Fr. Thomas Keating

March 7, 1923 – October 25, 2018

Fr. Thomas Keating was a founding member and the spiritual guide of Contemplative Outreach.  Fr. Keating was one of the principal architects and teachers of the Christian contemplative prayer movement and, in many ways, Contemplative Outreach is a manifestation of his longtime desire to contribute to the recovery of the contemplative dimension of Christianity.

Fr. Keating’s interest in contemplative prayer began during his freshman year at Yale University in 1940 when he became aware of the Church’s history and of the writings of Christian mystics. Prompted by these studies and time spent in prayer and meditation, he experienced a profound realization that, on a spiritual level, the Scriptures call people to a personal relationship with God. Fr. Keating took this call to heart. He transferred to Fordham University in New York and, while waiting to be drafted for service in World War II, he received a deferment to enter seminary. Shortly after graduating from an accelerated program at Fordham, Fr. Keating entered an austere monastic community of the Trappist Order in Valley Falls, Rhode Island in January of 1944, at the age of 20. He was ordained a priest in June of 1949.

In March of 1950 the monastery in Valley Falls burned down and, as a result, the community moved to Spencer, Massachusetts. Shortly after the move, Fr. Keating became ill with a lung condition and was put into isolation in the city hospital of Worcester, Massachusetts for nine weeks. After returning to the monastery, he stayed in the infirmary for two years. Fr. Keating was sent to Snowmass, Colorado in April of 1958 to help start a new monastic community called St. Benedict’s. He remained in Snowmass until 1961, when he was elected abbot of St. Joseph’s in Spencer, prompting his move back to Massachusetts. He served as abbot of St. Joseph’s for twenty years until he retired in 1981 and returned to Snowmass. He lived there the rest of his life, except for the months leading up to his death when he was transferred back to St. Joseph’s for better end-of-life care.

During Fr. Keating’s term as abbot at St. Joseph’s and in response to the reforms of Vatican II, he invited teachers from the East to the monastery. As a result of this exposure to Eastern spiritual traditions, Fr. Keating and several of the monks at St. Joseph’s were led to develop the modern form of Christian contemplative prayer called Centering Prayer. Fr. Keating was a central figure in the initiation of the Centering Prayer movement. He offered Centering Prayer workshops and retreats to clergy and laypeople and authored articles and books on the method and fruits of Centering Prayer. In 1983, he presented a two-week intensive Centering Prayer retreat at the Lama Foundation in San Cristabol, New Mexico, which proved to be a watershed event. Many of the people prominent in the Centering Prayer movement today attended this retreat. Contemplative Outreach was created in 1984 to support the growing spiritual network of Centering Prayer practitioners. Fr. Keating became the community’s president in 1985, a position he held until 1999.

Fr. Keating was an internationally renowned theologian and an accomplished author. He traveled the world to speak with laypeople and communities about contemplative Christian practices and the psychology of the spiritual journey, which is the subject of his Spiritual Journey video and DVD series. Since the reforms of Vatican II, Fr. Keating was a core participant in and supporter of interreligious dialogue. He helped found the Snowmass Interreligious Conference, which had its first meeting in the fall of 1983 and continued meeting annually. Fr. Keating also was a past president of the Temple of Understanding and of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue.

Perhaps the biggest testament to Fr. Keating’s dedication to reviving Christian contemplative practices was his choice to live a busy, public life instead of the quiet, monastic life for which he entered the monastery. Fr. Keating’s life was lived in the service of sharing the gifts God gave him with others.

Publications

• Open Mind, Open Heart
• Manifesting God
• Intimacy with God
• Invitation to Love
• The Human Condition
• The Mystery of Christ
• Awakenings
• Reawakenings
• The Kingdom of God is Like…
• Crisis of Faith, Crisis of Love
• Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit
• The Better Part
• St. Therese of Lisieux: a Transformation in Christ
• The Transformation of Suffering
• The Heart of the World
• And the Word was made Flesh
• Finding Grace at the Center
• Spirituality, Contemplation & Transformation: Writings on Centering Prayer
• The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living
• Journey to the Center: A Lenten Passage
• Active Meditations for Contemplative Prayer
• Thomas Keating: The Secret Embrace
• Thomas Keating: From the Mind to the Heart
• World Without End
• Reflections on the Unknowable
• and more …

News Articles

A Big Experiment: A brief history of the beginnings of the Snowmass Conference and the Eight Points of Agreement that came out of the initial years of dialogue.

Father Thomas Keating is a Rebel With a Cause, March 2018.  A look back at the history and evolution of Thomas Keating.

Thomas Keating Archive Housed at Emory University: On September 22, 2010, Contemplative Outreach, Ltd. and Emory University signed an agreement to house the works of Fr. Thomas Keating at the Pitts Theological Library of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Read More….

Movies

Thomas Keating: From the Mind to the Heart

In this film, Thomas Keating engaged in a profound, revealing spiritual dialogue ranging from spiritual transformation to transcendence to death and dying. The film, only available in digital format, is comprised of a series of in-depth spiritual conversations between Thomas Keating and John Osborne in New York and Snowmass from 2006 to 2010.
 

On Amazon

Thomas Keating:  A Rising Tide of Silence

Photographer and author Peter C. Jones makes a noteworthy debut with his reflective portrait of his uncle, Father Thomas Keating, one of today’s most influential spiritual leaders. Interweaving historical footage, biographical documentation, interviews with friends and colleagues, and extensive conversations with Father Keating himself, the film traces a fascinating personal and spiritual life.  Although DVDs of the film are no longer being produced, it is available to be streamed online through the following sources: Amazon • iTunes •  • Vimeo

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Father Thomas Keating