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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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 -
Bonnie Thurston - “...almost as if I had a sister”: Thomas Merton & Etta Gullick
October 13, 2020, 8 pm ET. REGISTER HERE -
Christopher Pramuk - What Does God's Gender Have to Do with It? Merton's Awakening to the Feminine Divine
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.
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
This presentation offers a look at the shared insights and important challenges that Merton's writings on racism and racial justice and the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement offer to contemporary women and men of good will, especially those who are white. In many ways, Merton was ahead of his time as he critically analyzed the realities of systemic racism and white privilege in America during the Civil Rights movement. His writings and legacy continue to offer us spiritual grounding for the continued fight for racial justice in our own time.
Daniel P. Horan, OFM, is the
Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in
Chicago, a columnist for National Catholic Reporter, and the
author of twelve books including
The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton (2014). He is currently
serving his fourth term on the ITMS Board of Directors and is on the
editorial board of The Merton Annual. His forthcoming books
include the tentatively titled Striving Toward Authenticity:
Engaging Thomas Merton on Race, Justice, and Spirituality (Orbis
Books) and he is editing for publication the correspondence of Thomas
Merton and Naomi Burton Stone.
“...almost as if I had a sister”: Thomas Merton & Etta
Gullick
October 13, 2020, 8 PM ET
Bonnie Thurston resigned a Chair and Professorship in New Testament to live quietly in her home state of West Virginia. She is author or editor of 22 theological works and six collections of poetry, and frequently contributes to scholarly and popular periodicals. Bonnie wrote an early doctoral dissertation on Merton and was a founding member and past president of the ITMS. She has published over 50 articles on Merton and given retreats and lectured on his ideas in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, and Europe. She edited Thomas Merton and Buddhism (2007), Hidden in the Same Mystery: Thomas Merton and Loretto (2010), and Thomas Merton on Eastern Meditation (2012) and wrote Shaped by the End You Live For: Thomas Merton’s Monastic Spirituality (2020). Her work on Merton has been translated into Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. Bonnie is an avid walker, gardener, cook, and lover of classical music.
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 to his novices. He sketched meditation as dialoguing with the “words” spoken for them in the course of singular experiences embedded in their salvation histories. He coached invoking memories and retranslating the meanings of relationships with persons indexed to their accounts of seeking God. We tease out spiritual exercises embedded in Merton’s journals that mentor us in excavating the meaning of our interior experiences of relationships as movements that assist our destinies to have loved 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.