Prayer in silence how to#

Some people are physical people and like to use their breath. I visualize a Jesus icon as my sacred method when I engage my thoughts. I quickly discovered that I am a visual person, so I use a sacred image. How do you select your sacred word? If you are an auditory person, you might choose a one to three syllable word such as love, God, Jesus, or ocean. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.When engaged with your thoughts, return ever so gently to the sacred word.Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.Pulled from the Contemplative Outreach website here are the centering prayer guidelines: God is deep within us, beyond our thoughts and emotions. During centering prayer, we shut the door to our senses and open the door to our spiritual faculties.Ĭentering prayer is a practice that opens us to contemplative prayer, the pure presence of God. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. This will become clear as you read the centering prayer guidelines below.Ĭentering prayer is based upon Matthew 6:6: But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Centering prayer attracts me because I do not have to worry about what I will say. I also tell people not to eliminate their other prayer forms, keep them and allow centering prayer to complement and enrich their prayer life. I like to remind people that centering prayer is not just a meditation practice because it deepens our relationship with God. It is both a practice and relationship with God. Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer, wordless prayer. It was soon refined by Fathers Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington. In 1974, the method of centering prayer was discovered by Father William Meninger in a book called The Cloud of Unknowing. I began to practice centering prayer as directed. I will discuss these guidelines a little further. I am not sure what was so special about this date, but I decided to take Thomas Keating up on his centering prayer guidelines. On June 1, 2014, I decided to stop my experiments and jump in the centering prayer swimming pool. Thomas Keating recommended two, twenty-minute sits per day.

I also began to read other centering prayer books: Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault and Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating. We began a back-and-forth email dialogue. I reached out to Amos and began to ask him questions about centering prayer.

Prayer in silence how to#

I now had a practice, a method of how to sit in the silence. Previously I did not know what to do in the silence.

I had discovered a container for the silence. I quickly discovered that Amos practiced a form of silent prayer called Centering Prayer. I purchased the kindle version and began to read. In late 2013 while I perused Amazon in search of a book to read, I stumbled upon Healing the Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots by Amos Smith. I would sit for one, two, and even three minutes. I do not recall that his books mentioned a practice so I would just sit in silence. I wanted to experience this transformation too, so I began to practice silence. In his books he shared that silence was powerful and transformational. In 20, I had read books by Carl McColman. I just did not know what to do in the silence. God loves us unconditionally and is thrilled when we have decided to sit with Him. Silence teaches us when to take action and when to pause. In essence, contemplative prayer is simply a wordless, trusting opening of self to the divine presence. And the way to connect to this “Is-ness” is to just be, too.