I was saddened when I read about the recent death of the Trappist monk, Thomas Keating. Keating lived to the age of 95, so death at that age can hardly be called tragic. Keating is best known for discovering and giving the world what is called Centering Prayer. Centering prayer was not really a new thing---not a new way of praying. Instead Keating mined the early Christian literature and tradition---especially the mystical and contemplative aspects. He called what they were doing centering prayer. And his contemporary world was ready for the message.
I never met Keating. I wish I had met him. I would have enjoyed getting a sense for the person he was. Obviously when you read someone’s books, you have some idea of how they think and talk. But you don’t get a feel for the person. You can’t look them in the eyes. Often when you here a person’s voice, the words in their books take on a whole new meaning. That is what I missed when I was never able to meet the man, Thomas Keating.
However, when someone dies, the obituary gives some information about the person. Reading this and some articles about Keating has given me much more information than previously I had. I find it interesting and would like to share some of that. It underscores how interesting a person’s spiritual journey can be. I never thought much about who Keating was and how he came to be the man and monk he was. Now that I know this, I lament even more that I never met him.
I enjoyed reading the article about Keating by Dan Morris-Young. Young calls Keating “the pioneer of centering prayer.” Keating died in Spencer, MA at the Trappist monastery, St. Joseph’s Abby, where he had been abbot 1961-81. To put this in context, Keating was abbot when Thomas Merton was flourishing in the 1960s before his tragic death in 1968. Merton also was a Trappist, so they would have known each other. After his stint at St. Joseph, Keating moved back to the small Trappist monastery at Snowmass, CO, which he had helped get started in 1958. It was during this time after 1981 I became aware of him and his writings.
Keating was born in 1923 in New York City to two prominent maritime attorneys. He headed to college at Yale in 1940, just prior to WW II. His family was not very religious, but Keating was drawn to religion. In his own words he put it this way. "At 5, I had a serious illness. I heard adults in the next room wondering whether I'd live. I took this very seriously, and at my first Mass bargained with God: 'If you'll let me live to 21, I'll become a priest.' After that, I'd skip out early in the morning before school and go to Mass. I knew my parents wouldn't approve, so I never told them." When I read something like this, I wish even more that I had met him.
His interest in religion became more pronounced in his first year at Yale, so he transferred to Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York. He graduated in 1943. During this time, a spiritual director took him and some others to visit the Trappist monastery in Rhode Island. Within a year Keating entered this monastery. His monastic pilgrimage had begun. He was ordained a priest in 1949 to the chagrin of his family. This caused a painful dissociation from his former friends and family.
Keating described this rift in touching ways. "I broke communication with everyone I knew ... and prayed for my family daily. I felt the more austere the life, the sooner I would achieve the contemplative life I sought. I spent the next five to six years observing almost total silence. I couldn't leave. My only communication was with two abbots, neither of whom could give you any friendship or equality." This kind of experience is foreign to my own, so I can only read these words and imagine what that would have been like.
Keating’s work was the result of Vatican II. It changed the way the Catholic Church viewed non-Catholics and even non-Christians. In a sense Vatican II provided a whole new thrust and audience for Keating. He was keenly aware that the 1960s had changed not only the Catholic Church, but had begun to change the way the world looked at religion. Doubtlessly, it was the 1960s that spawned an early version of the “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual” movement that we hear so much about today.
Keating was also aware of how many people---especially younger people---were turning to the East for much of their spiritual development. His focus on centering prayer and contemplative living was an attempt to show that a similar spirituality was at the heart of Christianity. This was what attracted me to his writings. When I read Keating, it seemed so compatible with Quaker spirituality. His language was a little different, but the gist was resonant.
I value these words from a late documentary about Keating. His words are fresh and inspiring. He says, "The gift of God is absolutely gratuitous…It's not something you earn. It's something that's there. It's something you just have to accept. This is the gift that has been given. There's no place to go to get it. There's no place you can go to avoid it. It just is. It's part of our very existence. And so the purpose of all the great religions is to bring us into this relationship with reality that is so intimate that no words can possibly describe it."
Thank you Thomas Keating. Rest in peace.
I never met Keating. I wish I had met him. I would have enjoyed getting a sense for the person he was. Obviously when you read someone’s books, you have some idea of how they think and talk. But you don’t get a feel for the person. You can’t look them in the eyes. Often when you here a person’s voice, the words in their books take on a whole new meaning. That is what I missed when I was never able to meet the man, Thomas Keating.
However, when someone dies, the obituary gives some information about the person. Reading this and some articles about Keating has given me much more information than previously I had. I find it interesting and would like to share some of that. It underscores how interesting a person’s spiritual journey can be. I never thought much about who Keating was and how he came to be the man and monk he was. Now that I know this, I lament even more that I never met him.
I enjoyed reading the article about Keating by Dan Morris-Young. Young calls Keating “the pioneer of centering prayer.” Keating died in Spencer, MA at the Trappist monastery, St. Joseph’s Abby, where he had been abbot 1961-81. To put this in context, Keating was abbot when Thomas Merton was flourishing in the 1960s before his tragic death in 1968. Merton also was a Trappist, so they would have known each other. After his stint at St. Joseph, Keating moved back to the small Trappist monastery at Snowmass, CO, which he had helped get started in 1958. It was during this time after 1981 I became aware of him and his writings.
Keating was born in 1923 in New York City to two prominent maritime attorneys. He headed to college at Yale in 1940, just prior to WW II. His family was not very religious, but Keating was drawn to religion. In his own words he put it this way. "At 5, I had a serious illness. I heard adults in the next room wondering whether I'd live. I took this very seriously, and at my first Mass bargained with God: 'If you'll let me live to 21, I'll become a priest.' After that, I'd skip out early in the morning before school and go to Mass. I knew my parents wouldn't approve, so I never told them." When I read something like this, I wish even more that I had met him.
His interest in religion became more pronounced in his first year at Yale, so he transferred to Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York. He graduated in 1943. During this time, a spiritual director took him and some others to visit the Trappist monastery in Rhode Island. Within a year Keating entered this monastery. His monastic pilgrimage had begun. He was ordained a priest in 1949 to the chagrin of his family. This caused a painful dissociation from his former friends and family.
Keating described this rift in touching ways. "I broke communication with everyone I knew ... and prayed for my family daily. I felt the more austere the life, the sooner I would achieve the contemplative life I sought. I spent the next five to six years observing almost total silence. I couldn't leave. My only communication was with two abbots, neither of whom could give you any friendship or equality." This kind of experience is foreign to my own, so I can only read these words and imagine what that would have been like.
Keating’s work was the result of Vatican II. It changed the way the Catholic Church viewed non-Catholics and even non-Christians. In a sense Vatican II provided a whole new thrust and audience for Keating. He was keenly aware that the 1960s had changed not only the Catholic Church, but had begun to change the way the world looked at religion. Doubtlessly, it was the 1960s that spawned an early version of the “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual” movement that we hear so much about today.
Keating was also aware of how many people---especially younger people---were turning to the East for much of their spiritual development. His focus on centering prayer and contemplative living was an attempt to show that a similar spirituality was at the heart of Christianity. This was what attracted me to his writings. When I read Keating, it seemed so compatible with Quaker spirituality. His language was a little different, but the gist was resonant.
I value these words from a late documentary about Keating. His words are fresh and inspiring. He says, "The gift of God is absolutely gratuitous…It's not something you earn. It's something that's there. It's something you just have to accept. This is the gift that has been given. There's no place to go to get it. There's no place you can go to avoid it. It just is. It's part of our very existence. And so the purpose of all the great religions is to bring us into this relationship with reality that is so intimate that no words can possibly describe it."
Thank you Thomas Keating. Rest in peace.
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