Prisons And Centering Prayer
There was great article in the Tuesday, November 20 Source Section of the Star Tribune by Jeff Strickler, about the use of centering prayer in prison. Sister Mary White, a Beneditine sister at St. Paul’s Monastery in Maplewood, is teaching inmates at Stillwater Prison “how to find their own private freedom.”
She says in the article, (Centering Prayer) “teaches people how to go to a place in themselves that is wise, stable and infinitely spiritual. People who have been wounded in life often react violently unless they know that there is a place they can go to not carry out behaviors they have learned and automatically produce.”
Definition of Centering Prayer
Centering Prayer facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer — verbal, mental or affective prayer — into a receptive prayer of resting in God. It emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God. At the same time, it is a discipline to foster and serve this relationship by a regular, daily practice of prayer.
It was distilled into a simple method of prayer in the 1970’s by three Trappist monks, Fr. William Meninger, Fr. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating at the Trappist Abbey, St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.
In the Star Trib article Jeff Strickler says, “Her (Sister Mary White) approach is based on Locked Up and Free, a program that has been heralded for reducing anger and frustration among inmates at Folsom Prison in California.” I found this site with a compelling first hand description of someone leading Centering Prayer in that environment.
And so we sat in silent prayer, in the lap of God, in prayer beyond words or thoughts, in pure faith, totally at the service of the Holy Spirit. After our first 20-minute prayer meditation, the silence breaks, a voice shares, telling of a life of craving, of chasing happiness outside of himself, chasing a God outside of himself, feeling disconnected, separated from everyone. He says he is finally getting it; God’s inside him, happiness comes from inside. Others nod in affirmation.
A lump rose in my throat that I could not choke back, I just stared misty eyed and nodded as he witnessed in such a gentle, placid and transformed voice.
He went on to tell of how he finally understands the clichés he’s heard his whole life. Forgive your enemies; do not judge others; to receive you must give. Of how he came to realize this in the past week during prayer, in an instant, snapping his fingers, of how there will be no more useless chasing, of how he doesn’t believe he will need to drink again, of how he feels so unconditionally loved, and connected, of how he trusts, of the feeling of being reborn… of being so free.
I wept throughout the second 20-minute prayer meditation and most of the way home. What a God of infinite mercy we have. I need to learn how to trust in his mercy always.
