Centering Prayer

[Desert Walker]

and nearly my faith.

I'm going to make this account far too short but here it is:

Two years ago I attended a conference on centering prayer and began to practice it. After several months I began to notice that I had begun to be annoyed by my previous devotion and love for Mary. I began to worry whether or not I was on the right spiritual path. I stopped practicing centering prayer.

Negative messages regarding this kind of prayer began coming to me from the people who loved me the most. I began to investigate whether centering prayer and the neo-conteplative movement were being criticised at all. I found criticism, mostly from "traditionalists." But my mind was opened to things I hadn't considered before.

Recently I have been absolutely tortured mentally by an inability to be certain about almost anything. For a while I wanted to stop practicing my faith because my mind (which can be annoyingly intuitive at times) kept jumping to the conclusion that it was impossible to determine the truth of anything. I had been studying philosophy a lot.

But I'm really, really depressed right now.......

And I don't know why

This is no joke. I'm serious.

[Era Might]

Don't feel bad. St. Therese of Lisiuex had severe trials of faith, temptations that God didn't exist. It's been discovered that Mother Teresa had the same problem too. Keep praying, keep clinging. God will get you through it.

[Desert Walker]

Yeah... that's true. Thanks.

Here's something else. Sometimes weird, weird thoughts come into my head like "If I died right now, I don't think I would recognize God face to face." I have this feeling that the God I knew when I was younger was a myth, and the "real" God that some of these new "spiritual masters" are talking about is something alien to me.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Desert Walker' date='Feb 2 2006, 02:40 PM']Yeah... that's true.  Thanks.

Here's something else.  Sometimes weird, weird thoughts come into my head like "If I died right now, I don't think I would recognize God face to face."  I have this feeling that the God I knew when I was younger was a myth, and the "real" God that some of these new "spiritual masters" are talking about is something alien to me.
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The word "spiritual master" should be a red flag!!!! I've heard the word "master" (as in "ascended masters") used in a "new age" context.

[cpp]

It seems that this "centering prayer" thing is quite dangerous. [url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9711fea1.asp"]This article in This Rock[/url] magazine says it's neither Christian nor prayer.

Stick to the traditional. Conquer yourself and pray the Rosary every day. A good confession and lots of Eucharistic adoration and you will be ready to go.

[phatcatholic]

here are some good articles on this topic:

New Age Prayer Techniques
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat_id/673"]http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat_id/673[/url]

[cmotherofpirl]

Go back to saying the rosary and other rote prayers.

[Tony]

yeah... pray the Rosary and meditate on the scriptures. Sorry this has happened to you

I think I have dabbed with this a couple times,but a long time ago.. thank God I didn't get too into it

[Christie_M]

I"m sorry you feel that way. I will keep you in my prayers.

[Snarf]

An old (in the sense of having been relocated) parochial nun at my parish was very much into centering, and when my youth group had us all try it out I found it too similar to the meditation I practiced as an atheist follower of Lao-tse when I was twelve. So, I basically didn't see the point except as a mental exercise, and I found its spiritual value to be nil. The main problem I perceived is that it literally deifies your mind, at least in the forms I was taught. The goal is to encounter God within your own stream of consciousness, which stands contrary to the fact that He is beyond containment.

[philothea]

Thanks for sharing. I'd heard bad things about centering prayer, but not from anyone who'd tried it.

Prayers that your faith may be renewed.

[photosynthesis]

oy vay....

what is centering prayer? It doesn't sound very catholic.

[Tony]

its bascially Buhdism that looks like Chstian prayer.. with repeating mantras like "Jesus" or something

If I remember right

[Ash Wednesday]

Centering prayer is a fairly recent fad in the Church. For the most part in many circles it is very zen like and new-agey. Popular among dissenting nuns, I imagine. I remember reading about it and from my experience, it focused on emptying your mind (as opposed to focusing on God...)

I attended a few meetings a couple of years back. I thought it was boring, and I'm glad I never took to it.

[Desert Walker]

Thanks everyone! It feels so good to have a REAL Catholic community to talk to and interact with. Wish we could be in the same room together or something instead of sending electrons to eachother

I picked up centering prayer when I was in the formation program of the Redemptorists. This other guy invited me to attend a centering prayer workshop with him. Two weird things happened almost immediately. On ouir way to the place (a Franciscan monastery) a car in front of us on the highway spun out hitting the dividing wall and skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway. Had we been following closer we probably would have been hit.

The other thing was after the workshop was over. We went to the books store and my friend made this comment to me: "You know, it was good but we haven't talked about Mary all day. Let's find a good book on her." So we looked around and found Mary Agreda's book. We didn't buy it at the time, but I think the Holy Spirit was talking to me in that. Mary wasn't a popular topic at THAT workshop.

It also seems to me now that the car wrecking in front of us was a warning to stay away from what we were about to get into. But who is really attuned to that kind of thing anymore? Hindsight, though, is 20/20.

You see I did have a very strong affection for Our Lady PRIOR to my dabbling in this centering prayer thing. I was totally in love with her! I lost this. It began when I started to DISTRUST the rosary as something that is done only people who are immature in their spiritual development.

I left the Redemptorists last summer. When I came home I picked up Louis DeMontfort's True Devotion to Mary and began to read it again. I was like "WOW!" The Spirit enabled me to grasp his message in all its simplicity again. Then another weird thing happened. My friend called me (the guy who invited me to the workshop) and we started talking. I told him about Louis DeMontfort and my desire to regain my lost devotion and he started telling about some Fransiscan priest he knew who said that we as Catholics "need to be careful about talking too much about Mary." I was crushed! I literally was CRUSHED. I tried to tell him how much Mary meant to me (and I was trying real hard to convince myself at the same time) and how much she SHOULD mean to all Christians. All he would say was "Well that has been MY experience with Mary" and "I just think Mary is just a real good model to follow, nothing more." I agreed with him there but.... she's mediatrix of all graces too and the HOPE of Christians! After the conversation I can't even begin to describe how horrible I felt, because this was my friend talking. I had shared a lot of things with this guy. I LOVE ALL of my faith, and HE didn't seem to! I went back outside and started chopping wood with an axe in an attempt to release my tension. I really wore myself out but I couldn't shake the sinking feeling I had.

Like I said before, I had started to not loving anything about my faith because of how much pain I was feeling over the "debates" about "what we need" and what "we don't need."

Wow, I didn't really intend to reveal all of that. I've never really written all of that down. It's good that I have. Without you guys I probably wouldn't have verbalized any of that. Thanks for the listening ear Phatmass!