The Danger of Centering Prayer by Rev. John D. Dreher

In the mid-seventies, Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating asked the monks, "'Could we put the Christian tradition into a form that would be accessible to people ... who have been instructed in an Eastern technique and might be inspired to return to their Christian roots if they knew there was something similar in the Christian tradition?"' (Intimacy with God, 15). Frs. William Menniger and M. Basil Pennington took up the challenge, and centering prayer is the result. In a few short years it has spread all over the world.

Centering prayer originated in St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts. During the twenty years (1961-1981) when Keating was abbot, St. Joseph's held dialogues with Buddhist and Hindu representatives, and a Zen master gave a week-long retreat to the monks. A former Trappist monk who had become a Transcendental Meditation teacher also gave a session to the monks.

Many people assume centering prayer is compatible with Catholic tradition, but in fact the techniques of centering prayer are neither Christian nor prayer. They are at the level of human faculties and as such are an operation of man, not of God. The deception and dangers can be grave.

Centering prayer differs from Christian prayer in that the intent of the technique is to bring the practitioner to the center of his own being. There he is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him. Christian prayer, on the contrary, centers upon God in a relational way, as someone apart from oneself. The Christian knows a God who is personal, yet who, as Creator, infinitely transcends his creature. God is wholly other than man. It is also crucial to Christian prayer that God engages man's whole being in response, not just his interior life. In the view of centering prayer, the immanence of God somehow makes the transcendence of God available to human techniques and experience.

Centering prayer is essentially a form of self-hypnosis. It makes use of a "mantra," a word repeated over and over to focus the mind while striving by one's will to go deep within oneself. The effects are a hypnotic-like state: concentration upon one thing, disengagement from other stimuli, a high degree of openness to suggestion, a psychological and physiological condition that externally resembles sleep but in which consciousness is interiorized and the mind subject to suggestion. After reading a published description of centering prayer, a psychology professor said, "Your question is, is this hypnosis? Sure it is." He said the state can be verified physiologically by the drop in blood pressure, respiratory rate, lactic acid level in the blood, and the galvanic conductivity of the skin. Abbot Keating relates that, when they began doing the centering prayer workshops in the guest house, some of the monks and guests "complained that it was spooky seeing people walking around the guest house like 'zombies."' They recognized the symptoms but could not diagnose the illness.

In order to see clearly that centering prayer departs from Catholic tradition, let us review the differences between Christian spirituality and that of Eastern religions. These differences flow, above all, from their concepts of God, of man, and of their relationship. In light of this contrast, we should be able to see more clearly from which of these centering prayer draws its approach and techniques.

In Catholic teaching, all men are creatures, called out of nothingness to know God. All men are also sinners, cut off from God and destined to death. A Christian is one whose life has been reconstituted in Christ. He is no longer in the place and stance of a sinner, that is, apart from God, acting as if he were the ultimate source, measure, and goal of his own behavior. He is in Christ. Henceforth, his life is supposed to originate in Christ and to be directed to God the Father. I say "supposed to" for it is a possibility that must be acted upon. It is not automatic. The grace of baptism must be incarnated in obedience, and, even after baptism, the Christian can choose to conform to Christ or to his fallen nature, that is, to sin.

Eastern religions, in contrast, lack revelation of God as a personal Creator who radically transcends his creatures. Though possessing many praiseworthy elements, they nonetheless seek God as if he were part of the universe, rather than its Creator. This is because they are monistic, seeing all reality as one. Thus, God is a dimension, though hidden, of the same reality of which man is a part. The goal therefore is to peel away the exterior world to get to the spiritual reality beneath it. God is conceived of as an impersonal state of being. In contrast, for Christians, God is the Real, and the whole of the universe exists by God's free choice; creation is a second, contingent reality-and, in Christian thought, did not need to exist. Moreover, this contingent universe is the result of a God who is vastly more than mere being; he is a loving Father.

These differing conceptions of God issue in different approaches to God. In the East, human means are necessarily relied upon to come to God. The goal is not to seek God as an Other, but to achieve an altered state of consciousness. Where a Christian seeks dialogue and interaction with God and, with his help, the "restoration of all things in Christ," by a certain "participation in the divine nature" (2 Peter 4:4), the East seeks God in the self and seeks escape from the distractions of the outer world. The "experience of God" is essentially achieved by psychological and physiological technique rather than by encounter.

The confusion of technique over encounter arises from a misunderstanding of the indwelling of God. The fact that God indwells us does not mean that we can capture him by techniques. Nor does it mean that we are identical with him in our deepest self. Rather, God indwells us by grace which does not blend human and divine natures. On the contrary, it perfects and empowers our limited human faculties, so that we can relate to him. We can no more manipulate this indwelling of grace by psychological techniques than we can manipulate our existence.

Analogously, children do not come to know the parents who gave them existence by going dead inside themselves or back to the moment of their conception, They come to know their parents by interaction with them. As children use the faculties given them at conception to grow and become like their parents, so we use the faculties given us by the indwelling Spirit to interact with God and to put on Jesus Christ. As children speak to their parents, so we speak to God by the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

This is what the Catholic tradition means by the term "sanctifying grace." Sanctifying grace is the grace of union with God. By it, we are given a share in the very holiness of God. Sanctifying grace is God's communication of himself to man. As such, it cannot be experienced by human faculties. However, Sanctifying grace gives us the "faculties" to relate to God. By it, we are given a new and additional "divine nature" and are made "sons and daughters" of God. With childlike simplicity, we can say "our Father." By incarnating this grace through acts of obedience to God (what the Church calls "actual graces") we are progressively converted from our sinful nature and "put on Jesus Christ," participating in the life of Jesus Christ as members of his Body. In the religion of Christ, the Incarnate Lord, there is no disengagement from the external, but rather a dedication of one's life and the world to God. The goal is not merely a deep inner peace but a sanctification of body, mind, and heart-indeed, of the whole world.

Centering prayer claims for itself the experience of God, while setting aside external realities and overcoming the "otherness" of God. It takes these characteristics not from Christian tradition but from Hinduism, through the medium of Transcendental Meditation. TM is Hinduism adapted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Hindu guru, for use in a Western cultural setting. Fr. Pennington, one of the authors of centering prayer and an ardent supporter of TM, says, "Mahesh Yogi, employing the terminology of the ancient Vedic tradition, speaks of this [practice of TM] 'to plunge into deep, deep rest for fifteen or twenty minutes twice a day' as experiencing the Absolute. The Christian knows by faith that this Absolute is our God of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who dwells in us. When he goes to his deepest self, he finds in himself an image and participation of God, and he finds God himself."

Fr. Pennington approves a Christian's participation in TM, despite the fact that the introductory ceremony to TM, the Puja, involves worship of a dead Hindu guru and that the mantras given those being initiated are in fact the names of Hindu gods. For a Christian knowingly to participate in TM is a violation of the Second Commandment against false worship.

What is to be said of this claim? Archimandrite Sophrony of Mount Athos and an authority in Orthodox spirituality, speaks from his own personal story. He was for years involved in Eastern religions, before he returned to the Orthodox faith of his youth. I quote him at length, for he speaks with clarity and power:

"In advising against being carried away by artificial practices such as Transcendental Meditation I am but repeating the age-old message of the Church.... The way of the Fathers requires firm faith and long patience, whereas our contemporaries want to seize every spiritual gift, including even direct contemplation of the Absolute God, by force and speedily, and will often draw a parallel between prayer in the Name of Jesus and yoga or Transcendental Meditation and the like. I must stress the danger of such errors.... He is deluded who endeavors to divest himself mentally of all that is transitory and relative in order to cross some invisible threshold, to realize his eternal origin, his identity with the Source of all that exists, in order to return and merge with him, the nameless transpersonal Absolute. Such exercises have enabled many to rise to suprarational contemplation of being, to experience a certain mystical trepidation, to know the state of silence of mind, when mind goes beyond the boundaries of time and space. In such like states man may feel the peacefulness of being withdrawn from the continually changing phenomena of the visible world, may even have a certain experience of eternity. But the God of Truth, the Living God, is not in all this.

"It is man's own beauty, created in the image of God, that is contemplated and seen as divinity, whereas he himself still continues within the confines of his creatureliness. This is a vastly important concern. The tragedy of the matter lies in the fact that man sees a mirage which, in his longing for eternal life, he mistakes for a genuine oasis. This impersonal form of ascetics leads finally to an assertion of the divine principle in the very nature of man. Man is then drawn to the idea of self-deification-the cause of the original Fall. The man who is blinded by the imaginary majesty of what he contemplates has in fact set his foot on the path to self-destruction. He has discarded the revelation of a personal God.... The movement into the depths of his own being is nothing else but attraction towards the non-being from which we were called by the will of the Creator" (His Life is Mine, 115-116).

In short, true prayer goes to God from the center of one's being, not in the center of one's being. In authentic contemplation, our faculties are brought to God, not disengaged as they are in TM. Christianity seeks to redeem and restore man and the world in Christ. To seek escape from rather than to redeem the world is to set oneself against the mission of Christ. That is why even the Jesus Prayer and the rosary (often cited as Christian "mantras") are deeply charged with basic Christian theological content; they are used to relate in an interactive and personal way to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary. For a similar reason, Catholic spiritual writers consistently insist a person must have a moral life and spiritual maturity before entering upon a life dedicated to contemplation. A person who seeks contemplation must first steep his mind in the word of God, conform his behavior to the moral law, submit his body to the spirit by asceticism, subjugate his will in humility to the will of God, and take on a heart given over to the love of God and neighbor. These means are incarnational and redemptive.

The book often claimed as a precedent for centering prayer is The Cloud of Unknowing, by an unknown fourteenth-century English author. But the claim is in vain, for The Cloud of Unknowing clearly repudiates the emphasis given in centering prayer to techniques: "I am trying to make clear with words what experience teaches more convincingly, that techniques and methods are ultimately useless for awakening contemplative love." The Cloud must be seen in its historic context. Though its emphasis is on the "negative way," we must remember that it presupposes its reader is well grounded in the "positive way" to God by means of the word of God, creation, and sacramental means. When this prerequisite is met, a book like this can help prayer to go beyond creatures to the Uncreated God. But to see The Cloud as pointing us to technique (as centering prayer does) is profoundly to misread the text.

Some of those who promote centering prayer employ questionable practices. For example, I first experienced centering prayer during a retreat whose announced topic and method had nothing to do with it. Without explanation, the director conducted us into centering prayer. At first I followed the instructions, but, not liking the feel of it, I made the decision to ignore the instructions. The retreat master, even by secular standards, acted unethically in not giving us an understanding and choice in the matter.

Nor is this uncommon. I know of an incident where several thousand people attending a charismatic conference were brought into centering prayer, again without explanation or choice. This incident was particularly objectionable, because the priest who was leading the session did not even bother with a Christian "mantra" but used an explicit hypnotic technique (e.g., "Imagine you are on an elevator. You begin going down, down inside yourself. The twenty-first floor, the twentieth floor," etc.). In many Catholic schools, teachers and officials have made centering prayer part of religious exercises without parental notice, understanding, or choice. Equally questionable is the setting aside of traditional safeguards. Centering prayer is often offered to large groups, where there is no way of knowing the psychological and spiritual problems some people may have. And this can be very dangerous indeed, leading to any of the following: (1) The delusion that one has found and pleased God, when in fact he has not. God is not part of the universe. The attempt to reach God by human technique is not only futile, but objectively sinful. (2) A self-absorption which forgets that life in the Triune God is relationships and that we have been inserted into these relationships through Christ. People who come out of this type of prayer often express it as coming into a freedom they did not know that they had lost. (3) The danger of opening oneself to evil spirits. Such techniques can bring people in touch with the spiritual realm. But the spiritual realm includes not only God but human and angelic spirits. A person with a problem in a moral or psychological area can open himself to some degree of demonic influence.

A mother wrote to ask me for advice: "In the Catholic school in [name of town], Sister has been using this [centering prayer and use of the Jesus Prayer] in the religion classes. My ten-year-old daughter took to it right away. This was about two-and-a-half years ago. The things she shared with me that Jesus had told her didn't appear to me to be imagination. They made her feel very close to Jesus. About six weeks ago, Kristy started having difficulty going to sleep. She didn't want to stay in her own room and would lie there afraid to close her eyes, until I would let her go into her sister's room and sleep with her. Finally she confided in me that she would see something scary if she closed her eyes. A few days ago, she confided that it laughed. Kristy had used the centering prayer on her own at bedtime for some time before this fear started."

What happened to Kristy? The laughter is very characteristic of evil spirits. It would have taken personal contact and prayerful discernment to know for sure. From the description, I would suspect an evil spirit is harassing her. I would doubt that it has any serious hold on her, unless there was immoral behavior or a special vulnerability in her psychological state. I suspect that her use of centering prayer opened her to evil spirits and such harassments.

The past several decades have seen an explosion of groups and movements involved in spiritual and psychic pursuits. Some of these no doubt are of God; some clearly are not. The New Age Movement, which is actually as ancient as the Eastern religions from which it draws its resources, has shown a phenomenal growth. A materialistic civilization is trying to find what it threw away. I believe that the interest is more than a sociological phenomenon and that it is part of a conflict of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

I see the springing up of so many spiritual and psychic movements as part of the rebellion of man and evil spirits against God. The totalitarian movements of the twentieth century managed to capture the major sectors of society, and what destruction they brought on the world! But they fell short of total possession of man. In his interior life, man remained free. Nazism and Communism had some success in penetrating the interior life of man by persuasion, by socioeconomic pressures, and even by the violence of brainwashing.

But the vulnerability of man today to manipulation is today much greater than it was even a half-century ago. The moral order and faith in God have drastically declined. Man's technology and managerial abilities have increased. Tyranny has better tools to dominate others and, more and more, a ripe situation in which to do so. The restraining influences on the work of evil spirits are being stripped away: loss of moral standards, break-up of family life, uprootedness, merely functional relationships, emptiness of meaning. In this context, what centering prayer does, at a minimum, is make respectable the false spiritualities that are rushing in to fill the spiritual void.

My hypothesis is that it is Satan's strategy, in all these things, to strip away the physiological and psychological forces that, in our fallen state, are a fail-safe protection for the human spirit. (This is a possible interpretation of Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-10 about the lawless one and the force that restrains him.) Thus, he can hope to capture the spirit of man worldwide and establish a kingdom of darkness.

The Catholic Church is the major obstacle to the Devil's plan-and the Lord of it the only hope of mankind. Hence the Church has been the special target of today, as indeed it has been since Pentecost. The rapid spread of centering prayer in the past decade into so many areas which are at the very heart of Catholic faith is, I believe, part of the Devil's strategy against the Church.

Yet none of this has escaped God's hand. As I see it, he has given us the modern world's problems right in the very heart of the Church, so that, when we get our own house in order, we will be in very good shape to bring the gospel to every nation. No Christian can read the Great Commission and fail to have hope for the future. "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. And behold I am with you always" (Matt. 28:18-20).

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This Rock, Vol. 8, No. 11, November 1997. Published by Catholic Answers. Subscriptions: P.O. Box 17490, San Diego, CA 92177, 888-291-8000. Web: http://www.catholic.com

I ran into it a couple of years ago at a parish held Lenten 'retreat'. Fr. John Burchill, OP and Sr. Barbara Metz SnD taught the 'class' which took place in the church itself.

Sr. Metz asked us to close our eyes and meditate on Jesus while saying a 'mantra' over and over again. It could be any word at all, religious or secular. In a sing song low voice she went on about imagining Jesus walking towards us, dressed in 'either traditional biblical garb' or 'a new sweatshirt and levi jeans' whichever made us feel more comfortable. He sits down beside us and hugs us and looks into our eyes... blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, my feeling was one of alarm because this was basically a hypnotizing excercise putting us on the same level as our Saviour. I just watched the nun, amazed at this absolute crap she was spewing. It was the same TM garbage that some of my friends studied in the 70s but she inserted the name Jesus in it. The whole thing is to wipe out what is all around you and bring you to your 'center' so we can commune with Jesus Christ and reach a totally new level. No suffering, no 'dry' times, no building up to new understanding through years of prayer and sacrifice, instant gratification if you will.

Not surprisingly, this nun and priest also teach the enneagram and have authored a book on it. They are also practicers of 'kything' which is spiritually communing with someone no matter where that person is. It's all self awareness designed to get to know ourselves better.

I've seen a priest (older, they all are) teach this stuff on Boston Catholic Television and I wrote a letter to the priest who runs the tv station (another reason not to give $) to explain why this centering prayer is not Catholic. I got a very curt letter basically telling me that I was wrong and that many people love it.

Hey, all I know is that when Jesus was asked how we should pray, he taught the "Our Father" which, when you think about it, keeps us aware of each other as children of God and is completely lacking in 'I'.

I've read the original "centering prayer" book by Fr. Basil Pennington and it is really a rehash of Eastern spirituality. Here's something that Fr. Mitch Pacwa (used to practice centering prayer) "The technique is still one where you put the intellect on "hold." You know, you dismiss all thoughts, you know, hold on to no thoughts, react to no thoughts, retain no thoughts. These are some of his [Pennington's] phrases. And why? The rational mind is one of the characteristic gifts of what it means to be a human being. And I don't see Christ ever saying, you know, stop thinking, stop using reason, clear your mind. He never taught that."

Thank you. I thought it sounded a little like St. Teresa of Avila and her "interior castle". Maybe there are similarities

The important difference with St. Teresa of Avila is, as a Carmelite, she had a grounding in the Rule of St. Albert, which first and foremost emphasizes Sacred Scripture:

Each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord's law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers unless attending to some other duty.
The Carmelite Rule of St. Albert, Chapter 11
Your loins are to be girt with chastity, your breast fortified by holy meditations, for, as Scripture has it, holy meditation will save you. Put on holiness as your breastplate, and it will enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. Faith must be your shield on all occasions, and with it you will be able to quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked one: there can be no pleasing God without faith; [and the victory lies in this -- your faith]. On your head set the helmet of salvation, and so be sure of deliverance by our only Saviour, who sets his own free from their sins. The sword of the spirit, the word of God, must abound in your mouths and hearts. Let all you do have the Lord's word for accompaniment.
Chapter 19

In addition, the Rule stresses community life, making sure that the members of the community don't spend their time, for lack of a better term, "contemplating their navels":

An oratory should be built as conveniently as possible among the cells, where, if it can be done without difficulty, you are to gather each morning to hear Mass.
Chapter 14
On Sundays too, or other days if necessary, you should discuss matters of discipline and your spiritual welfare; and on this occasion the indiscretions and failings of the brothers, if any be found at fault, should be lovingly corrected.
Chapter 15
You must give yourselves to work of some kind, so that the devil may always find you busy; no idleness on your part must give him a chance to pierce the defences of your souls. In this respect you have both the teaching and the example of Saint Paul the Apostle, into whose mouth Christ put his own words. God made him preacher and teacher of faith and truth to the nations: with him as your leader you cannot go astray. We lived among you, he said, labouring and wary, toiling night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you; not because we had no power to do otherwise but so as to give you, in your own selves, an example you might imitate. For the charge we gave you when we were with you was this: that woever is not willing to work should not be allowed to eat either. For we have heard that there are certain restless idlers among you. We charge people of this kind, and implore them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they earn their own bread by silent toil. This is the way of holiness and goodness: see that you follow it.
Chapter 20

As I'd mentioned in an earlier post, Carmelites practice contemplative prayer in the spirit of St. Elias. Centering prayer seeks to go within oneself to turn away from the world. In contrast, contemplative prayer, thoroughly grounded in God's Word, seeks to quiet the body and soul for the purpose, not of going inside, but for the purpose of going outside, to listen to God and to each other (see 1 Kings 19: 9-14; and 1 Samuel 3: 7-10).

I both disagree and agree with the author.

Having read the comments posted, I would just like to point out some things:
1.It is indeed correct that we are in relationship with God, and that God is distinct from us. But to say that God does not dwell within us is contrary to Jesus' own words in John's Gospel, for example 14:23. God indeed lives in us, and we in him. Jesus says that he and the Father love us, and make their home in us. We must be careful in this, because if we take the idea of God being separate from us too far, we may begin to conclude that God is also out of our reach, or to a form of Jansenistic heresy wherein we have to appease God, when in fact God invites us to pray to him unceasingly, not only in adoration, but also in times of need, and to receive his free offer of forgiveness and love. We need only look to the Psalms and the Our Father to see how God teaches us to pray. We are called to pray to Him in sincerity of heart, truthfully expressing our feelings, and trusting in His love and mercy.
2. It is correct to say that any spirituality that reduces itself to navel gazing is dangerous. But knowledge of self is an essential part of any true spirituality. The Church recognizes this, and this is why we are invited to do an examination of conscience at the end of the day, and why the sacrament of reconciliation is so essential to our lives as Catholics. EVERYONE is called to know themselves. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and all of the great Catholic mystics have said this. Francis de Sales, one of our most beloved, holy and human saints said that to serve and love God is to be yourself, and to be it well. The Church herself teaches us that we ultimately answer to our consciences, because that is where God speaks to us in our inmost being. See the Vatican II documents for reference to this. Now, one must have an informed conscience to be able to do this, but this is a separate matter for discussion.
3. It is correct to say that while all good prayer should be directed toward God, it should not be done with the intention of "getting" God. However, prayer in itself is not dangerous. It is how we use it. I agree with the author that if the centering prayer is used simply to come to some higher consciousness of self, then it is a danger, but the Jesus prayer, which uses the same technique, can actually help us to recall that we are in the presence of God. We need only look to the Scriptures to see the truth of this. Recall that the Pharisees were so worried about having purified vessels to observe kashrut, but Jesus said they should be worried about the inside of the cup, meaning themselves. In the same way, the rosary can be a "dangerous" prayer, if it is not prayed properly. I recall the story of two women who prayed the rosary loudly through Mass because they were instructed by the Bayside visionary that Mass not celebrated in Latin was a tool of the devil. When we are not disposed to God, then any form of prayer, even Mass becomes dangerous, because it can make us self-righteous, and we can try to use God to make ourselves or our way of thinking more important than Him.
4. There is an underlying assumption that the European way of personal prayer, i.e., Rosary, Divine Mercy, is the only form of personal devotional prayer. Please do not misunderstand me. These are very good and important prayers that I myself also pray. But our Christian brothers and sisters in India, for example employ yoga techniques in prayer, and our Eastern brothers and sisters employ some Buddhist principles in their prayer. Does this make them somehow against the Church or against Christ? Not at all. We need only recognize that the Church in those areas is growing by leaps and bounds, and that they have tremendous numbers of vocations to the religious life and priesthood, of men and women who are dedicated to living in Jesus Christ. They are not proclaiming Vishnu or Buddha, and they celebrate the Eucharist, the Mass, with utmost reverence. They have greater hope in God in their societies than we do here in the West.
Also, we need only remember St. Matteo Ricci, who used the Chinese language and spirituality to help the Chinese to become Christians. He used their understanding of life and God to help them to understand Jesus. The Dominicans came in and said that he was not preaching "orthodoxy." The result is that Ricci was martyred, as were thousands of Chinese Christians, and the Church has been unable to proclaim freely and openly the good news of Jesus Christ.
5. In response to Roamer, asking how to pray, I say turn to God with all of your feelings and thoughts. The rosary and the Divine Mercy are wonderful prayers. But also say what is in your heart, both good and bad, and listen to what God says to you, particularly in the Scriptures. Look at the psalms. They express happiness, sadness, anger, joy, desperation, and the rest of the gamut of human emotions. And they are all prayers to God.
Our saints also teach us how to pray. Look at St. Augustine's , or St. Therese of Lisieux's or St. Teresa of Avila's autobiographies. They described all of the sin and all of the blessings in their lives, because their stories are not ultimately about themselves, but about the grace, mercy and love that our God has bestowed on them. Do not be afraid to tell God what is in your heart. Look at the story of the Prodigal Son. The son asked for everything that he felt he was owed. This is the same as us praying for the things we want, both good and bad. Did the father give him everything? Indeed, just as our Father gives us all we need. Later, when the son was sorry, he asked for the father's forgiveness, and the father not only forgave him, but threw a party for him. The Scripture tells us, too, that there is greater joy over one sinner who has repented, than over 99 who have never sinned. This doesn't mean, of course, that we should sin, but we should really understand how much God loves us, and how easily we can turn to him.
6. I did not want to leave out the Mass. I just want to affirm Roamer by saying that according to Vatican II, the Mass should be the font and culmination of our lives. So it is the excellent prayer to be in communion with our brothers and sisters, and to celebrate Christ coming to us in the Word of God, and in his Body and Blood.
7. Please do not misunderstand Teresa of Avila. All people are called to the contemplative life. Never forget that she taught her way of prayer not only to the nuns and friars, but also to the women and men who sought her advice. The contemplative life does not necessarily mean being holed up in a cloister. It means instead actively recognizing and enjoying being in the presence of God. Remember that while God may be "other," He is not far from us. On the contrary, he is very near. We cannot be in relationship with someone far away, but we can with someone who accompanies us in our journey of life. Some may argue the "our Father in heaven" point, but remember that Jesus said that he will be with us until the end of time. See the end of Mark's gospel for this. He also has sent us the Spirit. See any of the gospels for this. Our own Catholic tradition teaches us that God is near. In Scripture, we are told that "He is near to all who call upon Him."
In order to help us to pray, Teresa and others suggest that we read from Scripture and then think about what is being said, and think about how it speaks to our lives today. Remember that the Bible is the Word of God, so it can speak to us.
We must, obviously, be careful about how to understand the Scriptures, and that is why we have many good Scripture scholars in the Church who write many good books on how we can understand the Bible in the light of our Catholic tradition.

In the end the matter of how to pray is simple. Turn to God with both your joys and your sorrows, your anger and your peace. Have confidence in His love and mercy. And remember that, as St. Paul says, love consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us first, and gave us his only Son as a sign of that love.

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