Thomas Keating

Thomas Aquinas Keating O.C.S.O. ( Born March 7, 1923 in New York) is an American Trappist monk ( Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance ) and a Catholic priest and one of the founders of the Centering Prayer.

Life

Thomas Keating studied after attending the Deerfield Academy at Yale University and Fordham University. In December 1943 he finished his studies. Keating joined in Valley Falls, Rhode Iceland, in the Trappist order in January 1944. In 1958 he was appointed Superior of St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, was elected. In 1961 he became abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. After retiring as abbot of Spencer in 1981, he returned to Snowmass, where he performed a certain form of ten -day intensive retreat, with an emphasis on the practice of Centering Prayer.

He is one of three founders of this form of prayer, which is a newer method of contemplative prayer, which was created in 1975 in the St. Joseph's Abbey. William Meninger and Basil Pennington, also Cistercian monks both, were the other co-founder. The concept was first proposed by Father Keating. William Meninger began with a prayer method that is based on the spiritual classic stem coming from the 14th century, The Cloud of Unknowing. He refers to this as the prayer in the "cloud " ( of ignorance ), and taught it the priests at retreats. Basil Pennington was the first who passed the prayer to a lay audience in Connecticut, where participants suggested the term " Centering Prayer". Thomas Merton had used the term previously.

In 1984, Thomas Keating along with Gustave Reininger and founded Edward Bednar the Contemplative Outreach Ltd.. , An international ecumenical spiritual network that will help spread the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. These are methods to prayer from the Christian contemplative tradition. Contemplative Outreach provides assistance for the believers who have taken the contemplative path, such as retreats and workshops.

Keating currently lives in Snowmass, Colorado at St. Benedict Monastery.

Publications

• The contemplative prayer, Muensterschwarzach 2012, four towers -Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89680-554-6.
• The prayer of the collection, Muensterschwarzach 2010, four towers -Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89680-474-7.
• The crisis of faith, people village on the Rhine in 1975, John -Verlag, ISBN 3- 7794-0611 -X.