Centering Prayer at St. Mary’s Sewanee
Rest your body and spirit and listen for the voice of God in the deeper stillness beneath the rush of daily life.
When Your Soul Needs Room to Breathe
The pace of ordinary life can leave you carrying more than you realize. Your body feels tired, tense, or restless; your mind crowded by responsibilities and noise; your heart distant from the quiet presence of God. Even faithful people can become spiritually weary and long for a place where they can simply be.
Centering Prayer offers a way back through sacred silence, gentle rhythm, and attentiveness to God’s presence.
Centering Prayer is a contemplative Christian practice that invites you to open yourself to God beyond words, thoughts, and distractions. Rather than filling the silence, you learn to rest in it, entering deep fellowship with God through what Thomas Keating called “God’s first language.”
Over several days, the repeated rhythm of prayerful silence can help the body settle, the mind quiet, and the spirit listen more deeply. While each retreat may vary, Centering Prayer at St. Mary’s Sewanee usually includes prayer sits, meditation, spacious time for rest, nourishing meals, the natural beauty of the bluff, and a community held together by sacred silence.
Centering Prayer is the Restful Silence You’re Looking For
This retreat is for anyone who feels spiritually weary, distracted, or in need of quiet. It may also be meaningful for clergy, spiritual directors, and ministry leaders seeking refreshment, as well as those drawn to the contemplative tradition, or anyone with a desire to go deeper with God through silence.
This experience is open to everyone, whether you are new to Centering Prayer or have practiced for many years. Come as you are and bring your weary soul to rest, renew, and reconnect.
The Susan Packard Centering Prayer Scholarship Fund
The Susan Packard Centering Prayer Scholarship Fund was born from a spirit of generosity and continuity. When Contemplative Outreach of Middle Tennessee (COMT) dissolved its chapter, Dr. Robbie Pinter — who served as both COMT's director and a St. Mary's Sewanee board member — facilitated the transfer of its remaining funds to St. Mary's Sewanee as the seed for a new scholarship fund.
In May 2025, the fund was named in honor of Susan Packard upon her retirement from the board, recognizing her years of service, her deep passion for contemplative practice, and her enduring commitment to making Centering Prayer accessible to all. Susan's legacy was further expressed in a generous personal gift of $5,000 to the fund that bears her name.
Supported by COMT's founding gift, board member contributions, and donors like Susan, the scholarship fund has grown into a meaningful expression of our mission. In 2024 and 2025, we awarded 15 scholarships. By the first quarter of 2026 alone, we had already awarded that many again.
Scholarships are available to those attending a Centering Prayer retreat for the first time, as well as those wishing to deepen an existing practice when personal circumstances make participation financially difficult. No one should be turned away from the threshold of contemplative prayer for lack of resources.
Help Keep Centering Prayer Available to Those Who Need It
If Centering Prayer has shaped your life, or if you believe in the healing power of sacred silence, we invite you to help make this retreat experience possible for others. Your gift helps provide scholarships so that more people, especially those carrying weariness or spiritual hunger, can step away from the noise and enter the quiet grace of God’s presence at St. Mary’s Sewanee.