Past Events 2016 - 2018

Memorial Solemn Mass & Reception featuring Fr. Dan Horan

Celebrating 50 years since the untimely death of our beloved Thomas when he was accidently killed in Thailand. A partial reconstruction of the 1968 funeral Mass at the Abbey of Gethsemani is planned including Cistercian chant, some medieval and some newly composed by Fr Chrysogonus Waddell, the organist at the Abbey.

DECEMBER 10, 2018

MERTON & ME: A Living Trinity

As we reflect on Merton’s life and legacy this season, can we make a commitment to more deeply reflect on our own life, and legacy. Can we allow Merton to serve as a mirror into our soul? Can we dare to confront our fears and vulnerability and ask God for a more intimate relationship with ourselves, our truest selves. It is far too easy today to avoid truth, but the greatest and even more dangerous temptation is to avoid our own truth. SEPTEMBER 22, 2018

Journey to the True Self: Merton & Jung, Annual Retreat: Day of Reflection & Jazz Liturgy

Merton and Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, have both influenced our contemporary spiritual language for the inner transformative journey. The retreat day offered guidance and reflection on the movement from the false to the True Self. Merton's entire legacy of prayer, meditation, contemplative life and social conscience can be summed up by the awakening of the True self in Christ. In this year of his 50th anniversary of his untimely death, we gathered to continue his passion for integrity for the True Self.

Jazz keyboardist Deanna Witkowski and her jazz trio provided a creative form of worship that enhanced the Retreat Day experience and our celebration of Merton’s legacy. NOVEMBER 3, 2018

A Testament of Confession & Witness:  
The Legacy of Thomas Merton’s Philosophical Life

Featuring Jonathan Montaldo, MA,  an internationally recognized writer, editor, retreat leader, and conference presenter whose work promotes the legacy of Thomas Merton and inter-spiritual contemplative traditions. Jonathan edited the second volume of Merton's journals, Entering the Silence: The Journals of Thomas Merton, 1941-1952.  The Intimate Merton: his life from his journals was edited by Brother Patrick Hart & Jonathan Montaldo. Jonathan is the former director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University.  APRIL 21, 2018

The Photographs of Thomas Merton:
I am Myself as I Exist in the World

MARCH 19, 2018 

Union is thrilled to invite you to the opening of this extraordinary exhibit. Almost 60 years to the day after Thomas Merton’s famous Louisville epiphany, his photographs will be displayed in New York City for the very first time. The images showcase the quiet, contemplative spirituality that defined Merton’s life, and which undergirded his fierce activism. Wine and hors d’ouvres will be served.

Union Theological Seminary, James Chapel
3041 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
 

Prophecy & Policy: Merton,  M.A.D.  (and us)

Marking Thomas Merton's birthday, and in observance of the anniversary year of his death in 1968, Peter Steinfels will speak concerning the moral issues society faces today. 

Peter Steinfels is an author, educator, and journalist. Former senior religion editor at The New York Times, he is now a University Professor Emeritus at Fordham University and author of A People Adrift and The Neoconservatives. He was earlier an editor at Commonweal and, in the 1970s, worked in the field of bioethics. In 2004 he and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, founded the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, which they co-directed until 2012. In 2003 they received the Laetare Medal, the University of Notre Dame’s highest award for service to Church and society.  JANUARY 27, 2018

THE 40TH ANNUAL THOMAS MERTON LECTURE
Religious Liberty & The Captive Mind:
The Writings of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz    
Few topics are more pervasive in America today than religious liberty.  The history of our nation is intrinsically linked to it, and yet 230 years after the Constitution, the hotbed issue has never felt so unresolved.  Columbia alumnus William P. Mumma of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty will offer ideas on one of our time’s most consequential subjects. This event is sponsored by Columbia University Catholic Ministry and The Hugh J. and Catherine R. Kelly Endowment. DECEMBER 11,  2017

RETREAT DAY
Living Together in Joy:  Thomas Merton’s Invitation to New Life

“I hope you and I together will secretly travel our own road to joy,” Merton wrote to thank his young friend, Grace Sisson, for a drawing she had sent him.  She had entitled it “The Road to Joy.”  Merton’s life and writings illuminate the road to joy, identifying signposts along the way and inviting us to live together in joy.

What wisdom does Merton offer us for the journey?  What does Merton have to teach us about joy?  Drawing on Merton’s life and writings, we will explore and reflect on three aspects of joy:  the joy of being human, the joy of friendship, and the joy of unity.   November 4, 2017

Thomas Merton & David Jones: Celtic Visionaries for our Time and Why we Need to Attend to them

Featuring Dr. Michael W. Higgins,  author, scholar, Vatican Affairs Specialist for The Globe and Mail, Papal Commentator for the CTV Network, educator, CBC Radio documentarian, columnist, and currently Distinguished Professor of Catholic Thought at Sacred Heart University. September 30, 2017.

The Fifteenth General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society

Event hosted by the International Thomas Merton Society, at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, New York. June 15-18,  2017

Redeeming the Rhinoceros: Thomas Merton’s Monastic Option

Featuring Paul Pearson, Ph.d., Director & Archivist of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. April 22, 2017

Tribute to Fr. Daniel Joseph Berrigan, S.J., and his Relationship to Thomas Merton

Featuring authors Rev. John Dear and Gordon Oyer. January 28th, 2017

Awakening the Heart, Mending the World: Merton’s Path to Mercy

With Christine Bochen, Ph.d., professor of Religious Studies at Nazareth College, Rochester, NY and recognized Merton scholar who has edited many of his works. October 1st, 2016

In Everything Mercy: Thomas Merton and Pope Francis on the Merciful Heart of God

Our Annual Retreat Day was led by Merton scholar and author, Dr. Christopher Pramuk, Professor of Theology and Spirituality at Xavier University. November 12th, 2016