Hey, friends, this is Dan Burke. You're watching Behind the Scenes Divine Intimacy Radio and we'll start the radio show in a minute. I just want to remind you before we even get going here that if you want to, if any of the books we talk about on the show or you want to just find reliable trustworthy books and where you don't have to worry about whether or not they're orthodox and all that, make sure you go to EWTN Religious Catalog. You'll find there books are vetted by theologians, but also two things happen when you order books from EWTN's Religious Catalog. One is you help EWTN and two, they actually will send you the book and they have a lot of other stuff too, a lot of holy reminders and things like that. So I don't know, it's memorable. So anyway, a few other things before we start the show. My wife was giving me a strange look, that's why I was laughing, is this Friday, we're going to be hosting a webinar on how to attend the traditional Latin Mass. This is not a webinar in any way that's critical of the ordinary form, but a lot of people in our time because of what happened during COVID or what's still happening and a lot of other reasons are jumping over to the traditional Latin Mass and a lot of folks are struggling, don't know how to attend the Latin Mass. So we're going to provide a webinar this coming Friday, June 25th at 7 p.m. central and if you want to, it's free and if you want to sign up for that, you can go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events and sign up for that. And then another thing that's coming up in short order is our Avala Summit 2021 summit. It's called Fire from Above. We'll have Dr. Ralph Martin, Dr. Kevin Vos, Father Boniface Hicks, Bishop James Wall, all talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Carmelite tradition. And more. And more. And normally, obviously, people come to this from all over the world, they fly in to the shrine of the most blessed sacrament. However, it's full, it's been full for more than a year. But you can join it virtually now. So though it is packed and full physically and you can't come physically, you can participate virtually. Similarly, spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. So the Avala Summit and you can watch these amazing speakers help us to understand how to grow in depth of union with God. So with that, I think we'll go ahead and start the start the show. What do you think? Okay. I'm in. Okay, great. All right. Let's see. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. In your mark, it's said go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio Haven of Rest. Your Hermitage of the Heart. Your Monastery of the Mind, where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints to learn how it is that we might navigate this very challenging life that we live. Yes. Full of sin and brokenness. None of that in our home, though. No. Oh, no, of course. Everybody in this home by locates floats around. Right. Never sinned. Halos. I mean, halos. We've had to actually adjust the lighting in this studio because of your halo in particular. Right. Right. Yeah. I don't think so. So today, I wanted to talk about centering prayer. What's the title of the show, producer? Centering Prayer Deception. Or maybe Centering Prayer Deception, question mark. So where do we stand on this? You don't know. But we'll talk about it and explore it. The Stephanie and I, well, before I say this, before we jump in, I want to say this. I am not opposed or judging anyone. We are not by this show at all. Our goal is to just put forth the authentic, magisterial teaching of the church. Which is so rich and so vast. Right. You could not exhaust all of the resources, but we'll get to that. Right. Right. Very well said. So we're not judging anyone, we're not judging integrity. And in fact, what's interesting before we dive in, I'll say this. I've had many people, I shouldn't say many, I've had a few people when I've said, they've said, well, I practice centering prayer. And I say, oh, that's interesting. Tell me about that. And then they tell me about an approach to prayer that they use that's Orthodox and according to Catholic tradition. And what I find is that those who are most closely connected with Father Thomas Keating and the contemplative outreach are the most confused about authentic Christian prayer. So the reason we're talking about this today is because Stephanie and I travel around the country and we do retreats, we're doing divine intimacy and marriage into the deep on prayer, spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits on that topic. Of course. Knights of reflection. Knights of reflection. All kinds of stuff. We do a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. I've been on the road a lot. We were on three weeks recently. And so we went to an event and there was a poor soul and we're not judging them or condemning them in any way that I don't know if you want to describe what happened or you want me to describe it. Well, and again, you know, I was working so hard to love this person and we have all the books that we carry with us. We have book tables and we're setting things up. And, you know, we had a couple of our staff members there to help. And and somebody saw one of the books on the table was walking by and saw it. And that that we promote it was actually one that I think you asked be written to help or maybe not. No, but I was very supportive of it. Okay. Very supportive of it. So anyway, it's one of the books we carry in particular because there are people who are confused, you know, and we want to help them come to clarity. And so this the soul walked by and saw the book and said, Oh, that's interesting. And it's a it's the book is called is Centering Prayer Catholic question question mark, you know, by Connie Rossini. It doesn't say centering prayer is not Catholic. No, it just says is Centering Prayer Catholic by Connie Rossini. And great book. And so the soul saw it and said, Oh, that's interesting. I've been praying that for, you know, some 30 odd years. And it seems to be making a comeback. And I said, Oh, you mean Centering Prayer? And they said, Yes, it seems to be making a comeback. And and said, Well, that's great, you know, and because it's too complicated to keep being generic here, it was a woman so that I can use the use the pronoun she. So so I said, Well, I said that's, you know, this book isn't promoting it. It's for clarity. It's for teaching. And it can often be misinterpreted, you know, the teaching on it or understanding about what it is. And is it Catholic? Is it not? You know, all these things can be confusing. So I said, we just propose it as education because a lot of people have been exposed to it. And the countenance on her face changed. She became agitated, upset, and began to get very, I would almost use the word aggressive. Yeah, well, she got inches from your face. Well, that was that was a little bit later. Okay, because that's maybe when I kind of walked up. Right, right. And and I said, Well, I said, you know, you should consider reading it. I said, I think it might be helpful to you. That was it. I went about my business. A little bit later, after, after mass, I saw her and I picked it up along with your book into the deep, the two books. And I said, I'd love to give these to you as a gift, you know, and I just want to give them to you. And I hope you would enjoy them. And as a, as an honest, olive branch, just a gift of love.  And, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years and so on. It helped me so much and blah, blah, blah. Well, it was, it wasn't actually that nice. It was very aggressive.  I said, it's an honest gift. And, and I said, there's no condemnation from me. And, and I said, that's not coming from me. So I don't know what's going on. But please, you know, please consider it a gift and take them if you'd like. And she said, I'll take them and I'm going to read them. And then she did it 180. And she goes, no, I'm not going to take them. And she threw them on the table and then walked off. And I saw that second part.  And praise be to God. I just, I was completely at peace. Yeah, you were very kind to her. I prayed for her. I offered many prayers for her, my rosary later in the day. And anyway, so that's where we are. Yeah, that's the story. So why the reason I asked you to tell the story is that I, this is not an uncommon reaction when we start talking about centering prayer, which is very interesting. Because when you start talking with somebody about mental prayer and how to pray mental prayer, you never get this reaction. When you talk about authentic Christian prayer, you never get this reaction. But when I have talked about centering prayer in any way that is not complimentary, it is without fail, if I'm any kind of medium with a large audience, I get attacked pretty aggressively like you did. Again, not condemning the people, because I actually think they have a desire for God. I know they do because that's the way God designed us. I actually said that to her. I said your desire to draw near to God in prayer is from him. And it's a good thing. It's a beautiful thing. And I said all this is is just clarity on what centering prayer is and how to keep people solidly in the teaching of the church. And what you got was pretty aggressive. Actually, I've never seen, I don't recall ever seeing anyone being so aggressive toward you.  But as I'm saying is it's very common. What's fascinating about it, and I don't take any joy in saying this, it's common. And I did a piece for the National Catholic Register, which is an amazing news outlet owned by UWTN. And I got attacked. And this was the line. And this is a very common line. I've been praying centering prayer for 30 years. And it's helped me so much.  And here's the thing. If it's really authentic, why are the fruits so bad rotten? Why does it do such harm to people? And my heart breaks for that woman and for people who practice this because it's so common. When we talk about it, it brings this exact fruit over and over again. You had a situation, I don't know, like more than a decade ago now when you were principal of the Catholic School. Oh, that was the same thing. Absolutely the same thing. And I think that's the thing that sends up a red flag about it, is why people, and they tend what I have seen in those that get upset is there's a lot of anxiety. They're locked up tight. They're wound really, really tight. And it's reactive to even the possibility that centering prayer is off in some way. And even if you're as gentle as possible. You haven't been condemning in what you say. You try to teach. You try to show clarity and say, this is Christian prayer. This isn't. This is non-Christian. Yeah, to bring clarity to it. But the vitriol against it, to me, is a red flag. So we're talking about the experience and the fruit, right? So let's talk about why that happens. So as you noted, in that case at your Catholic School and in this case at the event, both people you could see were very anxiety-ridden both before, during, and after. Because I noticed the person who came up to you and they didn't, they were seemed very wound very tight and not very happy just in general and kind of a negative. But I think what happens is these folks are hurting, right? They're aching for the peace of God. God designed them for it. Otherwise they wouldn't have pursued prayer. Right, exactly. And that's good in them. And I want to honor that in these folks, even the ones that have been hostile towards us. But what happens is they came on to a method that is inspired by non-Christian Eastern spirituality. Which leads nowhere. Nowhere. And what did Jesus say about the prayer of non-Christian religions? He said, don't pray that way. Just read it in the Gospels when the disciples asked him to pray. And he said, don't pray like the pagans pray. Like the non-Jews in that, of course, context pray. Because of the way that we understand God and it's different than them. The way that they communicate in a spiritual way is different than them. So don't pray that way. And he said, don't use vain repetition, which is taught in Centering Prayer.  It's a mantra. It's Buddhist, basically. And it comes originally from Transcendental Meditation as well. So why is it that they get agitated? It's because it's not truly drawing them close to God. Because prayer that authentically draws you close to God actually causes peace and the ability to even withstand martyrdom in peace as demonstrated by so many saints, rather than total crazy agitation, anger, all of that. So when we get back from the break, we're going to keep diving into this subject and explore a little more why, what are the issues and how can people get out of it and find the right way. So we'll be right back. Okay. So 1255, what do you want me to take it to? 1235 or 1230? Okay. And your market's at go. This is Dan of Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest. We're talking today about false forms of prayer and destructive forms of prayer and Centering Prayer is one of those. So before the break, we were talking about experiences we both had with people who get really bent out of shape when we talk about this. And then, but the goodness in them that's, you know, they want to know God, they get involved in the method. Why is it that people after 20 or 30 years praying this still are very agitated, tense, you know, all of that. And the reason is, is because it's purely psychological at one level, right? Meaning you can bring yourself to a kind of psychological state. And in fact, Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict wrote a letter to all the bishops of the world called on some aspects of Christian meditation. And it was in 1989, I think. But you can find it out on the web. And in that document, he describes how damaging and destructive non-Christian Eastern prayer is and how it only has the psychological effect. That's assuming it doesn't take us into a state of altered consciousness where we're then open to the demonic, which also does happen as well. So the reason a person can be rattled is it doesn't cause a fundamental change to increase Christ in us. Is there a better way of saying that? No, I mean, it's just true. Because if you're not, if you're speaking past, you know, Christ, the person of him, the whole purpose of prayer is to bring us to union with God.  And we can encounter him, you know, he does draw us near to himself. And if that doesn't fundamentally change us and increase Christ in us in the virtues in a in a in a downward spiral of a vice and an increase of virtue, then there's something wrong. You know, if it's not having an effect on how we behave in our day to day to those closest to us and how we handle stressors and whatever. Yeah. And if, and if just seeing a book, not reading it, not being confronted only treated with love triggers you triggers you, that means there's something you need to healing. Right. And in fact, with love to those who are struggling with what we're talking about now, if you're feeling that same thing, that's an invitation to healing. And to escape this kind of false form, this kind of this false form of prayer, right into authentic prayer. Yeah. Maybe we can take a moment and describe what this is. You mentioned, you mentioned a mantra. Yeah. And this woman that got so upset, in fact, both of them mentioned the mantra. Right. There was another gentleman that I knew years ago, same thing, got involved in it, went completely off the defense, left his family, had affairs, you know, all while he was praying. Right. Right. And touting this, right, you know, touting this method. So what is the problematic version of Centering Prayer? What is the problem? Yeah. So Centering Prayer is taught by mostly popularized by Father Thomas Keating, God rest his soul, and contemplative outreach, which is the organization. And essentially, it's this idea that you sit in a certain posture, you breathe in a particular way, and you repeat, you have an intentionality of good towards God, and you repeat a sacred word in quotes, a sacred word. So I, you know, I even took one of these courses, and we, we had a team that went in and investigated contemplative outreach and their work. And, and that's another story, which we've actually never written up. But essentially, it all sounds orthodox, and they use orthodox language until you get deeper into the organization, it gets further further away from the faith. But I went to a class, even though I, we set folks into research, I went to one myself just so I could have a direct experience. And to understand it, to really understand, and to be fair, you know, so I sat there, they told us the method, sit, breathe, you know, intentionality. And I asked this question, honestly, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I said, what if the Lord responds to me? She said, set those thoughts aside. Right. So if the Lord speaks to you, ignore him. Right. So that, and they claim that's a relationship. So what would happen if I came to you and I said, Oh, I love you. Love you. Love you. And your response is? I got laundry to do. No, right. Or if you said, I love you. Oh, yeah, of course. Say, say, right. No, right. Careful. That's getting a little personal. I love you. Yes. I love you too. Love. I love you too. Love. Dan, I said, I love you too. Love. Is there something wrong with you?  You're going to call the ambulance, right?  It's not personal. The non-Christianese is obsessed with controlling and managing thoughts. To get to this contemplative state is the claim. But right now in our community, we're studying through the writings of St. Teresa of Avila in a particular, we're in chapter 12, where she speaks against centering prayer. She doesn't call it that because that's a popular terminology. But she says, for instance, that we should never try to control our thoughts or simplify our thoughts even. She says you should fill your hearts and your thoughts, your heart and mind with Jesus, with thoughts of God. And if he decides to suspend your faculties or draw you to contemplation, that's his business and he does it when he desires. We cannot manufacture it, which is what centering prayer claims to be able to do. So she says, the intellect ceases to work because God's suspendance, taking it upon ourselves, and I'm quoting from page 121 and published by Institute of Carmelite Studies, the book of her life, chapter 12, taking it upon one self to stop and suspend thought is what I mean should not be done, nor should we cease to work with the intellect. Because otherwise, she goes on, when the Lord suspends the intellect and causes it to stop, he himself gives it that which holds its attention and makes it marvel. But she said it is prideful and not humble and destructive in this chapter to attempt to manage thoughts in a way that simplifies them. So Christian prayer, it's very contrary to what centering prayer teaches, is about filling the heart and mind with the beloved, filling, not emptying, filling. Now, when God decides to suspend, that's up to him. So what does that mean? And authentic relationship is like this. I love you. I adore you above every living creature. You're the best thing that's happened to me in my life. I want to be a better man because of you. I want to give my, I want to, you know, all of this is really true. In order to do that, I have to learn of you. I have to watch you. I have to see what you like, what you don't like. I have to see, I have to learn your love language and love you in the way that you desire love. I have to know what is meaningful to you and the way you speak. And I want to also avoid offending you. And I want to be gentle and kind and all of those things. And you also have to listen to me. I have to listen to you. Right. Right. Exactly. Right.  Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, at its essence is what it does is it causes like this non-relationship, right? Like the Lord is like the Lord is some nebulous cloud floating around. And we want to enter into that nebulous cloud rather than meeting the God of love and meeting him in the person of Christ and receiving him in the person of the Holy Spirit, which is so extraordinarily beautiful and it's heartbreaking that people see this as a method that's going to help them reach holiness. It's deception. Yeah. That's bottom line. The best book written about it is by Connie Rossini is Centering for a Catholic. And you can find that book at contemplativehomeschool.com in her shop area. And she's written up a few other really good books. And she's totally faithful to the Magisterium. The forward in the book is by Dr. Anthony Lois. This is one of the best spiritual theologians of our time, if not the best. So back to what the method does and what real prayer is. Real prayer is sitting and absorbing yourself in the other and the doctor of the church on this and John of the Cross say it's to come to know Jesus and to love him and to fill your heart and mind with Jesus that you might fall in love with him and emulate him. That is the fundamental purpose of prayer. And peace comes because of proximity to God, not as an end, but as a product or a result from being with the one you love. Yeah. And I mean, the ideal way, if we've never prayed before or if we've gotten ourselves caught up in this and we've realized that we've been focusing on a mantra and a word and that we really don't know the Lord because we're not changing in virtue, we're not getting better. And by the way, ask the person closest to you if you're better than you were a year before and you're going to get an eye-opening answer if you're not following Jesus himself. So we can draw near to know him in the scriptures. He is the living word. I was just discussing meditation with someone and that's the best way to know him. You know, in the style of Lectio Divina, to slowly read the scripture, to fill my heart and mind with his word, with the way he talks and speaks and what he says to his people because he's speaking to us in the word. That's how we know him. And then we allow that word to ruminate in us and to draw our hearts and minds to him. And then during that time, if he breaks through, say hello. Say, I love you back. Just let him be with you. Cry if he draws you to tears. Rejoice and praise him if he draws you to rejoice and praise. And of course, in your book, Into the Deep, you teach about discovery prayer, which is the similar thing of how to meditate on the word and get to know the Lord. Amen. For those who are enjoying this time and watching this live stream, if you want to keep going with us, we're going to do another show on spiritualdirection.com, out on Facebook. We'll be out there shortly. We'll also answer some questions after the show is over. But yeah, you said something a minute ago, and I'm going to go a little bit over just so you can edit these things out. You said something a minute ago that it's this nebulous thing. And the reason is, is because it's a pantheistic form of prayer, which means that... Centering prayer is a pantheistic. Yeah. It's the goal is to draw you to a state where there is no other, meaning you become the divine or you recognize your you are the divine. And there's no distinction between creature and creator, which is always true with theistic Christianity and Judaism. So if you want to learn more, purchase is centering prayer Catholic. We also give free courses out on apostoleva.org on prayer. And of course, Abba Institute, I teach a beautiful course called Foundations of Prayer and Union with God. Awesome. So great resources. And with that, our time is up. Okay. So until next time, may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you whole and entire spirit, soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. If you want to hang out with us for a minute, do you want to do some live questions here, Jordan, before we get off? I thought we were going to... Are we doing another show? Yeah, we're going to do another show. Yeah. I just want to make sure if anyone, we didn't offer, but okay. All right. So we'll pop over to spiritualdirection.com on Facebook.