The Gift of Centering Prayer

Your life might be swirling around right now like a typhoon, but what makes a storm powerful? A calm, peaceful eye. A center. Do you have a center in your relationship with the Father? God lives within you and He wants you to be at rest.

- Fr. Bob McConaghy

What did Jesus say? “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He doesn’t lie. He will refresh you.

Our Lord wants us to be quiet. What does quiet and to be at rest mean? In the Greek language, “at rest” means to be refreshed, rejuvenated. It means to press the pause button of life. It means that silence is not the absence of noise but a presence of Someone who loves you beyond anything your imagination can conceive.

How do you connect with that love? There are two ways, but in this article, I want to focus on the first one—centering prayer. The neat thing about centering prayer is you don’t have to do anything. You sit still and know that He is God.

Pray Like Pope Francis

This is how you do centering prayer: Go to your room and turn off all the lights. Find the most comfortable chair you have and just sit there. Pope Francis talks about this manner of praying because he prays like this. He said that at the end of the day, when he’s exhausted, he just sits in the chapel and meditates on Jesus looking at him with great love.