All are welcome to register for this upcoming event with the Beatitudes Center, Saturday, December 9, 11 AM Pacific/2 PM Eastern. Click here for more information.
Fr. John Dear writes: “Advent is here and just in time. … Advent invites us to stop, take a deep breath, turn to the God of peace, surrender ourselves, and start all over again as we prepare ourselves for the coming of the nonviolent Jesus in our hearts and lives. At the birth of the nonviolent Jesus, the angels sang to the poor of ancient Palestine about the coming of ‘peace on earth,’ so Advent is time to do our part to welcome the Christmas gift of peace on earth. Humanity keeps rejecting this gift, but you and I want to be people who accept the Christmas gift of peace and pledge to live the rest of our lives in Jesus’ spirit of universal love and total nonviolence.
“I’ve always considered Thomas Merton’s monastic life as one long advent, given the mystery of his entering the Abbey of Gethsemani monastery on Dec. 10, 1941 (three days after Pearl Harbor) and dying on Dec. 10, 1968, at the end of that terrible year. He called us to turn our backs on the culture of war, racism, greed and fear, and turn toward the God of peace in contemplative prayer and in Christ’s gift of peace and reconciliation.”
Jonathan Montaldo is an insightful, knowledgeable scholar of Thomas Merton, and always points us deeper into prayer and God as Merton would want. At this moment as Israel bombs Gaza, the COP 28 climate change meeting takes place in UAE, the electoral politics and divisions continue to boil over, and so many are suffering around the world, Advent offers new healing and hope if we attend to it as contemplatives of peace.
Montaldo has served as associate director of the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living, director of the Thomas Merton Center, and as president of the International Thomas Merton Society. He edited or coedited many volumes of Merton’s writing, including The Intimate Merton, Dialogues with Silence, and A Year with Thomas Merton. He leads retreats based on Merton’s witness to contemplative living and created the 10-volume series for small group dialogue, Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton, published by Ave Maria Press.
This online event will take place this Saturday, December 9, 11 AM Pacific/2 PM Eastern.
To register, visit www.beatitudescenter.org.
You will receive the Zoom link a few days beforehand and a recording link afterwards. If you have questions, email Kassandra at beatitudescentermb@gmail.com.