HW420 Unit 4 Contemplative Practice Analysis Example

Consent, Not Calm: A Unit 4 Contemplative Practice Analysis of Centering Prayer and What Research Has Measured

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Purdue University Global

HW420: Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Wellness

Unit 4 Contemplative Practice Analysis

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The account of the practice draws on its founders' published teaching; the studies cited are real and described cautiously from their published reports.

The Practice in Its Tradition

Centering prayer took its modern form in the 1970s at St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts. Three monks, William Meninger, Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating, sought to present the Christian contemplative tradition in a form lay people could practice. They drew on the fourteenth-century English text The Cloud of Unknowing, which counsels holding a single short word in mind as a way of reaching toward God beyond thought, and on older desert and monastic teaching about prayer of the heart (Keating, 2006).

Keating described the practice as a method of consenting to God's presence and action within. Its guidelines, as practitioners give them, are simple:

1. Choose a sacred word, such as "God," "Jesus," "peace" or "abba," as a symbol of one's intention to consent to God's presence and action.

2. Sitting comfortably with eyes closed, introduce the sacred word silently and gently.

3. When one becomes engaged with thoughts, which include feelings, images, memories and sensations, return ever so gently to the sacred word.

4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.

The recommended practice is twenty minutes, twice a day.

Why It Is Not Mindfulness

Centering prayer is often grouped with mindfulness and other forms of meditation, and the surface resemblance is real: silent sitting, attention, a gentle return when the mind wanders. The tradition insists on a difference. In mindfulness practice, attention is usually directed to the breath or to present experience, and thoughts are observed. In centering prayer, the sacred word is not an object of attention; it is a sign of intention, and thoughts are not observed but let go. The aim, in Keating's account, is not awareness of the present moment or calm, but a relationship: resting in God beyond words (Keating, 2006).

For practitioners, centering prayer succeeds or fails by whether a person consents to God's presence, not by whether they feel calmer, which means that a study measuring stress alone measures a side effect rather than the practice's purpose.

What the Research Has Measured

The research literature on centering prayer is small. Two studies illustrate what it has measured.

A pilot outcome study followed adults who took part in a centering prayer program over several weeks and measured psychological and spiritual outcomes before and after, reporting improvements on several of them (Fox et al., 2016). As a pilot without a control group, it cannot show that the practice caused the changes, since expectation, group support and time could all contribute.

A mixed-methods study of experienced practitioners examined centering prayer as a response to everyday stress, combining questionnaires with practitioners' own accounts (Ferguson et al., 2010). Participants described the practice as helping them respond to stress, and the authors framed it as both a psychological and a spiritual process.

Neither study is a randomized controlled trial, and neither is large.

What the Research Has Missed

Three gaps stand out when the research is set beside the tradition.

The purpose of the practice. Most outcome measures in this literature, as in meditation research generally, concern stress, anxiety, mood and well-being. These matter, but they are not what the tradition says the practice is for. A practitioner might report no change in stress and still describe deepening consent to God's presence, which the tradition would count as fruitful.

The time frame. The tradition describes centering prayer as a lifelong practice whose effects unfold over years. Studies of a few weeks capture beginners.

The community. Centering prayer is often practiced in groups and supported by retreats, reading and spiritual direction. Studies that isolate the twenty-minute sitting miss the context that practitioners consider part of the practice.

How a Practitioner Might Describe Change

Practitioners themselves tend to describe the fruits of centering prayer in terms that research instruments rarely capture. Keating wrote of a gradual process of letting go of what he called the false self, the habits of seeking security, esteem and control that drive much of ordinary life, and of growing freedom in daily relationships (Keating, 2006). A practitioner might say, after years, that they are less reactive, more patient with family or more at peace with their limits. Some of these changes resemble outcomes psychologists measure, such as emotional regulation; others, such as a sense of being held by God, do not. A research program that wanted to study the practice on its own terms would need to start with how long-term practitioners describe what has changed for them.

Why Measurement Is Hard

Measuring consent to God's presence is genuinely difficult, and researchers cannot simply adopt the tradition's language. Some spiritual outcome measures exist, and Ferguson and colleagues tried to capture practitioners' own descriptions (Ferguson et al., 2010). But a measure of spiritual experience risks treating the practice as a technique for producing experiences, which the tradition also rejects; Keating warned against evaluating prayer by the experiences it produces (Keating, 2006).

Is It Fair to Compare It With Mindfulness Trials?

Because mindfulness research is far larger, it is tempting to borrow its findings for centering prayer, on the reasoning that both involve silent sitting and returning attention. That borrowing is weak. The intentions differ, the instructions differ and the communities that practice them differ. Any benefit centering prayer shares with mindfulness would need to be shown directly, not assumed. For now, the honest position is that the evidence specific to centering prayer is small and encouraging, and that the larger mindfulness literature cannot simply be transferred to it.

Implications for Wellness Practice

For a wellness professional, the analysis suggests three things. First, centering prayer can be named respectfully as a contemplative practice for clients who come from or are drawn to the Christian tradition, without being presented as a relaxation technique. Second, any claim about stress reduction should be stated cautiously, since evidence is limited. Third, a client who practices it should be asked what it means to them, not assumed to be using it for calm.

Conclusion

Centering prayer is a Christian contemplative practice whose purpose, in its founders' words, is consent to God's presence and action. A small research literature has measured outcomes such as stress and well-being, with encouraging but uncontrolled findings. That research has, so far, measured what the practice may do along the way more than what it is for, and an honest analysis holds both.

References

Ferguson, J. K., Willemsen, E. W., & Castañeto, M. V. (2010). Centering prayer as a healing response to everyday stress: A psychological and spiritual process. Pastoral Psychology, 59(3), 305-329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-009-0225-7

Fox, J., Gutierrez, D., Haas, J., & Durnford, S. (2016). Centering prayer's effects on psycho-spiritual outcomes: A pilot outcome study. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(4), 379-392. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2016.1203299

Keating, T. (2006). Open mind, open heart: The contemplative dimension of the Gospel (20th anniversary ed.). Continuum.