In the second chapter I looked briefly at the three theological principles on which Centering Prayer is based: its source is Trinitarian, its focus is Christological, and its effects are ecclesial, that is, it bonds us with everyone else in the Mystical Body of Christ and indeed with the whole human family. In this chapter I would like to return to these principles in more detail, to see how they move from theology into the deepening experience of God's presence and action in our lives. The spiritual journey is our movement into this transcendent reality and the gradual assimilation of it over the course of a lifetime.

The source of Centering Prayer is the Trinity, God's life within us, begun in baptism or whenever we entered into the state of grace. The doctrine of the Divine Indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity is the most important of all the principles of the spiritual life. It means that God's own life is being communicated to us, but beyond the level of our ordinary faculties because of what might be called, to use a modern scientific analogy, its high frequency. It is so high in fact, that only pure faith can access the divine presence in its full actuality.

The doctrine of the Trinity affirms three relationships in the one God, whom tradition calls the Father, the Son (the Eternal Word of the Father), and the Holy Spirit. This is the principal mystery of the Christian faith.

"Father" in this context, encompasses every human relationship that is beautiful, good, and true, but it especially evokes the sense of parenting, of "sourcing." The doctrine of the Trinity has been developed in many different theological models over the centuries. Drawing on these models, we can affirm that the Father is the ground of all potentiality. The actualization of that potentiality within the Trinity is the Word. The Word is the Father coming to full expression of all that the Father is. In a sense the Father is nothing until he speaks the Word. He knows who he is only in the Son, only in his interior Word. The Spirit is the common bond of love that flows between the Father and the Son in total self-giving love. In other words, the emptying of the Father--the actualization of all that is contained in infinite potentiality--is expressed totally in the Eternal Word expressed within the Trinity The Father pours himself into the Son. One might almost say that there is nothing left of Him. The traditional theological doctrine of circumincession teaches that the Father lives in the Son, not in himself. The Son in turn, in confronting this immense goodness that has been handed over completely and freely to him, gives himself back to the Father in a kind of embrace, or what certain Fathers of the Church have called "the most sweet kiss" of the Father and the Son. The Spirit, then, is the love of the Father and the Son, their common heart, so to speak. In the Trinity, there is no self. Everything is self-surrender. Everything is gift. Everything is love. Hence St. John the Evangelist affirms unconditionally, "God is love."

With the same movement that the Father manifests himself in the Eternal Word, all creation comes into being in and through the Word. Thus the Word is the creative source of everything that exists (see the Prologue of St. John's Gospel), expressing itself in different ways throughout the different levels of creation. Creation consists of various manifestations of infinite reality without in any way exhausting that reality.

The emptying of the Word in becoming incarnate is the visible expression of what the Father is doing all the time in expressing his interior Word. When that manifestation takes place in creation, it has to be expressed by some form of emptying. Divine love, when it enters creation, has to be crucified because there is no way in which that love can be fully expressed in created terms without the Father in some sense dying. In creating, God in some way ceases to be God. At least, God ceases to be God in the way he was before creation. God must become totally involved in creation because each creature expresses something of the beauty, the goodness, and the truth of the Eternal Word who is the absolute fullness of God's expression. Jesus Christ is the fullest manifestation of this extraordinary love that we call unconditional or divine love. This is the heart of the Christian mystery--mystery, not in the sense of an intellectual puzzle, but in the sense of wonder and awe, communicating a delight that is inexpressible and that demands as the only adequate response our total surrender. The Trinitarian relationships, of their very nature, invite us into the stream of divine love that is unconditional and totally self-surrendered. This boundless love emerges from the Father into the Son, and through the Son is communicated to all creation. The invitation is given to every human being to enter into the stream of divine love, or at least to venture a big toe into the river of eternal life. As we let go of our false self, we move into this stream of love that is always flowing and bestowing endless gifts of grace. The more we receive, the more we can give. And as we give, we open the space to receive still more.

When that immense project is translated into creation and, specifically, into human life, we run into difficulties because we arrive at full reflective self-consciousness without the intimate experience of God's presence and unconditional love. That is one of the points I have emphasized in the Spiritual Journey video tapes and in the book Invitation to Love: we come to full reflective self-consciousness without the experience of intimacy with God and without consciously sharing in the divine life. When we sit in contemplative prayer letting go of our usual flow of thoughts and feelings, which reinforce our false selves, then our hearts are opened by our intentionality to the divine Spirit four hours a day. Unfortunately we have habits of refusal and opposition that make this access extremely difficult without a disciplined and regular practice of prayer.

The source of Centering Prayer, then, is not some aspiration, expectation, or far off ideal, but rather its source is the transcendent reality of the divine life present within us right now in the measure of our faith. This marvelous gift is given in baptism and even in the desire for God. The latter, I venture to say, applies to many people who do not name God in the same way that Christians do, but who have the desire to enter into union with the Ultimate Reality.

When we are sitting in Centering Prayer, we may seem to be doing nothing, but we are doing perhaps the most important of all functions, which is to become who we are, the unique manifestation of the Word of God that the Spirit designed us to be.

The Trinitarian life is not a strategy, a program, or some kind of box into which we fit. It is rather an activity of grace that enables us to experience ever increasing interior freedom, even to the point that St. Augustine describes, "One has the freedom not to sin," that is, not to function out of the false self in any way at all. This is the freedom of the children of God.

The source of Centering Prayer is the Trinitarian life. Thus in this prayer we are trying to touch base, so to speak, with a life that is objectively--that is, really--present within us and that we access through faith, hope, and divine love. The exercise of these three theological virtues is precisely the transforming dynamism used by the Spirit to awaken in us the deeper levels of divine awareness. Paul says that "faith is the assurance of things hoped for" (Heb. 11:1). It is the invincible conviction that we are united to God before we can feel it or know it in any other way except through self-surrender. This is what opens the heart to what Paul calls the inpouring of divine love. "Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Rom. 5:5). Thus the source of Centering Prayer, as a preparation for the contemplative life, is the Trinitarian life itself, which is going on inside us and is manifested by our desire for God, to seek the truth, and to pray.

Continued . . .

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Excerpted from Intimacy with God by Fr. Thomas Keating

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