Thomas Keating Collection (7 vols.)

The book would be an ideal resource for a liturgy committee or parish Scripture study group that might come together to reflect on the liturgical season. What Keating does in this book, ideally, is what every homilist should do also. He weaves together the Scripture proclaimed, the mystery that the liturgy celebrates, and the everyday life of the people assembled. When that weaving is done with a contemplative, sacramental imagination, the mutual presence of Christ and those gathered has the power to transform the world.

—Kathleen Hope Brown

Thomas Keating, Cistercian monk, former abbot and spiritual advisor, is the father of the Centering Prayer Movement, which during the past thirty years has attempted to recover Christian contemplative prayer from its long exile. Mysticism has been regarded with suspicion in the churches since the end of the Middle Ages, when its proponents St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, among others, described in detail the pathways of contemplative prayer. . . . I wish this book had been around when I set out on my own spiritual path. It would have saved me many alarums and excursions.

—Maggie Helass, commontheology.com

I had been intrigued by Christian meditation all of my adult life. Reading Thomas Merton got me interested in the practice of silence, but I didn’t know how to do it. When I was in seminary, meditation was occasionally encouraged, but those offering the encouragement seemed to imply that I would know how. I didn’t. It would be awhile before someone showed me how to be silent in the presence of God. That person was Thomas Keating. I was introduced to him almost twenty years ago at the end of the last Servant Leadership class I attended in DC. Gordon Cosby pointed to a stack of books and with a twinkle in his eye said, ‘If you’ll take one of those books and work with it, you will save thousands of dollars in therapy.’ The book was Open Mind, Open Heart and it changed my life.

—Sammy Williams, pastor, Northminster Church

The author has many inspiring things to say about repentance, fighting the false self, faith, silence, reverence, and the fundamental goodness of human nature.

—Spirituality & Health Magazine

The writings of Thomas Keating are one of the most profound, popular, and appropriate introductions to Christian contemplative prayer and practice today. . . . this book is a beautiful introduction to both Keating’s thinking and his methodologies. I would recommend it either to a person wanting to begin a prayer practice of to a person who wants to spend a year reflecting upon the works of Keating.

—Bulletin of Monastic Interreligious Dialogues, October 2004

Some books, like some people, can be pronounced ‘wonderful’ after only a brief encounter; more meetings simply reinforce our initial judgment. This is that sort of book, an ideal vade mecum for those who desire to retrieve the wonderfulness so often obscured by the distracting demands of our ordinary routines, the sheer dailiness of our daily lives that dulls our spiritual sensitivities. Here then is a wake-up call we need to ‘seize the day’ once again by attending to the promptings within our hearts and allowing the most gentle of companions to accompany us through it.

—George W. Hunt, SJ, former editor-in-chief, America

This book is easy and enjoyable to read. Those who are interested in ‘the better part’ will be pleased and encouraged to find ways to help themselves along the path.

—Catholic Library World

The Better Part is a modest volume in size but capacious in its wisdom and common (spiritual) sense. . . . It would be wonderful for someone to interview Keating at length and publish the results as a book. His capacity to say profound things in a relatively brief space is pure gift. The final 27 pages of Q&A are worth the price of the book. I wished only for more.

—Lawrence S. Cunningham

Any meditator using any method of wordless, imageless prayer will find this book a rich source of wisdom and very practical advice.

—Betty Fricke

The ‘better part,’ of course, is that chosen by the introspective Mary of Bethany in the New Testament story, whose experience has long been taken by the contemplative religious. Father Keating, leader of the Centering Prayer movement, understands the contemplative and prayerful life as a form of participation in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and his book is both a graceful description of that life and a how-to. For most collections.

—Library Journal

Under the influence of Christian mystics such as St. John of the Cross, Keating weaves a narrative account of spiritual development that will be of . . . interest to spiritual directors and seekers.

—Booklist