Centering Prayer: Honoring The Holy Trinity

If you believe in the Holy Trinity, you can do Centering Prayer. All it takes is a little practice.

Last week, Message editor Tim Lilley wrote about Eucharistic adoration, a prayer form that reveres Christ's presence in the Sacred Host.

As I understand it, Centering Prayer honors the Holy Trinity; and it can bring you into connection with the Holy Spirit so He can guide you.

It's based on the Sermon on the Mount recalling Jesus' words, "When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you."

I first learned about Centering Prayer from the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand when I was training to become a spiritual director a few years ago.

Benedictine Sister Maria Tasto was our teacher, and she was wonderful and very gentle. She treated us like toddlers learning to walk. It seemed as though she was holding out her arms to us as she encouraged us to learn this prayer form.

During that weekend, we first gathered on a Saturday morning to learn about Centering Prayer. Sister Maria had us sit quietly for 20 minutes. Twenty minutes! That was hard. Everyone else seemed to slip right into it, but not me. Things kept coming to mind. Grocery lists. Errands to run. Family news.

She told us that if those pesky thoughts came to us, we should just brush them away with an imaginary feather. I did a lot of brushing that weekend. And for a long time after that.

Sister Maria assured us that when there is fidelity to Centering Prayer, transformations happen, and God rewards us. When we commit to it, she said we will change, promising us that we would come to value silence, to value solitude, and want to simplify our lives.

She promised that the simple commitment of doing this prayer form on a daily basis would have a profound effect on each of us and that it would deepen our relationship with God.

My friend, Carole, is new to Centering Prayer, and she has fallen in love with it.

"When I wake up, I'm so tired," she said recently. "Then I remember I'm going to spend time with the Lord" in Centering Prayer.

Carole says that as she prays "I just sense His presence."

"Active praying didn't do that for me." Now, she says, "I'm not telling Him what I want or what He can do for me.

"It's just a beautiful thing."

I agree.

Over the years, I've come to see the value of my spirit spending time with the Holy Spirit. I try to find a little time for it in the morning, sitting in a comfortable chair in a quiet room in my house.

Now, there's a little less brushing away of those pesky thoughts, and there's a comfort level with the stillness.

I would tell someone who was interested in doing Centering Prayer to start out slowly, maybe trying it for only four or five minutes at a time. I would encourage them to read a Bible passage first.

I would tell them that it's a sacred time, just them sitting with the Creator of the universe.

A long time ago, I heard Joni Eareckson Tada speaking on the radio about heaven. As a teenager, she dove into shallow water, instantly becoming a quadriplegic who was paralyzed from her shoulders down.

Years after the accident, having spent decades sitting helplessly in a wheelchair, she reflected on what she would do during her first moments in heaven.

I heard her say that she would just sit -- even though she could run and leap and skip and jump -- she would choose just to sit in God's glory.

We can do that right now. We can sit in His glory when we do Centering Prayer.

Give it a try. All you need is a comfortable chair and a little time. And the belief in the Holy Trinity.