First, what is the contemplative life?
What do I mean when I say “contemplative”? I mean simply awareness. Awareness of being in the presence of God. The contemplative life assumes the goal of the spiritual life is to be like Christ and thus be in complete union with God. No separation. “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” Jesus says to his disciples. “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)
This is what the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 calls the hidden wisdom of God. The contemplative life is about waking up to this mystery of the presence of God within me and living in an awareness of this loving presence of God within each of you.
Now, there are many ways to enter into contemplation, but today I will speak only of prayer.
What is Contemplative Prayer?
How then do we enter into this mysterious presence of God within us?
We enter through prayer.
Christians are most familiar with a type of prayer known as “discursive prayer” (a style of prayer that is a response to God via thoughts or words), or a particular style of meditation (putting one’s full attention on a particular thought, aspect of God’s nature, passage of scripture, etc.), or worship (expressions of reverence typically expressed through music). We need this type of prayer, meditation on scripture and worship. Many of us have mastered these spiritual practices.
But God also desires to simply be in company with us. Not merely the subject or object of our study, or even dare I say, our affection. Like any relationship, we move beyond inquiry about a person to intimacy which is beyond words or intellect, even beyond feelings. It is a movement into a space of the heart where, as Richard Rohr says, we take a “long, loving look at the Real.” Here is where contemplative prayer happens. Here, Beloved-to-Beloved, there is no desired outcome but simply sharing presence.
Speaking of contemplative prayer M. Basil Pennignton says,
“In prayer we seek God. We do not seek peace, quiet, tranquility, enlightenment; we do not seek anything for ourselves. We seek to give ourselves…to God. He is the all of our prayer.”
Fr. Thomas Keating, founder of Contemplative Outreach center, refers to contemplative prayer as “the divine therapy.” It is a movement of faith and love towards God. It is a training program in which we come to trust God more deeply. Fr. Keating says,
“Contemplative prayer demolishes the monumental illusion that God is absent. As we enter contemplative prayer, we move towards a certain level of rest and peace….The rest is the rest to which Jesus invited everyone who is heavily burdened. Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest.”
Contemplative prayer then is a way of entering into divine union with God. It is a way of resting in God’s love. It is simply being in the presence of God without doing much of anything. The way one can be with a lover, or friend.
Contemplative prayer is our whole being saying Yes to God.
What is Centering Prayer?
Centering Prayer then is a method (or technique) or style of prayer that is beyond words, thoughts (which includes feelings) or images, where we find ourselves simply resting in the presence of God.
The practice of centering prayer revived and reformulated in our Western tradition is rooted in Eastern church history and monastic practice dating back to 4th and 5th century Christian practice. Over time, through church schisms and reformations, the Christian church became quite distant from the early prayer practices of our monastic church fathers and mothers whose spiritual lives resembled more of what we think of now as Eastern spiritual practices. For early Christians, theology (study of God) and spirituality (life lived by the Spirit) were intertwined. Only in recent years, has spirituality made a comeback in the Christian tradition.
The practice of centering prayer hinges on the 46th Psalm “Be still and know that I am God.” Again, this know is not of the mind. But the Hebrew sense of know – yada – an intimate, relational knowing.
Centering Prayer is:
- an opening and consenting to God’s presence and action within us.
- not so much an act of the will, or a discipline, but an intention to “Come…and find rest”
- the practice of being quietly in the presence of God and when our mind wanders, to gently return again to this loving Presence always welcoming us.
“In Centering Prayer we go beyond thought and image, beyond the senses and the rational mind, to that center of our being where God is working a wonderful work.”
M. Basil Pennington, Centering Prayer: Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form
Back to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where he speaks of mysteries beyond the human mind and asks, “Who can know the mind of God?” He answers for us, “Those who have the mind of Christ.”
Indeed, Jesus invites us to know God in a different way. The mind of Christ knows (yada) as Jesus did, many mysteries beyond our own mind’s ability know intellectually. “The kingdom of God is within you,” Jesus says. We are in him, as he is in the Father and they are one.
Let us simply be with God in prayer. Seeking nothing but stillness. Letting the Spirit do the work of “divine therapy.” Then we will know as Jesus did, that we too are one with God.
