| Centering Prayer | Examination of Conscience | Lectio Divina |
| Meditation | Taize Prayer |

Centering Prayer
Centering Prayer is a method of "unknowing" prayer. Unknowing because it is a place where we come to meet with God in Silence. All thoughts and images leave making it possible to meet with God as God is. Centering Prayer is an ancient Christian tradition. Centering Prayer is becoming well known and is being practiced throughout the world. Silence is God's original language. Centering Prayer takes us to this place of silence where we learn it's language.

The Guidelines for Centering Prayer:

1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's presence and action within.
2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly, and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God's presence and action within.
3. When you become aware of thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.

Centering Prayer is often practiced for 20 minutes twice a day , usually in the morning and again in the evening or at the end of the day.

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Examination of Conscience
Examination of Conscience is a prayer style popularized by St. Ignatius Loyola. It is designed to help us to recognize God's movement in our daily life, and where we succeeded and failed to live our Christian calling. It brings us in to healthy relationship with God, by following these simple steps essential to any healthy relationship:

1. Thank you - Reflect upon your day and offer thanks for the blessings that God has offered to you this day. It could be a major event, it could be a friendly smile from a friend, whatever strikes you.

2. I love you - Let God know of your love and appreciation of Him, do this in your own personal way. It could be in song, by saying I love you, or any other way you choose to express yourself to God

3. Forgive me - Acknowledge where you failed to live up to God's standards. Do this not in a spirit of condemning yourself, but rather as a method to acknowledge that you are not perfect, and ask for God's forgiveness for the times when you may have let him down.

4. Help me - Acknowledge that you have needs, and present your needs to God. Let God know what it is you are asking him for.

5. Stay with me - Ask God to remain active in your daily life and to continue to reveal Himself to you.

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Lectio Divina
Lectio divina is ordinarily confined to the slow perusal of sacred Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments; it is undertaken not with the intention of gaining information but of using the texts as an aide to contact the living God.

There is no special program or technique to this procedure, nor is there a set length of reading that needs to be tackled. A person can linger over even a single word or phrase for an indefinite period of time. However, Lectio divina is often done in these three stages:

1. Lectio - Careful Reading, repetitious recitation of a short text of Scripture
2. Meditatio - Meditation, an effort to understand the text and make it personally relevant to yourself in Christ
3. Oratio - Prayer, taken as a personal response to the text, asking for the grace of the text or moving over it toward union with God
4. Contemplatio - Contemplation and understanding of the text.

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Meditation
Meditation is a form of reflective, mental prayer of thinking about God. When you use meditative prayer, you can take a passage or a verse or a phrase from Scripture, or take a symbol like the cross or icon, and think it over.

First try to determine the meaning of whatever you choose to meditate on (your subject) in your own life, not in the abstract. If you are mulling over the cross, think about the cross in Christ's life and in your own life.

Secondly, don't mull it over on your own. Do it with the Lord. Talk it over with the Lord, turn it over and over to Him, and ask the Lord's help in understanding.

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Taize Prayer
A Taize prayer service consists of singing simple one or two line chants. A typical service might include chants in Latin, French, Spanish, and German. The music is intended as prayer. A chant is sung over and over again until it moves past singing and begins to take on a life of its own. It's not about singing on key and is frequently sung a cappella. The service usually includes a psalm reading, a gospel reading, a 10-20 minute period of silence, prayers of intercession, and ends with prayer around an icon of Christ on the cross. Participants who wish to, come forward to kneel and touch, kiss or pray at the icon.

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