"Short prayer pierces heaven"

The Cloud of Unknowing

Welcome

...to the website of Contemplative Outreach in Britain

We are a network of communities and individuals who want to serve all those who feel drawn to a deeper relationship with the Divine through silent prayer in everyday life. We do this by supporting the practice of Centering Prayer and associated spiritual disciplines as taught by American Cistercian monk, Father Thomas Keating, and those writers and teachers who have followed his lead.

We warmly invite you to find out about Centering Prayer through this website. We provide information about the practice and how you can learn more. We would love to share with you a practice we’ve found deeply rewarding in our spiritual lives.

What we offer

We offer daily online practice and teaching programmes that present the method of Centering Prayer. The website also mentions Lectio Divina and the Welcoming Practice. Contemplative Outreach in Britain supports Centering Prayer groups across the country and offers Quiet Days and retreats to foster the growth of a contemplative community.

We welcome contact from anyone who may be interested in experiencing Centering Prayer. You could contact the name person in your region, or use the contact page for a general enquiry.

We are affiliated to the worldwide organisation Contemplative Outreach but have no ties to any particular Christian denomination.

We welcome all who wish to share our common search for God, the Ultimate Reality.

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Fr Thomas Keating, OCSO

1923 – 2018

Thomas Keating

Fr. Thomas Keating OCSO was the founder of Contemplative Outreach and remains our primary spiritual guide through the body of written and video teaching he has left us.

Born in New York in 1923 he entered the Cistercian Order (also known as the Trappists) in 1944 and became Abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts seventeen years later. It was while there that, inspired partly by the second Vatican Council but also by the need he observed in the society around him, he instigated the formulation of Centering Prayer as a way to present the traditional practices leading to contemplative prayer in an up-to-date manner that would make the contemplative life accessible to the people of our time.

After two decades Fr. Keating retired as Abbot and returned to St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado where he started giving Centering Prayer retreats that were enthusiastically supported by lay people. He founded Contemplative Outreach in 1984 as a way to teach and support these seekers in their prayer practice. Also, he began to develop his teaching of the conceptual background to Centering Prayer which originally appeared as a series of video lectures entitled "The Spiritual Journey".

Fr. Keating's great contribution to explaining the contemplative life arose from his engagement with contemporary culture; in particular, his work makes constant reference to modern psychology. This was well received and many of his books became best-sellers. As a result he had to exchange the cloister for the departure lounge and spent many years travelling the world to teach and encourage Centering Prayer practitioners to persevere on the path to transformation in Christ, which he believed is the vocation of everyone. He visited Britain twice, in 2003 and again in 2009, to lecture and lead retreats.

From about 2012 Fr. Keating took a less active role although he continued publishing books and videos. He died at St. Joseph's Abbey in October 2018.
A more complete biography of Fr. Keating, and a comprehensive list of his publications, can be found on the US website here.