By Anne Ayoub

The St. George’s Episcopal Church in the Villages, Florida has begun a Centering Prayer group due to the persistence of Lelia Mullis, who had been practicing Centering Prayer for 12 years.

When Father John Kelly came to St George’s in the fall of 2014, Lelia approached him concerning starting a group. She was pleasantly surprised to find that Father had facilitated a group in his last parish in New York and was very excited about starting a group. With her 12 years of Centering Prayer experience, Lelia agreed to help with setting up the environment, establishing communications, and doing the detail work.

Fr. Kelly contacted Kathy Kotas, who put him in touch with Gus Galloway, who has been a Centering Prayer facilitator and a spiritual director for many years. Gus had just established a connection with COCFL and on Jan 30-31, 2015 he conducted the introductory workshop. He met with the group for six weeks to teach the basics.

Our group, consisting initially of 30 members, has now 15 steady members. We meet on Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. at St. George’s Episcopal Church in the Villages. Father John Kelly is our facilitator and Don Lozier, a parishioner at St. George’s, is our co-facilitator.

We are an ecumenical group that includes Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Church of God members. We are developing a great sense of caring and belonging in our group and are looking forward to growing spiritually. We are also looking forward to serving as a hub church for events sponsored by COCFL.