What Does Centering Prayer Have to Offer the 21st Century? (via Zoom and in-person)

Presented by Adam Bucko and Rory McEntee

What do Father Keating’s teachings have to offer us in the 21st century? In an initial talk, Adam Bucko will set the stage for our time together by first looking to the past. How can we understand Centering Prayer’s connections to the historical structures and frameworks of the Christian tradition, and what do these structures of contemplative spirituality have to offer us today? Looking forward, what might we need to add or subtract from these structures to develop a robust contemplative life in the 21st century? How do the challenges we face today differ, as well as overlap, from those in the past? And how can Centering Prayer address the challenges of a broken world in which our contemporary journeys are embedded?

Rory McEntee will follow up Adam’s talk with reflections on interspiritual dimensions of Father Keating’s teachings and contemplative life. How might the two major projects of Fr. Keating’s later life, the Centering Prayer movement and the interspiritual “Snowmass Conferences,” come together? What might be gleamed for the Centering Prayer movement from this other half of Fr. Keating’s (inter)spiritual work in the world? Is an openness to other ways of being spiritual and/or religious necessary for contemplative lives in the 21st century? If so, what is a proper way of orienting ourselves within such openness? Answering such questions leads us beyond tolerance for other religious traditions towards an abiding love for them, as Fr. Keating often spoke of. For some, it may even lead to a deep engagement in our contemplative lives with those outside the boundaries of traditional Christianity, even while remaining anchored to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In a final session, Adam and Rory will lead a dialogue around “new monasticism,” engaging one another as well as the audience. They will look back at their co-authored book from 2015, The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living, and discuss what still feels relevant, and what has changed since then. As new monasticism aims to translate practices from monastic and other contemplative traditions into modern lives, as well as broaden ideas of what ‘total commitment’ to a contemplative life looks like, it resonates strongly with the Centering Prayer movement. Our hope is this discussion will lead to a robust Q&A dialogue with conference participants around the most pressing questions in our contemplative journeys today. This event will include two sessions of Centering Prayer

Time listed is Mountain Time (Denver, Colorado)

Click the link below to register.