Tuesdays With Merton
A webinar series presented by the International Thomas Merton Society and the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union on the second Tuesday of each month. Free and open to the public. Registration required.
Recordings of the webinars will be available on the Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel within a few days of their broadcast: Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel. Audio-only versions also will be available later via podcast.
If you're enjoying these free webinars why not consider supporting the work of the ITMS by becoming a member or making a donation.
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Christopher Pramuk - What Does God's Gender Have to Do with It? Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine REGISTER HERE
November 10, 2020, 8 pm ET. -
Jonathan Montaldo - Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Exercises for Entering the School of Our Lives
December 8, 2020, 8 pm ET. -
Jim Finley - Topic: TBA
January 12, 2021, 8 pm ET. -
Christine M. Bochen - Created for Joy: Becoming Who We Are, Together
February 9, 2021, 8 pm ET.
Previous Tuesdays with Merton Webinars:
For Further Details go to: TWM - Archive
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Daniel P. Horan, OFM - Thomas Merton and Black Lives Matter: Spirituality and Racial Justice for Our Time
September 8, 2020, 8 pm ET. Available to view at: Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel
Also available as a podcast: Tuesdays with Merton at Apple Podcasts -
Bonnie Thurston - “...almost as if I had a sister”: Thomas Merton & Etta Gullick
October 13, 2020, 8 pm ET. Available to view at: Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel
What Does God's Gender Have to Do with It?
Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine
November 10, 2020, 8 PM ET
Through image, word, and poetry, this presentation explores Merton's encounter with the biblical Wisdom tradition, the prophetic remembrance of God in a feminine key. How and why should the remembrance of God as Wisdom-Sophia shape our grasp of, and response to, the crises of our times?
Christopher Pramuk is the author of Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton, and At Play in Creation: Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine. He holds the University Chair of Ignatian Thought and Imagination at Regis University in Denver, and currently serves as the Vice President of the International Thomas Merton Society.
Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Exercises for
Entering the School of Our Lives
December 8, 2020, 8 PM ET
The volume Monastic Observances includes Merton's notes for teaching prayer. He inspired his novices to apprehend their lives as "schools of wisdom". He mentored a contemplative re-translation of their historical and inner experiences as exercises designing their truest selves. Merton's writing contains his own spiritual exercises for his continuing education in the school of a Divine Providence. Exercises in his journals can mentor re-translations of our own lives, producing conscious epiphanies of the graced interdependence of "all things" that continually conspire to propel our loving the world of our relationships that create our "one, wild and precious" lives (Mary Oliver).
Jonathan Montaldo
served as director of the Thomas Merton Center and as president
of the ITMS. As associate director for the Merton Institute for
Contemplative Living, he directed its retreat center Bethany
Spring. He co-created Bridges to Contemplative Living with
Thomas Merton and co-edited
The Intimate Merton. Other renditions of Merton’s
writing include
A Year with Thomas Merton,
Dialogues with Silence, and
Choosing to Love the World. He narrated five Merton
audiobooks. A co-general editor for Fons Vitae’s Thomas Merton &
series, he presents retreats based upon Merton’s legacy for
mentoring our spiritual formations.
Topic: TBA
January 12, 2021, 8 PM ET
James Finley is a contemplative practitioner and clinical psychologist who helps seekers who desire to live a contemplative, whole life. Drawing from his experience as a former monk and spiritual directee of Thomas Merton, Jim offers trustworthy guidance for the spiritual journey through his website, online courses, occasional retreats, and the Center for Action and Contemplation where he serves as a core faculty member with Cynthia Bourgeault and Richard Rohr. Jim is the author of several books, including Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, The Contemplative Heart, and Christian Meditation.
Created for Joy: Becoming Who We Are, Together
February 9, 2021, 8 PM ET
During these turbulent, uncertain times of pandemics – corona virus, racism, unbridled individualism – and, thankfully, of moral reckoning, Thomas Merton offers a welcome and much needed message of hope. He reminds us that we are “created for JOY.” In this presentation, we will consider how Merton experienced and envisioned joy, particularly the joy of being human and the joy of friendship. For Merton, joy is both promise and vocation. How, then inspired by Merton, might we learn to delight in the “immense joy” of being human and “together . . . travel our own road to joy”?
Christine M. Bochen, professor emerita of religious studies at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York and a founding member and past president of the International Thomas Merton Society, has taught courses, given retreats, and spoken on Merton in a variety of venues in the United States, Canada, and abroad. Christine is co-author, with William H. Shannon and Patrick F. O’Connell, of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia; editor of Courage for Truth, Learning to Love, and Thomas Merton: Essential Writings; and co-editor, with William H. Shannon, of Cold War Letters and Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters.