Thomas Merton: The Contemplative as Activist

Lawrence S. Cunningham, O'Brien Chair of Theology Emeritus, speaks on Thomas Merton as part of the 2015 Saturdays with the Saints lecture series.
#Catholic #CatholicSaints #Theology #Liturgy #CatholicEducation #NotreDame

[@wilfredobenitez3780]

What an amazing excursion into the thought and spirituality of Thomas Merton, who speaks to so many of us today even beyond the boundaries of Roman Catholicism. Merton is a companion to anyone on the mystical journey. I'm one Episcopal priest who has found in Merton a teacher of the highest order!

[@kbeetles]

Excellent talk, thank you!

[@kevint2878]

For a modern-day lay person in the Catholic church, starved for something other than prayer groups and bible study led by pre-Vatican II ancients who have never questioned faith, father, nor flag, this presentation and others like it have been invaluable.

[@cherylmburton5577]

Bishop Sheen was asked a question about Jonah from someone in the audience, and he replied that he could not answer, and the person would have to ask Jonah himself when he got to heaven. The man replied: what if Jonah was not in heaven when he got there?, and Bishop Sheen answered: Well then, you will not be in heaven.

[@greggvillanueva1291]

This lectures were done prior to the 50th anniversary of Merton's assassination. So the topics discussed were somewhat lacking depth and gravity. Thomas Merton is a poet who has a very deep sense of justice and love for the poor. The spiritual struggle of Thomas is similar to John of the Cross who grave suffered persecution for his zealous activism for reform and renewal within the church. Only, they belong to different time zone. Both monastic activists feel the burden or burgeoning of 2000 year tradition with all its continuities and discontinuities, fealty and farcicality, assent and dissent, purity and perversion, promise and pretentions, etc. Merton was unaware of the spiritual worldly power that he had unsettled by reading and contemplating the early prophets and their struggle against fatalism. Merton's life is hidden to himself and to the world in God. Until now, the same powers who did him in are actively obscuring and obfuscating his legacy and memory by misappropriating and mystifying his critical and urgent message. We must not cease to cry for justice and truth to uncover the real event in that fateful December 10, 1968 in Thailand. Knowing the sinister circumstances of his murder provides us with a sense of depth and illumination in reading or appropriating his spirituality and humanity. We owe it to Thomas Merton and to all serious seekers of salvation.

[@cherylmburton5577]

Is this why Fr Keating was allowed to continue with well intentioned but very erring prayer teachings? So that it would make Thomas Merton look discreditable? Many people are not aware of the Satanic Activities that took over in the area of Spencer, Massachusetts where Fr Keating was based at St Joseph's Abbey. The area became overrun from the 70s on with every wacked out cult group who had money to live there. In Gill, Ma.next door was an exclusive horse training facility where Saudi Arabian Sheiks actually flew their million dollar horses there to be raised. Previous to then the area was poor such as Shelburne Falls, and North Adams were mill towns that lost their population when all the mills closed. North Adams lost 20,000 mostly young people from the late 60s by 1980. Then in the 90s they converted the mills and attracted every wannabe artist from all over the world with money to live there, and they made expensive housing for students from Williamstown to live there. The Williams College is second only to Harvard in tuition fees. Many groups from it have openly boasted about using the mentally ill experimentally, and there was no concern for them by the Religious people in the area. As a matter of fact they even supported it, and a few people might even say that they can see that people like Fr Keating were overtaken by the Satanic forces involved in it, and they did not even know it themselves. The end result today being of course, that Thomas Merton has become the whipping person to blame for anything and everything undesirable in every aspect of life today.