St. John of the Cross wrote, "The Father spoke one word from all eternity and he spoke it in silence, and it is in silence that we hear it." This suggests that silence is God's first language and that all other languages are poor translations. The discipline of Centering Prayer and the other traditional practices are ways of refining our receptive apparatus so that we can perceive the word of God communicating itself with ever greater simplicity to our spirit and to our inmost being.

The practice of Centering Prayer, therefore, is not contemplation in the strict sense of the term but a preparation for it. In the broad sense of the term, it might be called the first step on the ladder of contemplative prayer. As a rule we do not know when our prayer becomes contemplation in the strict sense. We only know that we are moving in this direction through our practice, and that the Spirit is moving toward us (see Diagram 1). As our practice becomes more habitual, the action of the Spirit's gifts of wisdom and understanding become more powerful and gradually take over our prayer, enabling us to rest habitually in the presence of God. This experience is not necessarily felt during prayer, but is experienced in its effects in daily life. Waiting on God in the practice of Centering Prayer strengthens our capacity for interior silence and makes us sensitive to the delicate movements of the Spirit in daily life that lead to purification and holiness.

Diagram 1

THE DYNAMICS OF CENTERING PRAYER 
(How it gradually evolves toward contemplation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.)

In this practice our activity has a part, but it is an extremely gentle one. Our contribution begins by being minimal and finishes by being almost imperceptible. The principal practice in Centering Prayer is to choose a word that represents our intention to consent to God's presence and action within us--it could be "God," "Abba," "Jesus," "peace," or some other word--and to return to that word whenever we feel our intention growing fuzzy.

Centering Prayer is probably the most receptive of the practices designed to facilitate the movement toward contemplation. What do I mean by "receptive"? In Diagram 2 our activity in Centering Prayer is represented at one end of a continuum in which various receptive and concentrative practices are shown on a scale. Centering Prayer is not a concentrative practice, nor an exercise of attention. It is an exercise of intention. It is our will, our faculty of choice, that we are cultivating. The will is also our faculty of spiritual love, which is primarily a choice. It maybe accompanied by sentiments of love but does not require them. Divine love is not a feeling. It is a disposition or attitude of ongoing self-surrender and concern for others similar to the concern God has for us and every living thing.

Diagram 2

Methods of Prayer that Prepare for Contemplation

Note that Centering Prayer is an acceptance not only of God's presence, but also of God's action. Our experience during a period of prayer (or even outside it) needs to be understood in the context of our relationship to the Spirit, which is primarily therapeutic. Why? Because we are sick! If we think we are well and experience this medicinal activity (the traditional term is "purgative"), if may cause us great surprise. Sometimes, instead of the blissful quiet we might expect from resting in God, we encounter turbulent movements from our unconscious, including strong emotions and even tears. Our growing trust allows us to see this as part of the process and to submit to it. Some medications can be painful, not because that is the desire of the doctor, but because our illness is such that it needs a serious remedy.

The will is developing the habit of surrender to God's increasing presence and action. Meanwhile, the Spirit's influence is also increasing in our prayer. We might imagine it as coming toward us as in Diagram 1. As our practice of Centering Prayer deepens, there is an interaction in which sometimes our own gentle activity predominates, and, at other times the Spirit takes over.

In this latter experience we may find what St. Teresa of Avila describes in The Interior Castle as the states of prayer, which she calls infused recollection, the prayer of quiet, union, and full union. They are levels of absorption of the faculties that are perceived by the one who receives them as the activity of the divine presence. In those situations we are more or less aware of God's action. The divine action can be just as present, however, at an even more intimate level, so intimate in fact that the various faculties cannot interpret or translate it into experience.

Just because one receives the spiritual consolation of the prayer of quiet or is completely absorbed in God in the prayer of union does not mean one is a saint. Since the Spirit's action is therapeutic, it may mean we are so sick that we need special attention! So we should not get puffed up by such things. On the other hand, we do not resist them either, because they may be just what is needed for our healing. In deep therapy, the first thing we have to do in order to be healed is to experience transference with the therapist. This is a mysterious emotional process in which we identify with the therapist and transfer to that person our relationship with authority figures from early life. Then the therapist can reflect back the acceptance we might not have felt as a child. This acceptance can heal the emotional privatian of thinking of ourselves as unlovable. As fragile people, we need the experience of another person fully accepting us on the emotional level. Otherwise it is difficult to have a full self identity or, as the psychologists call it, a strong ego, a valuable asset for the spiritual journey.

It is this self, even with much of the woundedness still remaining from early childhood, that we offer to God. Some people have been so deprived that they have an emotional conviction not only of being unlovable, but even of being a mistake. This is the source of the disease of self-hatred that is epidemic in our culture. This disease has to be healed in some degree for the spiritual journey to develop because the spiritual journey is the surrender of ourselves and of our self-identity. If we don't have a self or self-identity, we don't know what to give.

The affirmation of spiritual consolation and periods of peace and refreshment are a kind of transference with God. God then reflects back the acceptance and affirmation that our parents may have knowingly or unknowingly denied us in early childhood because of their own wounds from early life. If we can get over our self hatred and the wounds of early childhood, we will make a tremendous contribution to the next generation. Unfortunately, parents do not usually discover their mistakes until the children are grown up. But please don't have guilt feelings on this point because the same melodrama has been going on since Adam and Eve. Such is the human condition. The right response is to accept our failures, work with them, and try to grow out of them. This down-to-earth process is an important aspect of the spiritual journey Modern psychological discoveries can be helpful in our understanding of what the human condition really is from a diagnostic perspective. It is a pathology.

Continued . . .

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Excerpted from Intimacy with God by Fr. Thomas Keating

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