Loading...On Feb. 6, an Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop will be held from 9:30 am until 3:00 p.m. (ET) at St. Mark’s Church, 2822 Frankfort Ave., Louisville.
Sally Lambert, our workshop leader, has been involved in centering prayer since attending a workshop several years ago with the Rev. Tom Ward, chaplain emeritus at the University of the South. She has led numerous retreats and workshops on centering prayer and is on the Leadership Committee of Contemplative Outreach of Kentucky.
Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplation: the experience of God’s presence within us. Centering Prayer traces its roots to the mysticism of the Desert Mothers and Fathers in the earliest days of Christian tradition. St. John of Cassian wrote about such a practice learned from Father Isaac in the Fourth Century. It was also the subject of the fourteenth- century book, The Cloud of Unknowing, which was written in Middle English by an unknown author.
In more recent times the work begun by Thomas Merton, Cistercian Monk and author of The Seven Story Mountain in 1946, was continued by Thomas Keating, Basil Pennington, and William Meninger, also Cistercians, who sought to make this type of prayer available to those outside of convents and monasteries, and indeed, outside the confines of the Roman Catholic tradition.
Centering Prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and a movement beyond conversation with Christ to Communion with Him. In combination with the other types of prayer more commonly known to Christians, it helps to build communities of faith and bond the members together in mutual friendship and love.
This introductory workshop will be the first of seven presentations about centering prayer. The six follow-up presentations, which will each last about an hour to an hour-and-a-half, will be scheduled at the conclusion of the workshop at a time or times that are convenient to those wanting to go forward with this practice.
For more information, please contact either the Rev. Anne Vouga at 502-895-2429.
