Father Thomas Keating's foundational presentation of Centering Prayer — the contemplative practice he, Basil Pennington, and William Meninger developed at St Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s as a recovery of the apophatic Christian tradition (Cassian, the Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross) for modern readers. The book pairs theological framing with concrete practice instruction: a sacred word, twenty minutes twice daily, the relinquishing of thought.
Keating grounds Centering Prayer in the patristic and medieval Christian contemplative lineage — Cassian's conferences on pure prayer, the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross's dark night — arguing that the post-Reformation withdrawal from contemplative practice left Western Christianity impoverished and that the practice is accessible to any committed lay person. The book has sold over half a million copies in English and has appeared in ten foreign-language editions; it remains the foundational text of Contemplative Outreach's global network.
Reception
The seminal text of the Centering Prayer movement and the foundation of Contemplative Outreach's global network. Inside Christian-contemplative circles Keating is treated as the modern figure most responsible for reintroducing apophatic prayer to mainstream Catholic and Protestant practice; James Finley, Cynthia Bourgeault and Richard Rohr are downstream institutional heirs. Some Catholic critics (Connie Rossini, Susan Brinkmann) have argued Centering Prayer is closer to Eastern non-theistic meditation than to Christian prayer proper; the Contemplative Outreach response has been to ground the practice explicitly in the Cloud of Unknowing tradition. Sustained sales for forty years.
Frequently asked
What is Open Mind, Open Heart about?
It is Thomas Keating's foundational guide to Centering Prayer, the contemplative practice he developed with fellow Trappist monks at St Joseph's Abbey in the 1970s. The book pairs the theological history of Christian contemplative prayer — from Cassian and the Cloud of Unknowing through John of the Cross — with step-by-step practice instruction: a sacred word, twenty-minute sessions twice daily, and the relinquishing of discursive thought.
What is Centering Prayer and how does it differ from other forms of Christian prayer?
Centering Prayer is a method of consenting to God's presence and action in the depths of the self. Unlike discursive or petitionary prayer, it does not aim at words, images, or felt consolations, but at a silent receptivity modelled on what the Cloud of Unknowing calls "the naked intent of the will toward God." Keating frames it as a recovery of the apophatic strand of Christian practice that receded after the Reformation.
How has the book been received by critics of Centering Prayer?
Some Catholic critics — notably Connie Rossini and Susan Brinkmann — have argued that Centering Prayer imports Eastern non-theistic meditation into Christian practice, emptying the mind rather than filling it with God. Contemplative Outreach's response grounds the method in the Cloud of Unknowing tradition and the patristic lineage of Cassian. The controversy has not diminished the book's reach: it has sold over half a million copies in English and is in print in ten languages.