Merton
Reading Group - New Book!

Our
Merton Reading Group will start a new book at 7 p.m. Monday, June
29, 2009: The Vision of Thomas Merton, edited by our recent
speaker Pat O'Connell. The group meets at the Passionist
Monastery, 5700 N. Harlem, Chicago. Fr. Francis Cusack,
C.P., is the moderator. This is a great time to join the
discussion! The meeting lasts an hour and there is parking in front
of the monastery. The group meets on the last Monday of every
month. For more information contact Fr. Francis at
773-631-1686.
Wisdom
& Prophecy: the Two Poles of Thomas Merton’s Mature Spirituality
2 p.m. Sunday, 5/31/09, Immaculate Conception Rectory Assembly
The
Chicago Chapter – ITMS is proud to present Dr.
Patrick O’Connell, a founding member and former president
of the International Thomas Merton Society, who will discuss "Wisdom
& Prophecy: The Two Poles of Thomas Merton's Mature Spirituality,"
at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 31, in the Rectory Assembly of Immaculate Conception
Church, 7211 W. Talcott, Chicago. Dr. O'Connell's presentation will
focus on the creative tension between Merton's "sapiential"
or "sophianic" consciousness, which responds to the world
not as a detached observer but with an intuitive, participatory awareness
of the "hidden wholeness" of all reality, and his prophetic
attentiveness to the ruptured bonds between creation and Creator,
the alienation and isolation caused by the rejection of wisdom, the
violation of the divine image through violence, prejudice and exploitation.
It will explore how the dimensions of wisdom and prophecy complement
and interpenetrate one another in Merton's life and writings and so
make him a model for spiritual awareness in the twenty-first century.
Dr.
O’Connell is Associate Professor in the Departments of English
and Theology at Gannon University, Erie, PA. He holds doctorates in
English Literature from Yale University and in Historical Theology
from Fordham University, and he has published more than two dozen
articles on Merton's work and has spoken on Merton throughout the
United States as well as in Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. He
is coauthor, with William H. Shannon and Christine M. Bochen, of The
Thomas Merton Encyclopedia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), which received
the 2003 award for best reference work by the Catholic Press Association,
which called the volume “a comprehensive and authoritative resource
on one of the most important spiritual guides of the twentieth century.”
He was editor of a collection of essays entitled The Vision of Thomas
Merton (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2003), and is presently editing
a series of volumes of Merton’s monastic conferences for Cistercian
Publications: the first, entitled Cassian and the Fathers, appeared
in 2005, the second, Pre-Benedictine Monasticism, in 2006, the third,
An Introduction to Christian Mysticism, in 2008; the fourth, entitled
The Rule of St. Benedict, will be published in spring 2009. Since
1998 he has served as editor of The Merton Seasonal: A Quarterly Review,
published jointly by the International Thomas Merton Society and the
Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY, the major
repository of Merton’s papers.
Copies
of The Vision of Thomas Merton will be available for $10. Admission
is free to CC-ITMS members and $5 for visitors.
Speaker
Meetings are usually held on the third Sunday of the month except
in June, July and August, at 2 p.m., in the Rectory Assembly of Immaculate
Conception Church, 7211 W. Talcott, Chicago (at Harlem Ave. just north
of the Kennedy Expressway). Speaker meetings are led by the chapter
coordinator, Mike Brennan. For more information, call 773-447-3989.
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