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Michael Higgins is past President of two Canadian Catholic universities and currently Vice-President of Mission and Catholic Identity at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He is the author and co-author of over a dozen books including two bestsellers—Power and Power: the Catholic Church at the Crossroads and Stalking the Holy: In Pursuit of Saint-Making—and two award winners—Heretic Blood: The Spiritual Geography of Thomas Merton and Suffer the Children Unto Me: An Open Inquiry into the Clerical Sex Abuse Scandal. His most recent work is Genius Born of Anguish: the life and legacy of Henri Nouwen. |
ONLINE REGISTRATION FOR AUDIT AND CERTIFICATE ONLY
For Degree Credit Please Contact the Registrar at registrar@vst.edu
Course / Event: SP5/718 – Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen: Architects of Spiritual Wisdom
Cost: Audit $240 Certificate: $315
MArch program events 2013
Thomas Merton and the Unspeakable in 2013NOAH’S ARK reading by Theater and TV Pros
Followed by a Q&A Session with Jim Douglass - Sat. March 9, @ 7:00 pm
Canadian Memorial Centre for Peace, 1825 West 16th Avenue, Vancouver, BC
Noah’s Ark, a riveting play that grapples with material declassified decades after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, will be read at 7 pm on Saturday night at Canadian Memorial Centre for Peace.
The play’s title is taken from secret correspondence between Kennedy and Khrushchev in which Khrushchev compared the earth to the Biblical Noah’s Ark, a sacred refuge for a people threatened with extinction. Do
the two world leaders dare to align with each other against entrenched opposition in their own countries? Written by Ginny Cunningham, Noah’s Ark is inspired by James’ Douglass book “JFK and the Unspeakable:
Why he Died and Why it Matters”.
Jim Douglass is a Canadian-American theologian from Hedley, British Columbia, who has served time in U.S. prisons for resistance to nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. He now lives
in Birmingham, Alabama, where he co-founded Mary's House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality with his wife, Shelley. His most recent books are "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" and "Gandhi
and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiment with Truth."
Thomas Merton & Leonard Cohen: Going Home
One-day Retreat with Donald Grayston & Judith Hardcastle, Saturday, November 10, 2012, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
St. Andrew’s United Church, 1044 St. George’s Avenue, North Vancouver
Using the poetry and prose of Thomas Merton and Leonard Cohen, we will explore what ‘going home’ means for us.
Cost is $65 (includes lunch), $60 (TMSC members)
Registration: 604-988-8835 or tmsc@telus.net
Co-sponsored by St. Andrew’s United Church &
Thomas Merton Society of Canada
Please click here to download poster
BOOK LAUNCH
THOMAS MERTON: MONK ON THE EDGE
A new collection of essays by Canadian writers. Edited by Ross Labrie and Angus Stuart
Thursday November 22, 2012 at 7pm
Thomas Merton Reading Room, H. R. MacMillan Library, Vancouver School of Theology 6000 lana Drive, Vancouver
The Thomas Merton Society of Canada has just published a book of essays about this internationally acclaimed writer. The book is distinctive and original in that it represents the work of Canadian scholars, many of whom have significant publishing records of their own. These scholars, who have been publishing books and articles over the years in North America and in the U.K., here offer varied and provocative views of Merton as contemplative, social critic, and poet. Merton is recognized as one of the most important religious thinkers of the last hundred years.
The book, which is entitled Thomas Merton: Monk On the Edge and which runs to approximately 200 pages, is modestly priced at $25.00 (Canadian).
Please click here to download poster
AWAKENING THE HEART: MERTON’S CALL TO UNITY
One-day Seminar with Dr. Christine M. Bochen, Saturday, September 22, 2012, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
The University Club of Victoria at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC
Speaking in Asia, just weeks before his death, Thomas Merton said: "We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are." Recognizing
that Merton's statement is a key to understanding his contemplative, engaged spirituality, we will explore such questions as these: How do we go about recovering "our original unity"? How are we "to be what we
are"? What does Merton mean by "unity"? How might we live in ways that nurture unity in our selves and in our world? The cost is $60 for TMSC members and $65 for non-members (includes lunch and refreshments).
Limit: 40 participants. Registration: Susan Cowan, Community Relations Director, tmsc@telus.net or 604-988-8835.
Dr. Christine M. Bochen is professor of Religious Studies at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York where she holds the William H. Shannon Chair in Catholic Studies. She is co-author of the Thomas Merton Encyclopedia;
editor of Merton’s Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers, Learning to Love, the sixth volume of Merton’s journals, and Thomas Merton: Essential Writings; and, co-editor of Merton’s Cold War Letters and, most recently, Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters.
Please click here to download poster
Testament of a Naked Man—The Good News According to Mark
A Dramatic Interpretation
Friday, June 17, 2011, 7:00 pm
Canadian Memorial United Church, Corner of West 15th Avenue & Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC
The power of the Gospel story is brought to life in this one-man dramatization of the life and death of Jesus the Christ as told by Mark. The audience is transported back in time to be with Jesus on the dusty road of Palestine
and on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Listeners will come away with a sense of not having ever heard these familiar stories before. Proceeds from this event will go to support the Thomas Merton Reading Room, located in the
H. R. MacMillan Library at Vancouver School of Theology. Tickets: $15 (Adult); $10 (Senior/Student). For more information or to purchase your ticket in advance, please contact Susan Cowan, Community Relations Director at
tmsc@telus.net
Angus Stuart, Rector of St. Francis-in-the Wood in West Vancouver, began by telling the story of Christ's arrest, trail and crucifixion from memory on Palm Sunday in 2007. Then he was inspired to memorize the
whole of Mark's Gospel. The effect is dramatic!
Masters of the Soul and of the Cosmos: Thomas Merton and Thomas Berry in Dialogue on Healing the Self / the Earth
July 18 - 22, 2011, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Co-sponsored with the Thomas Merton Society of Canada
DR. KATHLEEN DEIGNAN, CND
Vancouver School of Theology on the campus of the University of British Columbia
Merton and Berry – two of the most remarkable spiritual masters of our time – and all time – come together in an intensive conversation animated by Kathleen Deignan, CND. As prophets and culture critics, both masters announced the perils and crises of our moment. As visionaries and poets, both saw the new frontiers of human spiritual evolution, languaged them into clarity, and charted revelatory maps to guide us forward from our wasteland worlds into regions of greater vitality, depth and solidarity with all life. As midwives of the new creation, both labored in the Great Work of our time: to birth the new human person for the new age.
Kathleen Deignan, CND is Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. The founding director of Iona Spirituality Institute, she is the author of ChristSpirit: The Theology of Shaker Christianity and more recently When the Trees Say Nothing: Thomas Merton’s Writings on Nature and Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours. www.scholaministries.org
Information/Registration: 604-822-9563 or email registrar@vst.edu or see http://www.vst.edu/main/programs/continuing-education/ss2011-week-two to register online.
Love for the Paradise Mystery: Thomas Merton, Contemplative Ecologist
Co-sponsored with the Thomas Merton Society of Canada
DR. KATHLEEN DEIGNAN, CND
Free Public lecture - Thursday, July 21, 2011, 7:00 pm,
VST Epiphany Chapel, 6050 Chancellor Boulevard, Vancouver, BC
Pre-lecture reception, 5:30 pm, VST Library, 6000 Iona Drive, Vancouver, BC
"Love for the paradise mystery" is a gossamer thread of mystical insight and prophetic urgency laced through Merton's literary legacy, inscribing deep wisdom for making our way with vision into the ecological age.
THOMAS MERTON’S ASIA
3-week pilgrimage program to India & Sri Lanka
Dates: November 2 – November 22, 2011
Participants: 12
This pilgrimage includes excellent accommodation, including the Windamere Hotel in Darjeeling where Merton stayed, local guides, and transportation through Thomas Cook, India. The program begins in Delhi and concludes in Sri Lanka with visits to Agra (Taj Mahal), Dharamshala (teachings with H.H. Dalai Lama), Amritsar (The Golden Temple), Bagdogra, Darjeeling (visit to the Mim Tea Estate, travel on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway to Sonada Monastery, and unparalleled views of the snow-clad Kanchenjunga, ranges of the Himalayas) in India; Colombo, Habarana (Polonnaruwa), Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, and Negombo in Sri Lanka. Detailed information, including cost, will be available soon. If you are interested in participating in this exciting pilgrimage, please contact TMSC program director, Judith Hardcastle, at tmsc@telus.net.
Click here to view Pilgrimage to Asia brochure.
Thomas Merton & Spiritual Maturity: The Contemplative as Peacemaker
Public Talk by Jonathan Montaldo - Fri. March 4, 2011, 7:00 pm
Thomas Merton had found a mirror for the central thrust of his monastic life in a book by A. Reza Arasteh entitled Final Integration in the Adult Personality,
which provided a description of "charismatic spiritual maturity" as a development beyond one's education and birth-culture to a universal consciousness of solidarity with all beings. This theme in Merton's life and
writing, that the true contemplative is a peacemaker, is presented as the core of his life as a monk and, even more deeply, as his life's vocation to become a more joyful and courageous human being. The public talk is co-sponsored
by the Thomas Merton Society of Canada and Canadian Memorial United Church & Centre for Peace. Admission is by donation at the door. Everyone is welcome!
Thomas Merton & Mary Oliver: The Poetry of Contemplative Prayer
One-day Retreat with Jonathan Montaldo - Sat. March 5, 2011, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
This one-day retreat will explore the themes of "waiting in silence", "expectancy" and "being
present" in the poetry of Mary Oliver and Thomas Merton. We will ruminate on their poetry as mentoring and inviting us to consider that the glory of God is we human beings fully alive. The cost is $50 for TMSC members
and $55 for non-members (lunch included). Limit: 20 participants. Please register by contacting Susan Cowan, Community Relations Director, at 604-669-2546 or tmsc@telus.net. The retreat is co-sponsored by the Thomas Merton
Society of Canada and Canadian Memorial United Church & Centre for Peace.
Jonathan Montaldo has most recently created a ten-booklet series for small group dialogue, Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton. His editions of Merton's work also include The Intimate Merton with Patrick Hart, Dialogues with Silence: Merton's Prayers & Drawings and A Year with Thomas Merton. He is a former director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University and he served a term as
president of the International Thomas Merton Society. For more information, please visit his website at www.monksworks.com