April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
REFLECTION
Remembering Rev. Bill Shannon
When I began studying graduate theology at the Albany site of St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry in 1989, we new students were shocked that we would be required to take at least one course at the home campus in Rochester.
Toward the end of my studies, I vowed to take whatever Rochester offered next - and so I was privileged to study acclaimed writer and Trappist monk Rev. Thomas Merton under Msgr. William Shannon, Ph.D.
The experience changed my life. I studied another two semesters with Bill - as he preferred to be called - postponing graduation and doing an independent study of Merton's writings on Asian spirituality because Bill was too busy for us to complete the course in one semester.
Bill became a friend and continuing mentor. He was, in my estimation, a gentleman, a scholar and a saint for our times.
Almost halfway through his 95th year, Bill Shannon died - appropriately, on Good Shepherd Sunday, April 29, at the Sisters of St. Joseph motherhouse in Pittsford, N.Y., where he had served as chaplain for several years after his retirement from Nazareth College.
Bill spent his academic career at Nazareth, from 1946 until becoming a professor emeritus in 1982. During his tenure, he taught and endeared himself to a number of undergraduate students from the Albany area, who tell stories of his gentleness, generosity and wisdom. He presided at some of their weddings. Some were my fellow students, studying Merton with him.
Bill also served as the college's chaplain from 1949-75. In retirement, he became a prolific writer, both the world's preeminent Thomas Merton scholar and author of profound, yet accessible books and articles on post-Vatican II issues facing thoughtful Catholics. Nazareth College endowed the William H. Shannon chair in Catholic studies in his honor.
Bill came late in his career to Merton. Having taught moral theology, philosophy and history, in the 1970s he was urged by his students to develop a full course on Merton, whom he had occasionally quoted in classes.
He commenced a comprehensive reading of Merton and scholarship on the famous monk. By 1987, he had helped organize and became the first president of the International Thomas Merton Society.
As gifted and insightful a writer as he was about Merton, Bill was himself also a compassionate and wise guide in the ways of prayer and Christian life. Among his many books not about Merton, my own favorites are "Silence on Fire," an invitation to deep contemplative awareness; and "Seeds of Peace," which demonstrates the power of contemplative prayer to open one to the wisdom of non-violent action for peace and justice.
When I bemoaned the fact that it was impractical for me to go on to earn a doctorate in theology, Bill humbly reminded me that teaching undergraduates - as he had spent a major portion of his life doing - wasn't the only thing worth doing with my gifts.
The only thing he really pressed hard for me to do was to start a local chapter of the I.T.M.S. in the Albany Diocese. I did.
Requiescat in pacem, Bill.
(Mr. Chura blogs at www.catholicconvergences.wordpress.com. Contact him about the Merton Society at [email protected].)[[In-content Ad]]
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