CMH: D&G Monthly Online Healing Prayer Circle
The Dublin & Glendalough Diocesan Committee of the Church’s Ministry of Healing is offering a Healing Prayer Circle to be held through Zoom. The first Healing Prayer Circle will be at 7pm on Monday, 7th February 2022. From March onwards it will be held on the second Monday of every month.
It is an hour of prayer given in two sections with a short break between. The first section is a twenty minute session of the Welcoming Prayer and the second section is a time spent in Centering Prayer.
The Welcoming prayer reminds us of the words of St. Paul: “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Centering Prayer is based on the word of Jesus: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and you Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).
Both prayer sessions begin with a short introduction. These two ways of praying are likened to Mary and Martha at their home when Jesus comes to visit (Luke 10:38 – 42). Martha, as we all are at times, is worried and distracted by many things. The Welcoming Prayer helps us deal with our distractions and indeed can help heal the wounds of a life-time. Meanwhile Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and this is likened to sitting in Centering Prayer when we sit at the feet of Jesus. There is a five minute break between the sessions and anyone who needs to leave then can do so.
Centering Prayer
There are four very simple guidelines for Centering Prayer which are part of the introduction to the prayer. Centering Prayer is a time of sitting in shared silence. We hold the prayerful silence for one another. While the time of silence is offered as a session of Centering Prayer, everyone is free to follow their own preferred way of silent prayer or their own practice of meditation. Sitting together in silent prayer helps us find a greater depth of silence before God and supports us with our individual daily prayer. It is understood that when engaged in Centering Prayer we are praying, not only for the people we know and love, but for the whole world.
Welcoming Prayer
People are perhaps less familiar with Welcoming Prayer. This is a short description:
We are led through a body scan and given time to bring our consciousness to the body, to our relationship with our body, to our self-talk, and to whatever feelings or memories or pain is stored in the body, whatever anxiety or fears we are carrying. Often we deny or repress whatever feelings we have in order to get on with life. In the Welcoming Prayer we welcome whatever we find, whatever feelings come up for us during the prayer. We honour the truth of what is going on for us in the moment. Our body is the warehouse of every emotion we have ever felt: the container for the unresolved, repressed emotional material of a lifetime. The Welcoming Prayer addresses the wounds wherever they are stored and however they present during the prayer. The practice of this prayer brings healing and freedom. We are turning to and placing our trust in God, the Divine Therapist. This is a gentle way of transformation.
The Healing Prayer Circle will be led by Carol Casey who is very experienced in facilitating healing prayer groups. Anyone who would like an invitation to join may contact Revd Ross Styles, Chair of Dublin & Glendalough Diocesan Committee of the Church’s Ministry of Healing at stylesross@gmail.com and he will be glad to send you the Zoom link.
All are welcome.
