APOPHATIC – The exercise of pure faith; resting in God beyond concepts and particular acts, except to maintain a general loving attention to the divine presence.

​

CENTERING PRAYER – A contemporary form of prayer of the heart, prayer of simplicity, prayer of faith, prayer of simple regard; a method of reducing the obstacles of the gift of contemplative prayer and of facilitation the development of habits conducive to responding to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

 

CONTEMPLATION – A synonym for contemplative prayer.  The development of ones relationship with Christ to the point of communing beyond words, thoughts, and feelings; a process of moving from the simplified activity of waiting upon God to the ever-increasing predominance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as the source of one’s prayer.

 

DIVINE THERAPY – A paradigm in which the spiritual journey is presented as a form of psychotherapy designed to heal the emotional wounds of early childhood and our mechanisms for coping with them.

 

DIVINE UNION – A term describing either a single experience of the union of all the faculties in God, or the permanent state of union called transformation.

 

ECSTASY – The temporary suspension by the divine action of the thinking and feeling faculties including at times the external senses, which facilitates the experience of the prayer of full divine union.

​

KATAPHATIC – The exercise of the rational faculties enlightened by faith; the affective response to symbols, reflection, and the use of reason, imagination, and memory, in order to assimilate the truths of faith.

​

LECTIO DIVINA – Reading or more exactly, listening to the book we believe to be divinely inspired; the most ancient method of developing the friendship of Christ, using scripture texts as topics of conversation with Christ.

​

MEDITATION – In the Christian tradition a general term meaning either (1) continued, intent, focused thought which is from the Latin meditatio or (2) a state of quiet, intentionally unfocused, contentless awareness generally known as contemplation from the Latin contemplatio.

​

MYSTICISM – Also known as mystical prayer; a synonym for contemplation.

​

TRANFORMATION – Also known as transforming union; the stable conviction of the abiding presence of God rather than a particular experience or set of experiences; a restructuring of consciousness in which the divine reality is perceived to be present in oneself and in all that is.

​