Catholic Centering Prayer?? (Can Catholics do Centering Prayer?)

Transcript

hello everybody and welcome to our channel in this video we are going to be talking about the dangers of centering prayer and how centering prayer is not authentic Christian prayer many people around this country in parishes and even in Catholic retreat centers and sometimes I say Catholic retreat centers they practice centering prayer even though they don't realize that it's not really Christian prayer and in this video we're going to be giving the reasons why [Music] if you've never been here before welcome to our channel we are Catholic truth an organization dedicated to proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church we want to help Catholics to know love and live their Catholic faith with passion and to be informed about what is really from God and the counterfeit that is not and in this video we are going to be talking about one of those counterfeits called centering prayer if you go to a store and you pick up a mock brand it looks like the real brand centering prayer also likewise looks like real prayer but if you understand what it is you will realize that it's not true prayer this is going to be a very short presentation explaining this because our book is coming out on this subject on April 10th 2020 and it's called counterfeit spirituality and it's coming out with our Sunday visitor so if you want more information check it out let's begin first of all what's prayer prayer is praying to somebody god it's listening to someone God and it's meditating on someone God or in Christianity Jesus Christ so it's praying to God it's listening to God and it's meditating on him and having a relationship with him but as we're going to see centering prayer is the opposite of this centering prayer was founded by Father Thomas Keating father William Menninger and father basil Pennington Keating the founder of centering prayer was the one who held dialogues with his Catholic monks he dialogued with Buddhists and Hindus for 20 years and from there he held week-long Zen Buddhism retreats with his Catholic monks so he was having Buddhist retreats and practicing Buddhist prayer with his Catholic monks and then he took what he liked from Catholicism and he talked what he liked from Hinduism and Buddhism also known as eastern oriental spirituality and he blended them into what we know today as centering prayer now centering prayer is not fully there for Catholic and is not fully Eastern oriental spirituality either it's blend of the two although as we're going to see it much more resembles and Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation than it actually does Catholicism I mean if the foundation of centering prayer is already faulty because of what it's founded on the beliefs and principles how can we trust it and when you look at the writings in theology of father Thomas Keating it's the same way father Thomas Keating said in his book open mind open heart that even though we are not God God and our self capital s are the same thing see in the New Age movement they always capitalized the word self because it means we are divine we are one with God and even though he says we're not God God and us he says are the same thing this is a Hindu concept called Atman as Brahman and Brahman as Ottman meaning God is my soul and my soul is God really there's not much of a distinction because we're kind of meld into God and everything becomes one he also says at another part that the first part of the journey is to learn that there is an other the second part of the journey is to become the other and the third and most important part of the journey Keating says it too is to realize that there is no other meaning there's only one thing God and we are all part of God we all make up the one universal essence and this is a Hindu concept as I said they believe that everything is one it's pantheism it's monism in this whole concept the ideology from the start is false and that is why and when you go to Zen Buddhism they will sit for long periods of time and empty their mind into voids of complete emptiness total states of nothing because they want to join or become one with all that is and they do that by losing themselves and melting into everything else so to speak and so here's the problem of centering prayer at the beginning of the video we said that prayer is praying to someone it's listening to that someone and it's always being in a relationship with that someone now centering prayer is the opposite of that because the purpose of centering prayer is to empty your mind and to empty it to complete and total nothingness and in this this you use what's called a mantra where you repeat a word over and over and over again Keating said it doesn't even have to be a religious or a spiritual word so you repeat this word in order to empty your mind in order to empty it of all thoughts in fact Keating himself says in his book open mind open heart he says this the method consists of this to let go of every kind of thought even holy and devout thoughts he continues on and says even if you have a vision or if God gives you infused words he says you should return to the sacred word now to me hearing this this is extremely problematic if God gives you a vision don't listen to it just return to your word keep emptying your mind and if God speaks to you infused words don't listen to them return to the word do you know what infused words are infused prayer is one of the highest forms of prayer in the Catholic faith it's really coming into union with Christ where Christ infuses his life into you and Keating's basically saying ignore that and go back to the word keep emptying your mind now here's the big problem is that the whole goal of prayer is union with God the whole goal of all of our prayer lives is love it's love of God it's a relationship with God and it's coming closer to God it's speaking to him being spoken to it's loving him and being loved in return it's a relational union but we're being told to do is to empty our heads to dump out the thoughts and just keep dumping and dumping and emptying and emptying and even Pope Benedict our last Pope he said a lot of people want to empty their thoughts so they can come close to God but unfortunately the emptying becomes the goal and a lot of people stay with the emptying and they stay in an empty head that's Zen Buddhism where you empty yourself of all thoughts and you sit in literally a mental void and Keating says you can consent to God whatever that means but the reality is if your mind is empty of all things then it's also empty of God according to the Catholic Church and according to Christian prayer you never want to empty your mind completely that is not Christian in fact the Scriptures say to fill your minds and your heart with Christ so if you want to use centering prayer as a way to empty your mind in order to actually pray that could be fine if you want to work on using a mantra or emptying your thoughts are just calming your thoughts but centering prayer is more than that it's emptying everything and it never really moves into prayer our minds and our hearts should always be focused on Christ so like I said if you want to work on calming your thoughts and being quiet mentally that's fine that's part of preparing for prayer but it's not prayer itself so centering prayer could be used to prepare for prayer but is not prayer prayer is when you focus your thoughts and your mind on God even if your thoughts are still even if you're not doing active meditation and you're just sitting in silence you're still focused on Jesus you're still aware of his presence around you you're still there in contemplating him in some way we don't empty all thoughts and that's one of the biggest biggest problems with centering prayer I mean could you imagine if a husband wanted to fall in love with his wife more and he wanted to come closer to her so when in order to do this he decides that he's going to go to the corner of his house and he's not gonna think about her and he's gonna empty himself of all thoughts and even if some beautiful thoughts come into his mind things that would help him to work on his marriage things that really touch him and help him to love her more he's gonna remove all those thoughts and just sit in a blank state I mean how could she he come closer to his wife that way it doesn't work and it's the opposite it's an impediment of achieving the goal that he wants to achieve having a blank slate of mind is no way to have a relationship with anybody much less than God of the universe and the problem with centering prayer is just that is it focuses too much on the word it focuses too much on emptying and not a on communing with God through prayer through meditation and through purification of sin those are the only ways to God there is no shortcut for so for people who say that centering prayer is contemplation it is not that is a factually incorrect statement contemplation only comes through ascetic means and this is the church speaking not me it only comes through asceticism purification of sin a deep prayer life and meditation which leads and springboards into contemplation there is no shortcut to contemplation and sitting in silence for two 20 minute periods a day like they do in Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation is not Catholic teaching if you want to sit in silence and meditate on God great if you want to sit in silence and be aware of his presence around you fine but don't just sit in an empty mental void because that's not prayer but there are some so many more problems with centering prayer that I just don't have time to get into in this short video but you can check them out in our new book which is coming out April 10th 2020 and there is a good long chapter devoted to the dangers and problems of centering prayer and this book is called counterfeit spirituality and it's coming out with our Sunday visitor you can pre-order it and it's also coming out on Amazon so again it's called counterfeit spirituality exposing the false gods this is what the book looks like you can buy it on Amazon and with our Sunday visitor if you have any questions on centering prayer you will find them in that chapter of course you can always put questions down below if you have any thoughts I mean so many people do Center in / different ways there is a good form of centering prayer which I talked about in the book and it's completely different than father Keating's centering prayer in fact the Eastern Churches the Eastern Rite Catholic Church's practice this form of centering prayer and it's a good way so if you want to have some sort of a centering prayer experience you can practice it the right way the way the Eastern Catholics do and you can find out more in the book so check out that book and share this video if you think it's important way too many people are getting into spiritual practices that aren't good so that's the whole purpose of this book in the first place we talk about yoga Reiki centering prayer astrology mindfulness labyrinths I mean the list goes on how do we know which ones are good which ones are bad which ones are neutral and okay and how do you know the difference so this is going to be the ultimate discernment guide for Catholics so check it out make sure to LIKE this video if you want many more videos like this and share this video so more people can get the message and support our ministry please we need to get the message out there to a whole world that's falling apart and dying god bless you pray for me and I will pray for you