SEASON TWO - EPISODE FIVE: CENTERING PRAYER
Nothing can make me fall asleep quicker than being forced to do Centering Prayer for 20 minutes after lunch, during prime nap time, when you’re in graduate school and constantly exhausted. Yet, the first time I tried Centering Prayer, this is what happened. After 20 minutes, I awoke to drool streaming down my chin.
After this experience, I didn’t try this ancient practice again. It wasn’t until over a decade later that I tried Centering Prayer and this time I found it had become a profound practice for my soul that leads me into greater peace and calm, centers my soul, and allows me the space to listen for God. It’s been a game changer in my spiritual life. It was revived my soul and lead me into deeper awareness.
At it’s basic, Centering prayer is a type of silent prayer in which we center ourselves upon God’s presence.
This is why it is also one of the most difficult spiritual practices. It’s a practice where I can’t do anything, really. I don’t check things off my list. Instead, it forces me to be rather than to do. In Centering Prayer, I just am as I am. It’s just me and my thoughts, which can become quite noisy when sitting in silence.
But this is also why Centering Prayer is an essential practice.
Instead of me trying to achieve or do something, Centering Prayer becomes about me being present, as I am, to the Divine One who is always present to me. It becomes this centered place where I’m not working on my own soul, but God is working on my own soul. Through it, God does a transforming work in me and I am simply opening myself up to the One who does such good work.
Centering prayer allows us to be in union with God, to be aware of God, and to be as close to God as your very breath. It is a holy act, where we don't have to worry about doing, but instead settle into simply being.
Catholic Priest, Basil Pennington gives the following framework for Centering Prayer:
Be With God.
Stay With God.
Return to God.
In this episode, I share more about Centering Prayer, but I also give instructions on how to do a sit as well as end the episode with silence to experience Centering Prayer. As I mention in the podcast, a few resources I recommend are: Centering Prayer, by Basil Pennington; Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, by Cynthia Bourgeault; and Centering Prayer in Daily Life and Ministry.