ES – The Welcoming Prayer 2026

Bringing Consent into Everyday Life

Welcoming Prayer is a contemplative practice of consenting to God’s presence and action in the midst of everyday life. It complements Centering Prayer by helping us bring the same attitude of consent that we practice in silence into the circumstances, emotions, relationships, and challenges of daily living.

Sometimes described as “Centering Prayer on the go,” Welcoming Prayer invites us to become aware of what is happening within us—particularly our physical and emotional reactions—and to meet those experiences with openness rather than immediately resisting, suppressing, or reacting to them.

The practice helps us recognize our habitual desires for security and survival, affection and esteem, and power and control. By gently letting go of our attachment to these desires, we become increasingly available to God’s presence and to a freer, more loving response to life.

The Welcoming Prayer Practice

The practice has three simple movements:

1. Feel and sink into what you are experiencing in your body.

Become aware of the feelings, sensations, emotions, and thoughts arising within you. Rather than trying to change or analyze them, allow yourself to experience what is present.

2. Welcome what you are experiencing in this moment.

“Welcome” does not mean that we approve of everything that happens or that harmful circumstances should be accepted without appropriate action. Rather, we welcome the opportunity to consent to God’s presence and action within us in this moment.

3. Let go.

Gently let go of the desire for security, affection, and control, and deepen your consent to the present moment as it is.

Through repeated practice, Welcoming Prayer can help loosen the hold of our habitual emotional reactions and create greater interior freedom—the freedom to respond to life from a deeper place of presence, compassion, and love.

Centering Prayer and Welcoming Prayer naturally support one another.

In Centering Prayer, we practice consenting to God’s presence and action within us during periods of silence. In Welcoming Prayer, we carry that consent into the movement of ordinary life.

A difficult conversation, disappointment, fear, frustration, uncertainty, or even the small irritations of the day can become an invitation to pause, become present, and return to consent.

In this way, contemplative prayer gradually becomes not simply something we practice, but a way of living.

Origins of the Practice

Welcoming Prayer was developed by Mary Mrozowski, one of the early members of the Contemplative Outreach community, and grew out of the teachings of Fr. Thomas Keating and the Christian contemplative tradition.

The practice reflects a fundamental movement of the spiritual journey: learning to release the patterns and attachments of the false-self system and becoming increasingly available to the transforming presence and action of God within us.

Learn More

Please link to the official Contemplative Outreach Welcoming Prayer page:

https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/welcoming-prayer-method