WelCom December 2018:
Trappist priest, Thomas Keating, who was a global leader in both Christian contemplative prayer and interreligious dialogue, has died aged 95. He died at St Joseph’s Abbey, Massachusetts, US, where he had been abbot from 1961 to 1981.
In the early 1980s Keating began his role as one of the chief architects of the contemporary practice of meditative prayer, which allows one to rest in the presence of God. This form of silent prayer is now known as centring prayer.
During the early 1980s, the growing popularity of centering prayer led to Keating directing retreats and workshops worldwide. That networking, in turn, sparked widening interest in organisational and educational structuring. Out of that grew Contemplative Outreach Ltd, incorporated in 1986. Keating was its first president.
Keating was internationally acclaimed for his extensive writing, lecturing and teaching on both meditative prayer and on interfaith discourse. He spearheaded the formation of the Snowmass Interreligious Conferences in late 1983. These were a yearly gathering of major figures of various religious backgrounds that ran for three decades.
Source: CathNews NZ