Gospodi Pomiluj

I've been doing readings from a book called "Mother Teresa: No Greater Love" a collection of her teachings. This is what I am gaining from Centering Prayer:

"It is difficult to pray if you don't know how to pray, be we must help
ourselves to pray. The first means to use is silence. We cannot put
ourselves directly in the presence of God if we do not practice internal and external silence. The interior silence is very difficult, but we must make the effort. In silence we will find new energy and true unity. The
energy of God will be ours to do all things well, and so will the unity of our thoughts with His thoughts, the unity of our prayers with His prayers, the unityof our actions with His actions, of our life with His life. Unity is the fruit of prayer, of humility, of love. In the slence of the heart, God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. Silence gives us a new outlook on everything. We need slience to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. In that silence, He will listen to us; he will speak to our souls, and there we will hear His voice." pg 7

I am also reading a book entitled "Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening" by Cynthia Bourgeault. Father Thomas Keating whom she describes as Centering Prayer's principal architect and spokesperson was approached by a nun during a workshop who lamented that she had failed because 10,000 thoughts had entered her mind during prayer. He responded that she had been blessed. Why, she asked perplexed. And his reponse was that she had had 10,000 opportunities to return to God.

A quote she uses at the beginning of the book from Piero Ferrucci, (Ineffable Grace, p. 254) reads:

" Prayer is not a request for God's favors. True, it has been used to obtain the satisfaction of personal desires. It has even been adopted to reinforceprejudices, justify violence, and create barriers between people and countries. But genuine prayer is based on recognizing the Origin of all that exists, and opening ourselves to it....In prayer we acknowledge God as the supreme source from which flows all strength, all goodness, all existence, acknowledging that we have our being, life itself from this supreme Power. One can then communicate with this Source, worship it, and ultimately place one's very center in it."

This is the stuff that is making sense to me as I go through the steps and begin to pracitce these principles in all my affairs. Pretty cool. I am very grateful to Alocholics Annoymouse for leading me to the beginnings of my spriritual foundation. Never thought I would get here.