Malaysia April 2001

Father Thomas Keating arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Easter Sunday. For one and a half days, he gently worked with more than 250 practitioners of Centering Prayer. We were concerned for his health as he had already been on his feet for at least four days in Singapore during Holy Week.

"I am here to manifest my love for Asiatic people", Father Thomas said. "Asian culture has a great deal to give to Christian Tradition and to the West because of the long Asian tradition of meditation and contemplation. We in the West have but lost it because of historical situation such as the rise of scholasticism in the middle ages, the Black Death in Europe which killed so many teachers of contemplative prayer, the 100 Years War and also the Papal Corruption which led to the Reformation", Father Keating explained. And in his humble and gentle way he also said that he came with the hope to learn from the contact of Asian people and to learn how they experienced Centering Prayer and integrated it into their lives.

Centering Prayer was first introduced to us by Father Basil Pennington in April 1997. In fact he came to us twice that year and at the second visit, about 1,000 people came to attend his talks. C.P. has continued to grow ever since. Our main concern is the lack of facilitators. We need to train more people. We now realize that we also need to train Chinese speaking facilitators in order to serve those who are less fluent in English. A visiting Jesuit priest who works in Taiwan, was so impressed by some members of our C.P. practitioners that he has requested us to send a team to introduce C.P. to Taiwan. We will need books and documents translated into the Chinese language to help us. I believe there are already a couple of books available. However, we need to make available in Chinese, new books on C.P. For example, Open Mind Open Heart, which is not new by any means, also needs to be translated into Chinese.

One of our facilitators will go down to Singapore in the month of May in order to give another C.P. introductory session. There is a definite thirst for contemplative prayer in Asia and if Christians cannot satisfy this hunger, people will have no choice but to go elsewhere. If we have more hands to help, we will certainly be able to minister to this need in Southeast Asia and East Asia.

Father Thomas Keating's visit, though short has been crucial for the growth of C.P. in Malaysia. He is a witness of what C.P. can do for a person who is committed to the practice. Thank you Father Keating for inspiring and encouraging us all.

End Theresa Ee-Chooi 
A member of the Core Group in Malaysia