Thomas Merton on Desert Spirituality

Podcast-style audio course - 8 Topics
Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
Sacred Heart University
(1 customer review)
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Audio Download + Subscription
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Audio Download + Subscription
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Audio Sample:

Travel into the sands of the desert with Thomas Merton as your guide. Merton gave these lectures in 1964 to the novice monks he taught. As you listen to Merton, you will join his students in the classroom.

In the third century, men and women journeyed into the deserts of Syria and Egypt in search of salvation in solitude. By doing so, they developed new forms of monasticism and spirituality.

Now known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers, their wisdom remains as inspirational today as ever. In this set of lectures released to the public for the first time ever, you will learn about these spiritual ancestors with Thomas Merton as your personal teacher. Under Merton’s guidance, you’ll enter the Abbey of Gethsemani to journey through centuries of spiritual history.

This set of eight of remastered conferences explore the eremiti

Audio Sample:

Travel into the sands of the desert with Thomas Merton as your guide. Merton gave these lectures in 1964 to the novice monks he taught. As you listen to Merton, you will join his students in the classroom.

In the third century, men and women journeyed into the deserts of Syria and Egypt in search of salvation in solitude. By doing so, they developed new forms of monasticism and spirituality.

Now known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers, their wisdom remains as inspirational today as ever. In this set of lectures released to the public for the first time ever, you will learn about these spiritual ancestors with Thomas Merton as your personal teacher. Under Merton’s guidance, you’ll enter the Abbey of Gethsemani to journey through centuries of spiritual history.

This set of eight of remastered conferences explore the eremitic mystics in modern-day Syria. You’ll meet such inspirational figures as St. Symeon the Stylite, St. Julian Sabas the Elder, and St. Aphraates. As you will learn from Merton, these complex monks were far ahead of their time.

As Merton says, these hermits were “humble, quiet, sensible people, with a deep knowledge of human nature” (The Wisdom of the Desert). By journeying into the desert, they found a transcendent closeness with Jesus Christ. Centuries later, we still have much to glean from their works.

When you listen to Thomas Merton in his own voice, you will open your mind and spirit to the timeless wisdom of the desert.

Photograph of Thomas Merton by Sibylle Akers. Used with [permission of the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University.

This set contains an afterword by Fr. Anthony Ciorra.

Learn about downloadable programs.

*Photo of Thomas Merton by Sibylle Akers. Used with permission of the Merton Legacy Trust & Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University.

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Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk and bestselling author of such beloved works as The Seven Storey Mountain and New Seeds of Contemplation. One of the 20th century’s great mystics, Merton was also a masterful teacher who delivered powerful conferences to the novice monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani. In these conferences, Merton’s thinking moved from cloistered monastic life to issues of social justice and interreligious understanding. A spiritual sage and guide for countless men and women, Merton struggled with complex questions about God’s existence and the role of organized religion.

Those who knew him also experienced his gifts as a homilist and teacher. These special, remastered recordings are part of his spoken word legacy. They are actual recordings of Thomas Merton. By agreement with The Thomas Merton Legacy Trust, Now You Know Media has the sole right to record, master, re-master, duplicate, market, and disseminate copies of “The Merton Recordings,” which are a selection of the archives housed in the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

  • The Beginnings of Desert Spirituality
  • Syrian Monasticism
  • The Syrian Monks, Part I
  • Syrian Monastic Traditions
  • St. Julian Sabas the Elder and Liturgical Prayer
  • The Syrian Monks, Part II
  • Syrian Spirituality
  • The Ascetic Life of the Desert
  • Afterward by Fr. Anthony Ciorra, Ph.D.

1 review for Thomas Merton on Desert Spirituality

  1. Raymond

    Superb treatment

    This series offers an historical overview that is filled with insights and information demonstrating the dynamic growth of monasticism in the West. Merton refers to Eastern Christian roots but shows how these came to bear the fruit they did in Western monasticism. Equally informative in its historical rendition and presentation of the basic monastic spirit and doctrine. Highly recommended for the person who knows some and the person who knows none of the origins of monastic life in the West.

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