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.