Our next meeting with Pat O’Connell 2 p.m. Sunday, May 31st

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. Pat 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.

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. Copies of The Vision of Thomas Merton will be available for $10. Admission is free to CC-ITMS members and $5 for visitors.