The Transfiguration

    The most perfect prayer is not to even know that you are praying.

           Saint Anthony of the Desert

    Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves.  There in their presence he was transfigured....

    And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved.  Listen to him.”....As they came down the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen...   

                               Mark 9: 2, 7, 9

        In Centering Prayer the sacred word is a simple thought that you are thinking at ever deepening levels.  That is why you accept it in whatever form it arises.

        The word on your lips is exterior and has no part in this form of prayer; the thought in your imagination is interior; the word as an impulse of your will is more interior still.  Only when you pass beyond the word into pure awareness is the process of interiorization complete.

                          Thomas Keating

    Are you feeling stuck, distracted by thoughts, or alienated from God in Centering Prayer?

The First Branch: