Centering Prayer and the Incarnation

Thomas Keating writes,

“The Word of God in Scripture and incarnate in Jesus Christ is the the source of Christian contemplation. The Incarnation of the Word is the insertion of God into the human family and the insertion of the human family into God in the person of Jesus Christ. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are together, in one nature, both the Ultimate Mystery and the Ultimate Reality. Their interior relationship of total giving and receiving is the divine life that Christ was sent to share with us.”

I love the second sentence, “The Incarnation of the Word is the insertion of God into the human family and the insertion of the human family into God in the person of Jesus Christ.” What a beautiful picture of Jesus.

Centering Prayer and Our Trinitarian Beliefs

I have begun reading Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating. In the chapter concerning the theological basis of centering prayer Keating writes,

“Centering prayer presupposes a living faith that the sacred humanity of Jesus contains the fullness of the Godhead. Christ leads us to the Father, but to the Father as he knows him. In virtue of Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection, we participate by grace in Christ’s divinity. We are invited to worship the Father in spirit and truth. This is to follow Christ into the bosom of the Father, where, as the Eternal Son of God, he surrenders to the divine source from whom he eternally emerges–and returns–in the love of the Holy Spirit.”

Wow! Chew on that awhile!