The Welcoming Prayer

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
healing action and grace within. Amen.

These are the steps of the prayer practice:

1)  Feel and sink into whatever you are experiencing in your body.  Notice the sensation in your body of the emotion or state of being. Where is it? What does it feel like? Is it moving around? Are you tensing parts of your body or breathing differently than usual? Is it a familiar sensation? Try to be fully present to this sensation rather than pushing it away. You don’t need to analyze, explain, or even name the sensation, just notice it.

2)  Welcome – Welcome whatever you are experiencing.  Accept that your feelings are there and that you can just be the way you are without trying to change. One important distinction: You are only welcoming the physical or psychological content of the moment; you are not welcoming an external situation. For example, you wouldn’t say, “Welcome, cancer,” but rather, you would welcome what you are feeling because you have cancer, so you might say, “Welcome, fear.”

3)  Let Go – When you are ready, say, “I let go of my desire for security, affection, and control and embrace this moment as it is.”

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Both Mary Mrozowski and Father Thomas Keating are given credit for creating The Welcoming Prayer.

Mary Mrozowski (1925–1993), was a spiritual teacher, mystic, and founding member of Contemplative Outreach. She based the prayer on her personal experience of surrender as essential to transformation and the teachings of Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751) and Fr. Thomas Keating (1923–2018).

Father Keating was an American Catholic monk and priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (also known as Trappists). Keating was known as one of the principal developers of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts