Thomas Merton: Session 3

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the third episode of eight that focuses on the mystic, Thomas Merton. In the spirit of Lectio Divina, James Finley reflects on Thomas Merton’s perspective of our ultimate identity. Drawing from a chapter in Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, Jim reflects on how we can recognize our True Self beyond the illusions of our ego, and finishes with a meditative practice. For the transcript to this podcast, you can find it here. To learn more, visit jamesfinley.org Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. We'd love to hear your thoughts, comments or feedback. To do so, email us at [email protected] Have a question you’d like Jim or Kirsten to answer on a future episode? Email us: [email protected] or, send us a voicemail: cac.org/voicemail This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at cac.org/podcastsupport Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation.
0:04.4	To learn more, visit cac.org.
0:08.5	Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.
0:11.4	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:14.4	Greetings everyone and welcome to our time here together turning to the
0:29.0	Christian mystery to help deepen our experience in response to God's presence in our lives.
0:37.5	In this session I want to share with you a passage in Merton's writings, which is a new season contemplation.
0:46.6	And this is chapter 5, found in chapter 5 of new season's of Contemplation Things in their Identity.
0:54.4	And I'm selecting this passage because it's a seminal passage in which
0:59.9	Merton expresses his way of sharing the ancient kind of contemplative Christian
1:07.9	tradition of our ultimate identity as persons are created in the image and likeness of God.
1:15.2	That is, it's a meditation on the question of the deep question of who am I,
1:21.6	at the deepest
1:22.5	deepest possible level what is my ultimate identity.
1:26.5	And I want to break this passage down into three parts and in the first part I want to which is where the second
1:36.3	part in the passage from Merton is that in the first part I want to first explore the, um,
1:47.6	uh, Mertons, the way Mertin expresses the kind of the poetry
1:52.2	of our ultimate identity in God. And then in the second part I want to reflect on how he understands the foundations of our suffering is though all the ways that were exiled
2:06.2	from the invincible preciousness of our ultimate identity in God. And then the third part is what is the path then that the
2:16.6	which we're healed from all that hinders us from finding our way out of the
2:21.2	darkness into the light of joining God and who God eternally
2:25.2	knows us to be hidden with Christ and God forever from before the origins of the universe.
	...

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