book review: centering prayer by m. basil pennington
01 Mar 2022
Centering Prayer: Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form by M. Basil Pennington
What are the main ideas?
- centering prayer “… is but a very simple method… of getting in touch with what is.”
- centering prayer is a relatively new name for a tradition of prayer that is rooted in the desert fathers and mothers 4th and 5th century monastic practices. comtemporary centering prayer practices also have links to the eastern christian traditions (romanian and russian and others).
- the three “rules” to centering prayer (as recorded earlier by pennington): 1. at the beginning of your session, take 1-2 minutes to quiet down. then move on the next step. at the end of your practice, take a few minutes to come out. mentally using the lord’s prayer or some other prayer can be helpful. 2. “after resting a bit in the center in faith-full love, we take up a single, simple word that expresses this response and begin to let it repeat itself within.” 3. whenever we become aware of anything else, gently return to the repeating word.
some prefer to split the first rule into two, making 4 rules. but the general vibe of each of those directions is the same which is why it’s often considered one rule/step.
- centering prayer is essentially a practice of deep listening. as we practice that listening, we become more able to listen in conversation we have with other people.
- for most people, 20 minutes of centering prayer once a day is enough. it is possible to overdo it and experience more difficulty the longer the stretch, the more likely deeper things are to arise. and if one is not trained to handle those things, the ease and benefit might be outweighed by the hardness.
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
“pray as you can, don’t pray as you can’t.” — dom chapman
if i could do a second one, it would be to practice centering prayer for 20 minutes a day and see what happens.
How would I describe the book to a friend?
this book is a dense but lovely and useful walk through the history and practice of centering prayer. i love that it is laden with quotes and references to others in the distant and near past and present. it’s got tons of practice guidance (including agendas for workshops (aka retreats) from one evening to four days in length) as well as plenty of historical grounding and even a few dives into the theory and theology surrounding centering prayer as a practice. i will be holding onto this one for sure.
reminder: book review structure
words / writing / post-processing
464w / 20min (distracted and also had to review the book) / 5min