer is right for you, the book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening really is a great introduction for the beginner.
Centering prayer is an ecumenical movement. We are not Episcopalian only. If you have a friend of any faith who's interested in Christian contemplation, bring them along!
–Contact: Steve Peirce
More on Centering Prayer
quoted from http://www.centeringprayer.com/cntrgpryr.htm
" Centering Prayer is a method of prayer, which prepares us to receive the gift of God's presence, traditionally called contemplative prayer. It consists of responding to the Spirit of Christ by consenting to God’s presence and action within. It furthers the development of contemplative prayer by quieting our faculties to cooperate with the gift of God’s presence.
Centering Prayer facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer — verbal, mental or affective prayer — into a receptive prayer of resting in God. It emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God. At the same time, it is a discipline to foster and serve this relationship by a regular, daily practice of prayer. It is Trinitarian in its source, Christ-centered in its focus, and ecclesial in its effects; that is, it builds communities of faith.
Centering Prayer is drawn from ancient prayer practices of the Christian contemplative heritage, notably the Fathers and Mothers of the Desert, Lectio Divina, (praying the scriptures), The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.. It was distilled into a simple method of prayer in the 1970’s by three Trappist monks, Fr. William Meninger, Fr. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating at the Trappist Abbey, St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts."