William Austin Meninger, O.C.S.O. (August 29, 1932 – February 14, 2021[1]) was an American Trappistmonk and priest who was a spiritual teacher and a principal developer of Centering Prayer, a method of contemplative prayer.[2]
During this time, Meninger came across a work by an Englishhermit of the 14th century, called the Cloud of Unknowing. It was written to help people living regular lives in the world develop and deepen their prayer lives. Meninger found that it taught contemplative prayer in a simple way available to anyone. He began to teach this method to the younger monks of the abbey and to the retreatants who had come to it for a period of spiritual reflection.[4]
In 1974 Meninger developed the workshop on Contemplative Meditation (later known as Centering Prayer) which he taught worldwide along with workshops on forgiveness, the Enneagram of Personality, sacred scriptures, and prayer. His method was further developed and promoted by two other monks of his abbey, Thomas Keating (his abbot at the time) and Basil Pennington.[4]