We’re one week into the season of Lent.
Have you been praying with us? Each week during Lent we’re exploring a different type of contemplative prayer together as a community. It’s called 40 Days to Pray , and every Wednesday on the blog I’m sharing background information on a type of contemplative prayer as well as steps to practice and resources to go further. Some of these prayers are new and others are ancient, but one thing is certain: they’ll bring you closer to the heart of God.
Last week we welcomed in the season and all that comes with it with Welcoming Prayer, and I shared some of my experience on Instagram. Welcoming Prayer offers a great entry point to other types of prayer, “clearing the space” so to speak and inviting us into the present moment so we can encounter God. It’s also a practice of the pilgrim, teaching us to welcome the stranger or “other” in the world by first cultivating a practice of welcoming the stranger within.
The 40 days of Lent mirror the 40 days of Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness, and I can imagine Jesus practicing a form of Welcoming Prayer during that trying season—welcoming the hunger, discomfort, and resistance into the presence of God and allowing them to become teachers. Can you, too? In this way, it’s not simply a prayer practice to engage in once a day, but rather a tool at the ready when we need it most and a reminder that all is welcome in the presence of God.
This week we turn to Centering Prayer—another practice with roots in the Contemplative Outreach community and one that has been near and dear to me for many years now. (Read about my own practice here.) Will you join me this week in the silence?
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