Contemplative Ministries

Centering Prayer Practice
Come and Journey With Me by David Haas

"I cannot dance, O Lord, unless you lead me. If You wish me to leap joyfully, let me see You dance and sing...., Then I will leap into Love, and from Love into knowledge and from Knowledge into Harvest, that sweetest fruit beyond human sense. There I will stay with You, whirling..."

-Mechtild of Madeburg

In the depths we long for Something beyond ourselves. The human condition is fraught with the myriad and painful ways in which we seek to fill this emptiness with things that cannot give fullness. Somewhere inside us we know that only God can satisfy and fill the human heart. And the way we come to this union is the life long journey of relationship into God. One way that we practice and deepen this relationship is through prayer. Those who seek the deepest forms of intimacy in relationship into God often choose a form of prayer in silence and Presence beyond words called contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is the opening of the mind, heart, and our whole being to God, the Ultimate Reality Who is beyond thoughts, words, and concepts. It is a process of interior transformation of increasing intimacy with God as humans consent to God’s transforming Presence. One of the approaches to contemplative prayer most easily understood and integrated into every day life is called Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is a method of prayer designed to facilitate the development of contemplative prayer by preparing the faculties to cooperate with the gift of God’s action and Presence within us. This form of prayer is based on the 14th century spiritual treatise called, "The Cloud of Unknowing". It is rooted in the tradition of silent contemplative prayer which extends to the earliest Christian communities living in the desert of the Middle East and North Africa. Contemplative Ministries integrates this dimension of prayer in all of their workshops.