“Opening of Self to the Divine Presence:” An Introduction of Centering Prayer for Students (original) (raw)

Centering Prayer as an Alternative to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression Relapse Prevention

Journal of Religion and Health, 2010

In the last two decades, mindfulness has made a significant impact on Western secular psychology, as evidenced by several new treatment approaches that utilize mindfulness practices to ameliorate mental illness. Based on Buddhist teachings, mindfulness offers individuals the ability to, among other things, decenter from their thoughts and live in the present moment. As an example, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) teaches decentering and mindfulness techniques to adults in an eight-session group therapy format so as to reduce the likelihood of depression relapse. Yet, some Christian adults may prefer to turn to their own religious heritage, rather than the Buddhist tradition, in order to stave off depression relapse. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present centering prayer, a form of Christian meditation that is rooted in Catholic mysticism, as an alternative treatment for preventing depression relapse in adults. I argue that centering prayer overlaps considerably with MBCT, which makes it a suitable treatment alternative for many Christians in remission from depressive episodes.

Examining Contemplative Prayer

With the increasing focus on spiritual formation, many evangelicals are seeking direction for spiritual disciplines. Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline is a commonly cited source, along with materials produced by the group he founded called Renovaré. An increasingly common practice is contemplative prayer, including its particularly well-known strand called centering prayer. The discipline is gaining popularity among evangelicals, often encouraged in churches, small groups, and seminaries. After a thorough evaluation, we argue that contemplative prayer bears more similarity to Eastern forms of meditation than to biblical prayer and that Christians should, therefore, reject it in favor of a more biblically-grounded view of prayer.

A Phenomenological Investigation of Centering Prayer Using Conventional Content Analysis

Pastoral Psychology, 2015

Centering prayer is a contemplative practice pioneered by Thomas Keating, William Menninger, and M. Basil Pennington (Pennington et al. 2002). Despite the popular appeal of centering prayer, relatively little research exists investigating its effects on practitioners from a social science perspective. This study sought to describe the lived experience of centering prayer by conducting a phenomenology of 20 centering prayer practitioners. The results of the conventional content analysis yielded 50 codes that the researchers clustered into five categories: (1) The Divine, (2) The Mystical, (3) Spiritual Development, (4) Action-Contemplation, and (5) Contemplative Life. Based upon the study's findings, future research could better understand how centering prayer affects people by including measures of practitioners' experience of God, faith development, and important demographic variables like age, religious affiliation, and socio-economic status, as well as measures assessing quality of interpersonal relationships and positive and negative affect.

"Sighs too Deep for Words:" Internal Prayer in the Practice of Orthodox Christianity

In the Orthodox Christian school of hesychasm, the Holy Spirit's energies, or actions, can act within and sanctify a Christian's life and heart. Internal, constant prayer is an important practice for allowing this to happen, and it involves the body as well as the soul. In this summary of the subject, I will look at internal prayer's theological background as well as its spiritual effects, as described in such works as "The Way of a Pilgrim."