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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We can celebrate two great Canadians on this day. Happy Birthday to Leonard Cohen who died almost 10 years ago in 2016. Just a year later, we lost a great Merton scholar, Donald Grayston. Photo of Donald Grayston by Jim Forest. Photo of Leonard Cohen from the 2008 tour by Rama, Wikimedia Commons.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday — 65 years ago, Sep. 19, 1961: “The letter to Pablo Antonio Cuadra ['Concerning Giants'] which I wrote last week is bitter and unjust. It lacks perspective… How did it get to be so violent and unfair? The root is my own fear, my own desperate desire to survive...

Photo of Pablo Antonio Cuadra by Jaime Martín Chamorro Argeñal

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday - 70 years ago, Aug 31, 1956: “A very small locust seedling, a few feet high, grows up triumphalistically out of the honeysuckle in the place where the wall is broken down..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday 60 years ago: "God speaks to us in our history and through the medium of our own mistakes and there is certainly a lot of irony in the result. The end is not in sight by any means. There will be a great deal of tribulation in this land of ours...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Sep. 1, 2026 is the deadline for presentation proposals for the June 2027 Merton Society meeting at Iona University, New Rochelle, NY. Session formats include: 1. Scholarly Papers 2. Workshops 3. Creative/Dramatic Presentations 4. Guided Meditation/Prayer Sessions Link: merton.org/2027/

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

70 years ago, July 27, 1956: Merton came to St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota for a conference: “Yesterday, feast of St. Anne, rowed over to Stella Maris chapel which I like. Reading Suzuki and Diadochos of Photike under the birch trees and looking at the water..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

On July 12, 1966, Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki died. Merton drew much of his study of Buddhism, Zen, and Japanese culture from the writings of Suzuki. He received permission in 1964 to travel to New York for Suzuki's last visit to the United States. -Photo by Mihoko Okamura, June 1964.

Thomas Merton and DT Suzuki in a June 1964 photo taken by Mihoko Okamura

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday—65 years ago yesterday, July 12, 1961: “Now I see one of the roots of the temptation to false optimism. Christianity, face to face with Marxism, confronts the accusation that religion divides and alienates man, makes him miserable because ‘lost’ and divided...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday—85 years ago, journals of July 6, 1941: “With the JOURNAL OF MY ESCAPE FROM THE NAZIS… It will never sell, because of the Esperanto: and I am sorry, merely because now I have the feeling I had taken a little care with it,..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

75 years ago yesterday, 22 June 1951, Merton became an American citizen. The photograph is from his declaration of intention, Jan. 1948. He records in his journal of June 23, 1951: "Yesterday morning, after saying a Votive Mass of the Seven Dolors... got into a black suit and a Roman collar..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday - Happy 99th birthday to Coretta Scott King. Thomas Merton wrote to her in April 1968 after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Coretta wrote the Abbey of Gethsemani in December of 1968 to express her condolences after Merton's death. merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/ite...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 60 years ago, Merton’s journal of April 20, 1966, he expresses his nostalgia for the old Gethsemani steeple as it is being demolished for the renovation of the abbey church and monastery. Later, after the demolition of the old steeple, he feels it is an improvement:

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday, April 13, Feast of Blessed Ida of Louvain: Merton relates the following story in the life of Blessed Ida, a Cistercian mystic who died around 1300, who in her vision almost gets into a fight with the Virgin Mary over the Child Jesus: “Ida was in church at the beginning of Mass..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 65 years ago, journal of April 1, 1961: “Baffled and beat by the rejection of Christ—OUR rejection of Him—the OFFICIAL preference, by the Pontiffs, of Caesar over Christ as King—by the people of Barabbas as ‘their boy’—i.e. as the hero with whom they wanted to be identified..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday - 60 years ago, from Merton’s journal of March 16, 1966: “The latest in Religion: Los Angeles… Miss Velma will descend from high out of the skies.. wearing a gold space suit and space helmet and preach her entire sermon from a spaceship!..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 65 years ago, Merton’s journal of March 11, 1961: “I am still a 14th century man: the century of Eckhart, Ruysbroeck, Tauler, the English recluses, the author of the Cloud, Langland and Chaucer——more an independent and a hermit than a community man, by no means an ascetic, ...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 60 years ago, from Merton’s journal of March 2, 1966: “Yesterday—more truly spring; and this is a spring dawn today, cold, but with bird singing. First time I have heard the whistling of the Towhee this year. And the cardinals up in the woods to the west..

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 60 years ago, from Merton’s journal of February 23, 1966: “Another discovery: this time the Sufi tales of Nasruddin. Where can I get the whole collection? I know I have much to learn in them. They are fascinating and very funny: but point in all directions at once!”

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: 60 years ago, on February 3, 1966, Merton records his meditations from the Hermitage on the previous day’s Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple that also commemorates the purification of Mary forty days after giving birth in accordance with Mosaic Law:

Image of the Presentation at the Temple by Fra Angelico in Museo nazionale di San Marco, Florence, photographed by John Pope-Hennessy, 1981.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday: Throughout January 1966, Merton was reading Kitarō Nishida. Reflecting on his own insights on the True Self, he writes, "It is the ‘nothing’ in my being that must be accepted. The acceptance—in God’s love—becomes pure creativity, insight, etc." www.facebook.com/share/p/16cr...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

#MertonMemoryMonday - Last October, Geshe Jigme Lodoe, a Tibetan Buddhist monk from Dharamshala, was a month-long guest at Gethsemani Abbey and conducted research at the Merton Center. He sent a Christmas message relating that he had shared his studies with the Dalai Lama's monastic community.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday: 60 years ago, Dec. 15, 1965, Gemini 6 and 7 had a rendezvous mission in space. Merton saw television coverage of the event at his psychologist’s house and records his impressions of it the next day and implications for his stance toward the world.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday: 65 years ago today Thomas Merton’s hermitage was completed. On December 2, 1960, Merton records in his journals: “Came to St. Mary of Carmel and built a pretty fire in the fireplace and got settled down to read and opening the book (Boisinard—Du Baptême à Cana)...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - Though a few months from Black History Month, we feature the last four Merton Center Black History Month Lectures now with transcripts. All online recordings : merton.org/research/AV/.... Recordings with newly syncronized transcripts: merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/ite....

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - 60 years ago, Merton's journal of November 3, 1965: "The comet! I heard about it yesterday in the monastery, went out to see it this morning, and went just at the right time. It is magnificent, appearing just at the ineffable point when the first dim foreshadowing light...

Image of a comet in the dark sky before the dawn with trees and landscape in shadow.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

The first annual international Network Symposium: Where Interfaith, Ecology, and Education Meet in 2026, to be held in Makersdorf, Germany, and online, May 14-17, 2026. The registration is now open: mindful-dialogue.org for online or in-person participation.

Banner for the Mindful Dialogue conference 2026

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - Did you miss the last Tuesdays with Merton featuring Fr. Vincent Pizzuto? YouTube: youtu.be/mgKLooWsirM?... Podcast: tuesdayswithmerton.podbean.com The presentation explores Merton and the quietud sabrosa (“delicious tranquility”) in light of Near Death Experiences.

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Vincent Pizzuto

YouTube video by Tuesdays with Merton

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - 60 years ago, Jim Douglass wrote to Merton and spoke of meetings with bishops at the Second Vatican Council as a peace advocate. He writes, "Also in Rome Dorothy Day being wined and dined by the hierarchy (everything has become possible)"! merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/ite...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday — 60 years ago, September 22, 1965, Eileen Egan of American PAX (the predecessor of Pax Christi USA) writes to Merton thanking him for writing “An Open Letter to the American Hierarchy: Schema XIII and the Modern World”: merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/ite....

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - 60 years ago Merton gave his final address as novice master before becoming a full time hermit. (He was gradually given increasing time in the hermitage since its construction in 1960 before granted full-time residency.) merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/ite... Art by Joe McGee.

Merton Writing by his Hermitage, Gethsemani, by Joe McGee

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday — 60 years ago, August 11, 1965: Dorothy Day writes a letter to Merton between having attended a meeting of PAX (U.S. Catholic peace group that became Pax Christi, USA), currently attending a Catholic Art Association meeting, and plans for a trip to Rome to speak with bishops.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - 80 years ago this week, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Merton wrote "Target Equals City" after having read Robert C. Batchelder's book, The Irreversible Decision: 1939-1950. Merton's friend Herbert Mason urged him not to publish the article.

"The Irreversible Decision: 1939-1950" by Robert C. Batchelder

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - Last month, Regis University hosted the biennial general meeting of the ITMS. Among the many excellent speakers was a powerful presentation by Estevan Rael-Gálvez titled "Native Bound Unbound: A Pilgrimage Through Silence." www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp8F...

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Estevan Rael-Gálvez

YouTube video by Tuesdays with Merton

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday — 65 years ago, a hospital stay inspires Merton’s poem “Hagia Sophia” as noted by volume four journal editor, Victor A. Kramer. Merton’s journal of July 2, 1960 [St. Anthony’s Hospital, Louisville, The Feast of the] Visitation:

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - Another great Merton conference is now in the books. We are grateful to Chris Pramuk and the program committee, the wonderful people of beautiful Regis University, the plenary speakers and session presenters, and everyone who attended and joined in wonderful conversation.

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Reposted by Thomas Merton Center

James G. R. Cronin @jamesgrcronin.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I’m gratified to have received a writing commission for a commentary on Merton’s introduction to this book. It’s an urgent message from 1966, a troubled time of Civil Rights protests in the U.S. and escalating war in Vietnam. Its message rhymes with current violence — both structural and sporadic.

Phil Berrigan’s No More Strangers, published in New York by Macmillan publishers in 1966.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday — 60 years ago, Whit Tuesday: “The great joy of the solitary life is not found simply in quiet, in the beauty of peace and nature, song of birds, etc., nor in the peace of one’s own heart, but in the awakening and attuning of the heart to the voice of God—...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Seeing "the first American pope," I keep adding a mental asterisk. Most likely mean the first pope from the U.S. Pope Francis was the first pope of the Americas. Pope Leo's ministry to this point has taken him from Chicago to Chiclayo.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday – On the eve of the papal conclave that would choose Cardinal Montini, the Archbishop of Milan, as Pope Paul VI, Merton records his thoughts in his journal of June 18, 1963. At this time it seemed that anyone outside of an Italian, even a German, “do[es] not have a chance.”

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Two t-shirts and a sweatshirt are available to benefit youth/student scholarships to the upcoming Merton Society meeting in Denver. Attendees can save shipping and pick up shirt at the conference. Any order can be shipped. keepmertonweird.deco-apparel.com

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday – 60 years ago: Hiromu Morishita was one of a group of Hibakusha—survivors of the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945—who visited Thomas Merton at Gethsemani in 1964 during a tour of various places in the United States and also Paris, Moscow, and East and West Berlin.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Last night's Tuesdays with Merton with Becky McIntyre and Sarah Fuller is now available as a video and podcast. Merton as Visual Artist and Creating Socially Conscious Art in the 21st Century Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Al... Audio: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

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Becky McIntyre and Sarah Fuller

YouTube video by Tuesdays with Merton

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

“The Calligraphy of Snow and Rock and Sky” Thomas Merton and the Spirit of Place Regis University, June 2025 “A sign of snow on a mountainside as if my own ancestors were hailing me.” ~ Thomas Merton, Woods, Shore, Desert merton.org/2025/ Scholarships for graduate and undergrad students.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

The lecture by James Finley, Being A Healing Presence in a Wounded and Traumatized World, is now available on YouTube and on the Tuesdays with Merton podcast. It was presented at Bellarmine University for the annual Fourth & Walnut Lecture sponsored by the ITMS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxQV...

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James Finley - 2025 ITMS Fourth & Walnut Lecture

YouTube video by Tuesdays with Merton

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday 60 years ago, Thomas Merton recorded in his journal a continuation of his meditation of the electrification of his hermitage he poetically wrote about in the essay “Rain and the Rhinoceros.” When Merton wrote the essay, he was using his Coleman lantern, but now he is on the grid:

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday The sad news of the passing of Glenn Hinson prompted many responses on the posting from friends and former students. We are posting an interview by Bernie Lucht that captures many of Glenn's memories of bringing seminary students to meet Merton. merton.org/research/av/...

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

#MertonMemoryMonday - We will celebrate Merton's 110th birthday this week. Thomas Merton only had 53 years on Earth. However, his granny, Gertrude Merton, lived to 101.

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Thomas Merton Center @mertoncenter.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Abbi Fraser on Tuesdays with Merton "I hope to explore what it meant to read Merton in the context of living at a Catholic Worker house, and how I believe the Worker and Merton hold the tension of guilt and faithful living in a world inundated with violence." Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXS...

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Abbi Fraser

YouTube video by Tuesdays with Merton

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