Thomas Merton
by Father Sam McNally-Cross
Bibliography
- Thomas Merton: The Inner Experience, notes on Contemplation
- Contemplation in a world of action
- Spiritual Direction and Meditation & what is contemplation
- New seeds of Contemplation
Thomas Merton – Contemplation. What does it mean to be a contemplative in a world that prizes business and activity. Thomas Merton is a Trappist monk, prolific spiritual writer, and prophetic mystic – who peeled back the veil of monastic life in the 1960s leading to a blossoming of vocation. In this lecture we will be introduced to the wayward soul of Merton, who found faith and Catholicism in spite of himself and see what he can teach us.
Fr Sam McNally-Cross is the vicar of St Thomas, Kensal Town in the Diocese of London. He has completed a Masters degree in Christian Spirituality through Heythrop College, which focused on monastic spirituality and the subjective life of Thomas Merton being rooted in the objective life of the church. He was invited to present his thesis at the International Thomas Merton Conference held in Rome in 2018.In 2020 he began his Doctoral studies at Anglia Ruskin University researching the Promethean Theology of Thomas Mertonand applying it to those who are outside of the church and yet have some natural longing for the Divine. He is a published poet, the editor of the magazine of the Society of Mary and a sometime guest lecturer at St Mellitus College, London and Plymouth.
