Dr. Rickey Cotton and Sr. Jean Rose have hosted a weekly centering prayer fellowship group for over seven  years every Monday evening. The small group meets in her home. More recently, Deacon Rick Hoover and his wife Melanie have opened their home for a second weekly group that meets on Thursday nights.

Centering Prayer is one form of the Prayer of Oblation described in the Episcopal catechism.

Centering prayer is a popular method of contemplative prayer, placing a strong emphasis on interior silence. The purpose of centering prayer is to clear the mind of rational thought in order to focus on the indwelling presence of God.

Seeds of what would become known as contemplation were sown early in the Christian era. The first appearance of something approximating contemplative prayer arises in the 4th century writings of the monk St. John Cassian, who wrote of a practice he learned from the Desert Fathers (specifically from Isaac). Cassian's writings remained influential until the medieval era, when monastic practice shifted from a mystical orientation to Scholasticism. Thus it can be plausibly argued that contemplation was (one of) the earliest meditational and/or devotional practice of Christian monasticism, being later supplanted in dominance by the scholastic theologians, with only a minimal interest in contemplation.

Though most authors trace its roots to the contemplative prayer of the Desert Fathers of early Christian monasticism, to the Lectio Divina tradition of Benedictine monasticism, and to works like The Cloud of Unknowing and the writings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, its origins as part of the "Centering Prayer" movement in modern Christianity can be traced to several books published by three Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s: Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating.

Fr. Basil Pennington, one of the best known proponents of the centering prayer technique, has delineated the guidelines for centering prayer:

1. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed, relax, and quiet yourself. Be in love and faith to God.

2. Choose a sacred word that best supports your sincere intention to be in the Lord's presence and open to His divine action within you (i.e. "Jesus", "Lord," "God," "Savior," "Abba," "Divine," "Shalom," "Spirit," "Love," etc.).

3. Let that sacred word be gently present as the symbol of your sincere intention to be in the Lord's presence and open to His divine action within you.

4. Whenever you become aware of anything (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, associations, etc.), simply return to your sacred word, your anchor.

Contact Sr. Jean or Deacon Rick if you would like to explore this discipline in your prayer life.

Prayer and Worship
(Book of Common Prayer, page 857)

Q.    What is prayer?
A.    Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.

Q.    What is Christian Prayer?


A.    Christian prayer is response to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Q.    What is prayer of oblation?
A.    Oblation is an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.

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