doesn't like Fr. Rohr. Fr. Richard Rohr
While I struggle, myself, with the whole Enneagram idea, I do wish people would look at Centering Prayer in more detail (or in ANY detail) before condemning it and labeling it.
The biggest criticism about Centering Prayer is that they say it has a 'mantra' that you say over and over, which makes it like Transcendental Meditation. The truth is, it's not a mantra but what the people who teach it call a 'holy word', that you pick yourself, and it isn't repeated over and over but is only used when you find your mind being distracted or you find thoughts coming into your mind that take your mind's focus off of being open to God. You use it then to re-focus your mind and to once again agree with God to allow yourself to be open to His communicating with you. (When I say this I don't mean hearing His voice or anything, but the idea of letting God's Holy Spirit get in touch with you. Normally God has to clout us over the head to communicate with us. In this case we're actually saying 'please Father, I want to hear you'.) These are two very different things.
But don't tell anyone who believes that it is new age any different. If something was good enough for the Council of Trent, it's good enough for them. For a lot of people there hasn't been a valid new prayer form since the Rosary...
(I remember our pastor telling us one time about a situation in which he had been criticised for a 'new age' prayer. Until he showed the people where it came from in the Divine Office, mind you.)
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