Not many teachers
When I was younger I hankered after being a theologian - although that was never going to happen! For a long time I took an academic approach to most things which included trying to know lots and lots about a subject. I never achieved that either, of course.
It's really only in the last few years I've finally realised that my job is simply to know enough. When it comes to prayer what matters is the practice, not the theory. I could be an expert concerning the text and commentary on The Cloud of Unknowing or the Desert Fathers, for instance, but that wouldn't, in itself, mean I was necessarily learning from those sources about my practice of prayer.
Jesus reminds us that we only have one teacher - himself! (Matt 22.16) So whilst it's good to read and gain knowledge, what we need to move towards is to understand and, finally, to grow in wisdom. That doesn't need a large library, but a large heart! I say that having spend the last couple of days putting up more bookshelves in my study. But they are for books I already have and which I return to!
With God's grace we can move from information to knowledge, from knowledge to understanding, and from understanding to wisdom.
I'm interested in may aspects of "spirituality", or as the Book of Common Prayer calls it, "ghostly counsel". But once I start seeing it as an academic exercise then I've miss the point. All that matters is that what I learn encourages me to pray, gives me helpful advice about prayer and helps keep me focussed and centred on God.
So I've take a few teachers only - such as The Cloud of Unknowing, Mother Julian, and Evagrius Ponticus. Then as a background to those three the Eastern theologians of the first Millennium, medievals like Guigo II and from the 16th century St Teresa of Avila and on to some more modern folk like Thomas Merton and Richard Rohr. I certainly read much more widely than that but in the end it comes down to what helps me sit down, shut up, empty my head and heart and let God be God.
The "Teaching & Learning" for 21st Jan 2026 Online Contemplative Worship I look at some quotes from The Book of Privy Counselling, which was written by the same author as The Cloud of Unknowing. We can see what we today call Centring Prayer deeply rooted in this anonymous writer's heart. Here's one:
"...see that nothing remains in your active consciousness but a naked purpose reaching out to God, not cloaked in any specific thought of God in himself, what he is in his own nature or in any of his works. but only that he is as he is. Let him be so, I pray you, and do not make him anything else; pry no further into him with intellectual cleverness. Let that belief be your foundation."
And this week (28th Jan) some "chapters" from Evagrius Ponticus, 4th century "Desert Father". ("Chapters" are what we would call paragraphs, or just sentences) These are from his 153 Chapters on Prayer.
Evagrius wrote these for someone who had asked for his help. In the introduction he said, "For myself, I cannot deny that although I have worked hard all night I have caught nothing. Yet at your suggestion I have again let down the nets, and I have made a large catch. They are not big fish, but there are a hundred and fifty-three of them (cf. John 21:11). These, as you requested, I am sending you in a creel of love, in the form of a hundred and fifty-three texts.
45. When you pray, keep close watch on your memory, so that it does not distract you with recollections of your past. But make yourself aware that you are standing before God. For by nature the intellect is apt to be carried away by memories during prayer.
46. While you are praying, the memory brings before you fantasies either of past things, or of recent concerns, or of the face of someone who has irritated you.
60. He who prays in spirit and in truth is no longer dependent on created things when honouring the Creator, but praises Him for and in Himself.
61. If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.
83. Psalmody calms the passions and curbs the uncontrolled impulses in the body: and prayer enables the intellect to activate its own energy.
115. Do not long to have a sensory image of angels or powers or Christ, for this would be madness: it would be to take a wolf as your shepherd and to worship your enemies, the demons.
116. Self-esteem is the start of illusions in the intellect. Under its impulse, the intellect attempts to enclose the Deity in shapes and forms.
So Centring Prayer is rooted deep in the early church. The problems we have in letting go of our thinking and imagination are exactly those that the Desert monks had 1600 years ago!
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