CORPUS CHRISTI CHAPTER of the INTERNATIONAL THOMAS MERTON SOCIETY
Annual Thomas Merton Retreat
in Commemoration of Merton’s Baptism on November 16, 1938, at Corpus Christi Church
—Portrait of Thomas Merton by James Nally
A journey faith:
Walking with Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, & other Companions along the way
Saturday, November 16th,
1:00–4:00 P.M.
in Corpus Christi Church
Pope Francis has distinguished between what he calls a “laboratory faith” and a “journey faith.” The first can appear like a “compendium of abstract truths,” while in a journey faith we find God along the way, which “means going, walking, doing, searching, seeing. . . . We must enter into the adventure of the quest for meeting God; we must let God search and encounter us. . . . God is encountered walking along the path.”
Thomas Merton exemplifies this kind of Journey Faith. The consummate “spiritual explorer,” he spent his life in a constant effort to go deeper into the heart of his vocation. This insight can be found in the lives of his contemporaries, including his friend Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, who used the metaphor of “pilgrimage” to describe her life; and Henri Nouwen, who drew inspiration from Merton's writings, and whose life was largely spent in a restless search for his true vocation–to encounter God “along the path.”
ROBERT ELLSBERG is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Orbis Books, where he has published many books on Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Teilhard de Chardin, and many others. In the late seventies he served as managing editor of The Catholic Worker and has since edited six volumes of writings by Dorothy Day. He has written many award-winning books on saints, including All Saints, A Living Gospel: Reading God’s Story in Holy Lives, and Blessed Among Us. His most recent book (with Sister Wendy Beckett) is Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship.
CORPUS CHRISTI CHURCH
529 West 121st Street (just east of Broadway)
Subway: No. 1 train to 116th St.-Columbia University Bus: M4, M11, M104
