SILENCE. QUIET. STILLNESS. OPENNESS. LISTENING. THESE WORDS DESCRIBE THE EXPERIENCE OF SOMEONE WHO IS BEGINNING TO TASTE THE REALITY OF GOD’S PRESENCE WITHIN. YOU ARE INVITED TO AN INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP IN THE ANCIENT CHRISTIAN PRACTICE OF CENTERING PRAYER.
“Silence,” wrote Trappist Monk Father Thomas Keating, “is God’s first language. All other languages are poor translations.”
The mystery of the Divine Presence was described in 1 Kings 19:11-12 when Elijah climbed Mt. Horeb.
An angel told him: “Go out and stand on the mountain for the Lord is about to pass by.” A great wind came. But God was not in the wind. Then came an earthquake, then fire. But Elijah knew that God was not in the earthquake and God was not in the fire.
Suddenly, the presence of God was there in “a still small voice…a sound of sheer silence.”
In the midst of the turmoil and trouble of today’s fast-paced world, Centering Prayer is a way for us to quiet the commotion and get off the merry-go-round.
This simple ancient practice, a renewal of the Christian tradition of Contemplation, helps us discover the reality of God’s presence in the silence within.
Centering Prayer is the contemporary name for the meditation practice Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. “WHENEVER YOU PRAY, GO INTO YOUR ROOM AND SHUT THE DOOR AND PRAY TO YOUR FATHER WHO IS IN SECRET.” (Matthew 6:6)
We may think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words but this is only one of its forms. St. John of the Cross wrote, “The Father spoke one word for all eternity and he spoke it in silence and it is in silence that we hear it.”
Taken principally from the insights of St. John of the Cross and the fourteenth century CLOUD OF UNKNOWING, Centering Prayer is designed for today’s busy men and women of faith that they may find spiritual refuge in what T. S. Eliot called “the still point of the turning world.”
You are invited to join me for: CENTERING PRAYER: An Introductory Workshop.
WHERE: St. Luke in the Fields Church
Laughlin Hall
487 Hudson Street near Christopher Street
New York, NY
WHEN: Saturday, January 23, 10AM -3PM
THE WORKSHOP IS FREE. THERE IS NO CHARGE. ALL ARE WELCOME.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Sunday, January 17th 2010 at 2:00PM
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