Centering Prayer

1Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
2But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
4Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1

Over the past several days we have seen how God delights to spend time with us and to talk to us as well as listen to us. One of the ways He speaks to us is through His written Word, the Bible. Scripture was inspired by God and written by people that we might better know God, His thoughts, His past work, His future promises. Through all of this we can begin to understand God and His ways.

In the early 1500’s the Spaniard, St Ignatius of Loyola, wrote a book called the Spiritual Exercises in which he set out a journey of prayer by which ordinary people could engage both their minds and their emotions in listening to God. These exercises began with silencio (quietening the mind) moved on to lectio divina (the reading of Scripture) then to meditatio (thoughtful imagining of the Scriptural text) and finally, on occasion, reaching contemplatio ad Amorem (the entering into the mind of Christ). This pathway formalized a process built into the earlier practices of many of the early Fathers and Mothers: Francis, Benedict, Clare, Dominic, etc.

Modern day authors such as Thomas Keating, Margaret Hebblethwaite and Basil Pennington have taken this path and called it Centering Prayer. Keating says: “The practice of Centering Prayer, built upon lectio divina, is based on a millennium of Christian contemplative tradition. The teaching of the Divine Indwelling is a fundamental doctrine for the spiritual journey. The Father, the Son as the Eternal Word of the Father, and the Holy Spirit are present within us. These relationships, which are never separate in their unity, are forever interacting. The Father is the potentiality for all existence; the Son is the actuality of all possibilities of existence; and the Spirit is the love that motivates both.”

But in fact, the tradition of using Scripture as a focus for our prayer life is much older than the monasteries of the middle ages. Since the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, were written, people have read the Scriptures in order to draw closer to God. It is one of the most reliable ways in which He has always spoken and through which He still speaks to us today. It is not a coincidence that the Psalter begins with encouraging us to meditate day and night on God’s word. It is in God’s word that we are to delight. It is this meditation which feeds and waters us. This is the path to prosperity it tells us. It is through this practice that we will eventually bear fruit and be sustained says the Psalmist.

There are three clear benefits to this. Firstly the words of the Bible inform us as to God’s intentions and to His character. We learn more about God and His world. Secondly, it gives God the opportunity to apply those words to us and our current situation, should He so desire. Often when reading a passage intended for a readership of several thousand years ago we find the words take on fresh meaning for our current circumstances. Finally, when we use the words of Scripture towards God – for instance David’s words of Praise, or God’s promises to His people in the past or Jesus’ prayers, we find a new vocabulary which helps us in our conversation with God when we ourselves are barren of anything helpful to say.

We will look more tomorrow at the practice of meditation as prayer. If you have been following these devotionals for the past several weeks you will already have begun to establish the pattern of spending some time each day thinking about God’s word written as well as spending time in His presence. Why not begin to connect the two now and see if God has anything to say to you today through this passage or another from the Bible.

Mike Clarkson