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Lenten Quiet Day: For Those Who Wish

To Learn Centering Prayer

Explore a way of praying that allows you to be at home with God, being attentive to and experiencing the Divine presence and action within. Centering Prayer is learning to let go and let God, who dwells in the center of our beings, do the praying. In this workshop, learn the method and principles of Centering Prayer and have the opportunity to practice this ancient prayer method in a quiet, reflective atmosphere.

The workshop will be presented by trained presenters of the Centering Prayer method, representing Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., a network of faith communities, Catholic in origin, ecumenical in scope, committed to renewing the contemplative dimension of the Gospel in everyday life.

(Please feel free to bring a sweater or a throw blanket and a seat cushion if you would like for your comfort)

OPTIONAL – Please bring an additional $15 per person (payable to COTB) for recommended book, Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating

Pastor Shanda Mahurin, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 2301 Deltona Blvd. Spring Hill, FL 34601

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.

Christian Contemplative Prayer is the opening of mind and heart - our whole being - to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words and emotions, whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, thinking, feeling and choosing; even closer than consciousness itself. The root of all prayer is interior silence. Though we think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words, this is only one expression. Contemplative Prayer is a prayer of silence, an experience of God’s presence as the ground in which our being is rooted, the Source from whom our life emerges at every moment.

For the Church's first sixteen centuries Contemplative Prayer was the goal of Christian spirituality. After the Reformation, this living tradition was virtually lost. Today, with cross-cultural dialogue and historical research, the recovery of the Christian contemplative heritage has begun. The method of Centering Prayer, in the tradition of Lectio Divina (praying the scriptures) is contributing to this renewal.