Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton is a small group faith-sharing process designed to help participants enter into a process of personal spiritual transformation leading to a more just and peaceful world.
Bridges to Contemplative Living is designed to help participants become more contemplative in their daily lives. The Bridges format uses contemplative dialogue, a process which helps participants reflect on their own experiences and the experience of others. Contemplative dialogue is focused on listening, reflecting and integrating what ones hears and discovers. It is not out-come oriented. It avoids judgment and evaluation. It is meant to be non-threatening, safe, and affirming.
Contemplative living is a way of listening and responding to our everyday experience. It deepens the awareness of our connectedness and communion with others, becomes a positive force of change in our lives, and provides meaningful direction to our spiritual journey.
Fr. Donald Goergen OP writes: "'Contemplative' describes a way of living, a way of loving, a way of
being, a way of seeing. Contemplation is not something we do at a particular time of the day.
Contemplation is rather living here and now the day in which we find ourselves. It is not a
question of withdrawing from the world but rather a way of being in the world. Contemplation
doesn't have so much to do with 'doing' as it does with 'letting it be done unto me' (Luke 1:38). It
means attentiveness to a different sense of time and timing" ("Becoming Contemplative," Priests
and People, June 2002).
Thomas Merton was born in France in 1915. He was educated in France, England and the United States and was baptized in the Catholic Church in 1938. In 1941 he entered the Cistercian Order as a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where he wrote his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which was published in 1948. He served as Master of Scholastics and Novices at Gethsemani and wrote numerous books and articles on the spiritual life, inter-religious understanding, peace and social justice. In 1968 he journeyed to Thailand to attend a conference of contemplatives, where he was accidentally electrocuted and died at the age of 53.
For over sixty years, Merton's thought and writing have guided spiritual seekers around the world. His writing offers important insights into four essential relationships -- with oneself, with God, with other people, and with all of creation. Merton is distinguished among modern spiritual writers by the depth and substance of his thinking. His popularity suggests that he speaks to the minds and hearts of people searching for answers to life's important questions. His writing takes people into deep places within themselves and offers insight into the paradoxes of life.
Register for Bridges
• By Phone: Call the Faith Formation Center at 319-233-0498.
• By email: dbqwcaf @dbqarch.org
• Click here to register online.