Centering Prayer is a method of prayer which prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer. Centering Prayer consists of responding to the Spirit of Christ by consenting to God's presence and action within. It furthers the development of contemplative prayer by preparing our faculties to co-operate with this gift.
Centering Prayer facilitates a movement from more active modes of prayer: verbal, discursive or affective prayer into a receptive prayer of resting in God.

Centering Prayer is meant to enrich and complement other forms of prayer, not to exclude or replace them. Centering Prayer is at the same time a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. It is Trinitarian in its source, Christ-centred in its focus, and ecclesial in its effects; that is, it builds communities of faith and bonds the members together in charity.

Centering Prayer is drawn from ancient prayer practices of the Christian Contemplative Heritage, notably the Fathers and Mothers of the Desert, the monastic practice of Lectio Divina (praying the scriptures), the Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and St. Theresa of Avila. It was distilled into a simple method of prayer in the 1970's by three Trappist monks, Fr. William Meninger, Fr. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating at St. Joseph 's Abbey in Spencer , Massachusetts.