The modern Centering Prayer movement in Christianity can be traced to several books published by three Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s: Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating. The name was taken from Thomas Merton's description of contemplative prayer (a much older and more traditional practice) as prayer that is "centered entirely on the presence of God". In his book "Contemplative Prayer", Merton writes “Monastic prayer begins not so much with “considerations” as with a “return to the heart,” finding one's deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being”.