Events
Spring 2022 Events at the Center for Spirituality
January 26, 2022
Kathleen Sprows Cummings, PhD — "Monumental Women: Remembering Catholic Sisters at Notre Dame and America."
5:00 PM ET, THIS EVENT IS NOW ENTIRELY ONLINE (Registration Link Below)
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies)
Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
Addressing the Soul Sickness of Racism Lecture Series
January 20, 2022
Darryl M. Heller, PhD — "More than a March and a Speech: Civil Rights History in the US"
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
Co-sponsored by the Division for Inclusion and Equity
January 27, 2022
Daniel P. Horan, OFM, PhD — "Understanding the Impacts of Whiteness"
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
Co-sponsored by the Division for Inclusion and Equity
February 3, 2022
Redgina Hill, PhD — "An Antiracism Approach to Allyship"
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
Co-sponsored by the Division for Inclusion and Equity
The Ex Libris Author Lecture Series
February 16, 2022
Jessica Coblentz, PhD — Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
The bookstore will have books available for purchase and author will sign books after the presentation.
March 3, 2022
Anna Corwin, PhD — Embracing Age: How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
The bookstore will have books available for purchase and author will sign books after the presentation.
April 27, 2022
Regina Shands Stoltzfus, PhD and Tobin Miller Shearer, PhD — Been in the Struggle: Pursuing an Antiracist Spirituality
5:00 PM ET, Carroll Auditorium, Madeleva Hall
Free and open to the public (subject to COVID-19 visitor policies) In person and Online [Click Here for Livestream Registration]
The bookstore will have books available for purchase and author will sign books after the presentation.
The 2022 Madeleva Lecture 
March 24, 2022
The Center for Spirituality at Saint Mary's College regrets to announce that the 2022 Madeleva Lecture with Professor Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, scheduled to take place on March 24, 2022, had to be cancelled due to a last-minute health concern. We look forward to announcing the 2023 Madeleva Lecture date and presenter very soon! Please keep an eye out for that forthcoming announcement.
"Tuesdays with Merton" Webinar Series
A webinar series presented by the International Thomas Merton Society and the Center for Spirituality at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame on the second Tuesday of each month. Free and open to the public. Registration is required to access the Zoom link.
Recordings of the webinars will be available on the Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel within a few days of their broadcast: Tuesdays with Merton YouTube Channel. Audio-only versions also will be available later via podcast (subscribe wherever you download your favorite podcasts). To learn more about past and future speakers in the "Tuesdays with Merton" webinar series, visit: http://merton.org/itms/twm/
January 11, 2022 (8:00 PM ET) — Douglas Hertler — "Merton, You, and Me: The Reality of Life in the Paschal Mystery"
SURROUNDED BY SUFFERING and death, we believe in redemption and new life. Besieged by every form of war, we hope for peace and the coming of God’s Kingdom. Where is war present in your life?Is it only experienced “out there,” or can it be found “in here” as well? Have you identified an enemy to destroy? Are you sure that enemy is not yourself? Excerpts from Doug’s play “Merton and Me – A Living Trinity” and these words of Thomas Merton will guide our reflection: “Life and death are at war within us. As soon as we are born, we begin at the same time to live and die.”
DOUGLAS HERTLER (aka Doug Lory) is a professional actor, playwright, retreat leader, and NYC tour guide. He also works at Fordham University School of Law as an actor/educator. His one-man play “Merton and Me – A Living Trinity” debuted in the fall of 2018 for the Corpus Christi Chapter of the ITMS. Doug spent the month of January 2020 living with the Trappist community of Mepkin Abbey as a monastic guest and will be performing his show there in February. He also serves on the board of the American Teilhard Association. His website is www.mertonandme.com.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR
February 8, 2022 (8:00 PM ET) — Steven P. Millies, PhD — "Our Crisis of Authority and Thomas Merton"
THE POLARIZING CONFLICTS that divide the Catholic Church and social life are widely recognized but poorly understood. Thomas Merton understood what we face as a crisis of authority that has farflung implications and whose fullest dimensions have come into view only in decades since he died. We will explore the crisis of authority as we now experience it in 2022, and we will look to Merton for wisdom about how we can resolve the crisis.
STEVEN P. MILLIES is professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. His most recent book is Good Intentions: A History of Catholic Voters’ Road from Roe to Trump (Liturgical Press, 2018).
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR
March 8, 2022 (8:00 PM ET) — Gregory Hillis, PhD — "What Does Thomas Merton have to tell us about Catholic Identity?"
SINCE HIS DEATH IN 1968, Merton’s Catholic identity has been regularly questioned, both by those who doubt the authenticity of his Catholicism given his commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and by those who admire Merton because they see him as an aberration who rebelled against his Catholicism. In my presentation, I want to talk about how thoroughly immersed Merton was in his Catholic identity and to explore what we can learn today about what he can teach us about a Catholicism simultaneously rooted in tradition and open to the world and to others.
DR. GREGORY K. HILLIS is Professor of Theology & Religious Studies at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. His doctoral research was on early Christian theology, with a particular focus on St. Cyril of Alexandria. In the last few years he has turned his attention to the life and writings of Thomas Merton. He teaches a popular undergraduate course on Merton and has delivered lectures around the United States on Merton’s theology. He has written both academic and popular articles on Merton’s life and authored the recent book Man of Dialogue: Thomas Merton’s Catholic Identity (Liturgical Press, 2021).
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR
April 12, 2022 (8:00 PM ET) — Deborah Kehoe, PhD — "Thomas Merton and Southern Writing"
THOMAS MERTON’S APPRECIATION for the work of notable literary artists of the southern United States and Global South is well-documented throughout his writing. Using the broadest of criteria, Merton, by virtue of having found his only stable earthly home in the hills of Kentucky, can also be identified as a “southern writer,” in whose works evidence of a deep affinity with the voices of the expansive South can be heard. In this talk, I hope to explore some of the classical and contemporary particulars as well as the implications of a poetic and spiritual connection between Merton and other writers of a compelling, enigmatic body of literature.
DR. DEBORAH KEHOE is a lifelong resident of Mississippi, born and raised in Jackson, now living in Oxford. She took a PhD in English with a concentration in twentieth-century literature from the University of Mississippi and is retired from a decades-long career of teaching rhetoric and literature in the red clay hills of her native state. She is a former member of the ITMS Board of Directors and current co-editor of The Merton Annual.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR
Upcoming "Tuesdays with Merton" Dates:
- March 8, 2022, Greg Hillis, "What does Thomas Merton have to Tell Us about Catholic Identity?"
- April 12, 2022, Deborah Kehoe, "Thomas Merton and Southern Writing."
- May 10, 2022, Gordon Oyer, "Re-Visioning a Fragmented World: Learnings through Merton's Letters on Social Change."
- June 14, 2022, Malgorzata (Gosia) Poks, "'The Geography of Lograire' as Thomas Merton's Ultimate Autobiography."
- More details to be announced in the coming months