Centering Prayer Group
Meetings as Announced

A form of what I like to call "Contemplative Communion with God", the following information is garnered from the works of Fr. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. one of the best known sources for information on this ancient manner of prayer. A short bibliography of some of his works is presented at the end of this handout. I highly recommend that people purchase the book by Fr. Pennington - Centered Living: The Way of Centering Prayer - Fr. Powers

Rule One: At the beginning of the Prayer we take a minute or two to quiet down and then move in faith to God dwelling in our depths; and at the end of the Prayer we take several minutes to come out, mentally praying the "Our Father" or some other prayer.

Rule Two: After resting for a bit in the enter in faith-full love, we take up a single, simple word that expresses this response and begin to let it repeat itself within.

Rule Three: Whenever in the course of the Prayer we become aware of anything else, we simply gently return to the Presence by the use of the prayer word. (from Centering Prayer, Fr. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O, Image Books, Doubleday 2001.

· Sit relaxed and quiet.
· Be in faith and love to God, who dwells in the center of your being.
· Take up a love word and let it be gently present, supporting your being to God in faith-filled love.
· Whenever you become aware of anything else, simply, gently return to the Lord with the use of your prayer word.
· At the end of your prayer time let the Our Father (or some other prayer) pray itself within you.

Sit relaxed and quiet.
Our friends have brought back some wonderful postures from the east such as the lotus and half lotus. They are good ways to sit for meditation. But for most of us simply sitting in a chair, one that gives our back good support, is probably best. The important thing is that we are relaxed (but not too relaxed or we will soon be snoring) and that our back is straight so that the vitalizing energies can flow easily. It is good to close our eyes. We use a good bit of psychic energy in seeing. As soon as we close our eyes we begin to quiet down.
Jesus has said to us: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you." Prayer should be refreshing--physically as well as spiritually and psychically.

Be in faith and love to God
who dwells in the center of your being.
We know that the Lord dwells in us. We know that by faith: because he said it, it is so.
In love we give ourselves to him, our whole attention, all that we are, for the twenty minutes of our prayer. "I am all yours, Lord. Do with me whatever you will."

Take up a love word and let it be gently present, supporting your being to God in faith-filled love.

We choose a word of love, usually our favorite name for the Lord: "Jesus, .... Lord," "Friend." (Probably Jesus' love word was "Abba.") We gently say this word deep within, and let it quietly repeat itself. No effort. Just let it be there--to keep us there with the Lord--open to him, letting him be present to us in any way he wants.

Whenever you become aware of anything else, simply, gently return to the Lord with the use of your prayer word.

We settle down with the Lord. It is wonderful, very peaceful. Then all of sudden we realize we are thinking about what we had for supper last night, or something we forgot to do, or our plans for next summer, or, or, or... The interior computer keeps going. Also there are the things from outside: we hear voices from the next room, somebody is mowing a lawn or playing the piano down the hall, etc.
Each time we become aware of something, we use our love word to return gently to the Lord. Some days we will have to use that word almost constantly. There is a lot going on inside--or outside. Other days we will not need it much at all. It doesn't really matter, just as long as each time we become aware of anything, we gently return to the Lord.
As we do, we let the other thing go. It is as if the Lord were asking us: "Do you love me more than this." With our love word we say: "Yes." For these twenty minutes we let everything else go and just give God the space of our lives, so that he can do what he wills. And what he wills most of all is to let us know how much he loves us, how truly he is with us--all the way.
As we choose the Lord and these things float away, all the stress and strain around them float away, too. After the prayer we will be able to attend to them without all that "stuff" around them. This is how our Lord refreshes us psychologically during this prayer, even while he refreshes us physically and spiritually.
So let them go, let them flow--anything and everything that comes up for us--while we just gently and simply use our word of love and choose the Lord.

At the end of your prayer time let the Our Father (or some other prayer) pray itself within you.

There are many people--thousands and thousands of them--who pray this way regularly, centering twice a day. They have found that twenty minutes is a good time to spend in this prayer. It is enough to sort of let go of all the stress and tension that have accumulated since the last meditation and to get a good refreshing rest in the Lord--and to give him time to do some deeper healing if he wants. So we strongly recommend twenty minutes.
Twice a day. We don't meditate just to enjoy twenty minutes of bliss. We want that shift of consciousness we spoke about; we want to become fully aware of our true self and live out of that reality. We want to live centered lives that freely hold everybody and everything in love--lives that are empowered by the Lord at the center of our being. This shift comes about much more quickly if we do spend time at the center twice a day rather than just once a day.

So: twenty minutes, twice a day.
Let us come home to dwell with the Lord.

From The Way Back Home, M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Paulist Press, NY 1989

OTHER BOOKS FROM

M. BASIL PENNINGTON

Centered Living: The Way of Centering Prayer

The Bread of God: Nurturing a Eucharistic Imagination

A Place Apart: Monastic Prayer and Practice for Everyone

Call to the Center: The Gospel's Invitation to Deeper Prayer

True Self/False Self. Unmasking the Spirit Within

Living in the Question: Meditations in the Style of Lectio Divina

A School of Love: The Cistercian Way to Holiness

Vatican II: We've Only Just Begun

Why We Live in Community

Eucharist: Wing of Faith, Bread of Life

Daily We Touch Him: Practical Religious Experiences

Awake in the Spirit

Thomas Merton, My Brother: His Journey to Freedom,

Compassion and Final Integration

Daily We Follow Him: Learning Discipleship from Peter

Bernard of Clairvaux: A Lover Teaching the Way of Love

(Selected Spiritual Writings)

On Retreat with Thomas Merton

Listening: God's Word for Today

Monastic Journey to India

Thomas Merton, Brother Monk: The Quest for Freedom

Toward an Integrated Humanity: Thomas Merton's Journey

Through the Year with the Saints

Poetry as Prayer: The Psalms

Lectio Divina
Bridging the Gap between God's Heart and Ours
by Father John Belmonte, S.J.
Time set aside for God should take on a dimension different from the rest of one's day. To help mark that moment, most spiritual masters suggest that the person who sets out to pray begin by making some kind of epiclesis, which is an invocation or "calling down"of the Holy Spirit to consecrate. [8] In the Eucharist, we call down the Spirit upon the bread and wine to transform them into the Body and Blood of Christ. As we begin lectio divina we should remind ourselves that it is through the work of God in the Spirit that the written Word is transformed in our lives into the living Word.
Having set aside the time, "selected" the text, and invoked the Spirit, we are ready to begin the first formal step of lectio divina called the lectio. This is the moment in which we read and reread a passage from the Old or New Testament alert to its most important elements. The operative question is, what does the text say? [9] Patient attentiveness to what the text has to say characterizes our stance before it. We should read the text for itself, not to "get something out of it," like a homily, a conference or a catechism lesson. The Word of God should be allowed to emerge from the written Word.
In the lectio each person's experiences and talents before the text come into play. The more experience or education one has, the more one will potentially bring to the text. Knowledge of biblical languages or an understanding of theology can also enrich one's reading. Consultation of available biblical commentaries or dictionaries can be especially helpful as we attempt to expand our understanding about what the text is saying. Paying attention to grammar, the usage of words and the relationship of verbs to nouns or of subjects to objects can make the text begin to take on new and unexpected significance. [10]
The second step, called the meditatio, is equally important. We leave behind the specifics of the text and focus instead on what is behind it, on "the interior intelligence" of the text, as Guigo puts it. [11] The meditatio is a reflection on the values which one finds behind the text. Here one must consider the values behind the actions, the words, the things, and the feelings which one finds in a particular scriptural passage. Anyone who honestly seeks God and one's authentic self in prayer will hear the echoes of joy, fear, hope, and desire coming from the sacred page. [12] The operant question for this stage doesn't stop at what the text says, but asks what does the text say to me? [13] We seek to make emerge from history and context the specific message of the text. The shift from external forms to internal content makes this stage an important one.
The meditatio is an activity which engages our intellect. As we pass from the second to the third stage of lectio divina, we move more into the realm of religious emotions. Remaining on an intellectual level can be safe and comfortable, but the goal of prayer is not knowledge about God, but God himself. In the oratio our imagination, will, and desires are engaged as we seek union with God. Oratio in its most fundamental sense is dialogue with God. [14] Gregory the Great called it, "the spontaneous meeting of the heart of God with the heart of God's beloved creature through the Word of God." [15]
When we progress from meditatio to oratio an immediate experience of infused mysticism is hardly to be expected. [16] Mystical union with God is not necessarily an ordinary part of Christian life. Nevertheless, the passage from meditatio to oratio is the vital and decisive moment of Christian experience. [17] The more deeply we enter the oratio, the more we move beyond the text, beyond words and thoughts. The lectio is useful and the meditatio is important since they lead us to the oratio, which is life in its fullest sense, the life of Christ that he lives in the one who contemplates him. [18] Oratio is the passage from the values behind the text to adoration of the person of Jesus Christ, the one who brings together and reveals every value. [19] Unlike the lectio and meditatio, there is no operant question in the oratio. At its core, oratio is the silent adoration of the creature before the Creator, a rare and miraculous gift.
When the person who practices lectio divina reaches the level of oratio, it would seem that that moment would be conclusive. However, the dynamism of prayer which began during the epiclesis before the lectio is not interrupted here. To the contrary, it naturally continues and the oratio, as we are proposing it here, possesses its own steps, called discretio, deliberatio, and actio. [20] These three steps represent the way lectio divina is lived out in daily life. Given the growing dissociation of the faith from daily life, these three successive moments take on great significance.
Since the meditatio intends to put one in contact with the values of Christ, to encourage our identification with those things which are important to Christ, we naturally come to moments of decision. The discretio is the capacity that the Christian acquires through grace to make the same choices as Christ. [21] Cardinal Martini describes discretio like this, "It is the discernment of that which, in a determined historical moment, is best for oneself, for others and for the Church." [22]
The second moment of the oratio is called the deliberatio. It is an interior act by which one decides in favor of the values of the gospel. One chooses to associate oneself with Christ and everything it represents - in a word, discipleship. If the discretio is described as the capacity of a person to choose, then the deliberatio is the choice itself.
The final moment is called actio. In this final step, the choice we make in the deliberatio is given form and substance. Prayer becomes something more than simply setting aside time for God or an attempt to better ourselves. Our lives begin to take shape from the choices we have made as result of prayer. The actio is the integration of a kind of apostolic consciousness which informs our choices so that we have made and lived our choices from our encounter with the living God. [23]
Some critics would leave these last steps, particularly the actio, out of any proposed lectio divina. The addition of an extra step suggests perhaps overzealousness or even the influence of an "ideology of efficacy" regarding one's prayer. Too often we feel we need to make prayer into something. [24] However, in the face of a modern world in which the outward signs of the mystery of God are ever more difficult to recognize, where a daily experience of gospel or even transcendent values becomes harder to find and where choices besiege one's conscience and stifle rather than uplift the Spirit, this criticism is unconvincing. [25] If anything, the connection between prayer and our life choices should become more explicit, not less. The faith, hope, and love made manifest in the choices our lives become must be nourished by contact with the Word of God.
Lectio Divina is one graced instrument to bridge the gap that exists between our hearts and God's. As the faith risks being further dissociated from daily life, the simplicity and potential of a method like lectio divina takes on greater significance. Firmly rooted in the Church's tradition, it presumes careful attention to what biblical specialists are thinking and teaching. Rigorous study is complemented by disciplined meditation and prayerful contemplation of the Word of God. Far from being an objective or rigid technique whereby one produces religious experience, lectio divina represents daily contact with God's Word which occurs within a lifetime's engagement with the Living God. The principal aim of such engagement is to foster living prayer in faithful love. Lectio Divina unfolds more than it proceeds, progresses and develops more than it advances. Dedicated practice engages the whole person - the intellect as well as the imagination, the will as well as the affect. It promises contact with God that is the normal fulfillment of prayer. Lectio Divina is open to every person and not the exclusive property of a select few. Those who pratice lectio divina reaffirm the belief that the proper place for the Word of God is in the hands of the faithful.
http://www.lectiodivina.org/lectioDivina.htm