Event
Thomas Merton: Contemplative Prayer and the Search for Home
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Thomas Merton: Contemplative Prayer and the Search for Home
March 27 @ 7:00 pm – March 28 @ 11:30 am CDT
$40
Fri. 7-9 p.m & Sat. 9:30-11:30 a.m.
We will explore two of Thomas Merton’s major concerns — the search for one’s true home and the kind of prayer life that can bring us closer to what he called “the secret face of God.” On these topics, Merton’s writings and his personal struggles continue to provide important guidance for us today.
We will reflect on what constitutes home: where we have found it in the past and where we experience our “true home” today. Is it a place we know or a place we hope for? Is it rooted in the past; and if so, how can we return to it or recreate it wherever we are? How did Merton come to realize his own “true home”?
In the second half, we will examine Merton’s understanding of contemplative prayer, cultivated over a quarter century of monastic life, as well as the advice he offered to those seeking a contemplative life outside the monastery. We will explore how to integrate contemplative prayer into daily living so fully that, as Merton wrote in his famous essay Day of a Stranger, “What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.”
Time will be provided for private reflection, group discussion, and creative writing.
Please register by March 25.
After receiving your registration, you will receive a confirmation email from us which will be your invoice. We never want our retreat costs to be prohibitive to anyone who wants to attend our programs, so we are pleased to offer scholarships. Fill out our simple scholarship request form now!
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Judith Valente
Judith Valente is a journalist, poet and the author of six spirituality titles and three poetry collections. She is an oblate of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery in Atchison, KS, which is the subject of her award-winning memoir, Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, A Spiritual Home and a Living Faith. She is also the author of How To Live: What The Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community; as well as co-author ofThe Art of Pausing; and How To Be, the latter two books written with Brother Paul Quenon, a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Judith guides frequent retreats on how to live a more contemplative life in the secular world and leads the annual “Benedictine Footprints” retreat/pilgrimage to lesser-known parts of Italy. Her newest book is The Italian Soul: How to Savor the Full Joys of Life, about what we can learn from the Italian lifestyle about living more mindfully and joyfully.
