Chapter 9: A Deeper Love

This final chapter of the book by the same name discusses several issues that come up as we approach our journey of transformation. Unfortunately, many will take centering prayer and incorporate it with their other strategies that originate from the false self. But the very nature of centering prayer is about loss of control. We are literally giving God control of our time of prayer.

Another problem is that we may not actually be ready for the type of transformation that centering prayer initiates, and we may resist the call of God to let go of the many hindrances he seeks to remove. The book continues with a discussion about what St. John of the Cross calls "beginners" and his writings about "the dark night of the soul." Just that phrase "dark night" sounds like something I’d like to avoid.

Fortunately even in this God leads our journey. St John of the Cross gives us three signs that we are being called to the dark night and the contemplative:

1. We begin to experience pervasive dryness and lack of consolation (the experience of his presence).
2. We still care deeply for God, but begin to feel that we are not being faithful to God, while all the time we are trying to be.
3. We become powerless to meditate—that is to say that we find that it is impossible for us to use our imagination and thinking powers to pray.

So here I am, committed to continuing my journey of centering prayer, wondering what it will be like as I go. As much as I’d like to think I’ve given a blank check to God, as I read this final chapter of the book I have some fear about how this will ultimately affect me.