Father Thomas Keating Biography

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"The modern world lies under a pervasive sense of anguish, of being abandoned, or at least experiencing God as absent. Yet events that seem to turn our lives upside down and inside out are part of God's redemptive plan, not only for us, but for the world in which we live. God may be preparing a great awakening for the world, if God can find enough people to cooperate in this mysterious plan."

Father Thomas Keating, an author, teacher and monk is a founding member of the Spirituality branch of Integral Institute, who has worked for many years to foster understanding among the world's religions. A member of the Cistercian Order in the Benedictine tradition, Father Keating has served at monasteries in Colorado and Massachusetts. At the age of eighty-one, he continues to be a prominent voice in the Christian Centering Prayer movement through the organization he founded, Contemplative Outreach, an international network committed to renewing the contemplative dimension of the Gospel in daily life.

Keating, born in New York in 1923, entered the Cistercian Order in Valley Falls, Rhode Island in 1944 and was appointed Superior of St. Benedict's Monastery of Snowmass, Colorado in 1958. Three years later he became Abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey of Spencer, Massachusetts, before retiring to Snowmass—a small mountain community of just over a dozen monks—in 1981. Now he directs retreats in the practice of Centering Prayer, a cornerstone of contemporary Christian contemplative practice throughout the world. He is the author of many books, including Open Mind, Open Heart; The Mystery of Christ; Invitation to Love; and Intimacy with God.

For further information on Centering Prayer www.thecentering.org

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