Jon Sweeney in Oak Park, Illinois

Name: Jon Sweeney in Oak Park, Illinois
Start: 2026-04-19T14:00:00-05:00
Location: Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church

Schedule

Sun, 19 Apr, 2026 at 02:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church | Oak Park, IL

For those in the Chicagoland area:
Focus on St. Francis of Assisi April 19
Jon Sweeney will discuss his latest book, Experiencing God: 36 Ways According to Saint Francis of Assisi, which commemorates the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis, at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19, 2026, at Euclid United Methodist Church, 405 South Euclid, Oak Park (entrance on Euclid, with parking lot available across the street from the entrance). Merton Lecture signs will be posted.
Never have we needed more to experience God—to feel God. Francis of Assisi was spiritual before anyone used that word, and he was religious in the best ways. We love him because he cut through the paraphernalia to get back to religion where it belongs: working in the human heart, making a difference in everyday life.
Anyone can do the things Francis did, summarized in these 36 ways of experiencing God. Examples offered through anecdote, text, and explanation include “Free captive creatures,” “Pray alone in the woods,” “Allow yourself to weep,” “Stand between those who fight,” “Make a cross with your arms,” and “Pray ‘Who are you, God? And who am I?’” Sweeney introduces each with faithful attention to the original sources, and comparisons to spiritual teachers from other traditions, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Evelyn Underhill, Richard Rohr, and Mary Oliver.
A widely respected scholar, author, editor and publisher, Jon is an independent scholar and a popular interpreter of the life and work of Francis of Assisi. His first 20 years were spent as an involved evangelical, growing up in Wheaton, Illinois (a story told in the memoir Born Again and Again); he then spent 22 years as an active Episcopalian (see Almost Catholic, among others); and on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi in 2009, he was received into the Catholic Church. Today, he is a practicing Catholic who also prays regularly with his wife, a rabbi. He loves the church, the synagogue, and other aspects of organized religion. He would never say that he's "spiritual but not religious." In all of his writing, he's drawn to the ancient and medieval (see The Road to Assisi, and Inventing Hell). Many of his books have been selections of the History Book Club, Book-of-the-Month Club, and Quality Paperback Book Club. Among his other books about St. Francis: When St. Francis Saved the Church (2014, Ave Maria Press); St. Francis of Assisi: His Life, Teachings, and Practices (2019, St. Martin's Press), The Complete Francis of Assisi: His Life, The Complete Writings, and The Little Flowers (2015, Paraclete Press), and The Enthusiast: How the Best Friend of Francis of Assisi Almost Destroyed What He Started, a biography Fr. Richard Rohr called "An immense and important contribution to our understanding of the great saint."
Jon is also the author of Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, with Mark S. Burrows (Hampton Roads), the biography Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Catechist, Saint (Liturgical Press), and Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life and Practices (St. Martin’s Essentials and Penguin Random House Audio, 2021).
Our Chicago Chapter-ITMS has been privileged to host Jon on several occasions, most recently in May, 2024, discussing his memoir, My Life in Seventeen Books, in which he focused on one of its 17 chapters, “Monica Furlong’s Thomas Merton and How to Ruin a Honeymoon.”
Prior to that, we welcomed him in 2019 for the release of James Martin SJ: In the Company of Jesus, a biography of the prominent American Jesuit priest, author, and editor-at-large at America magazine. (Fr. James Martin will be the keynote speaker at the ITMS 20th General Meeting at Iona University June 17—20, 2027. Mark your calendars!)
In 2017, Jon spoke to us about A Course in Christian Mysticism, for which he served as editor. This book delved into Thomas Merton's recorded lectures to the young monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani. The book gathered together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism—from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross (sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures). A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.
Jon has also given talks at the 2015 and 2017 ITMS conferences. Chapter coordinator Mike Brennan shared a session with Jon on “Merton and Historical Rebels” in 2015 at the Centenary Conference at Bellarmine University. Jon’s topic was “May I Confess?: Self-analysis, Pain, and Embarrassment as Tools of Spiritual Discovery in the Autobiographies of Augustine, Thomas Merton, and Malcolm X.” Mike discussed “Peter Abelard and Thomas Merton: Faithful Troublemakers” - an area Jon explored more fully in his 2017 book, The Saint vs. the Scholar: The Fight between Faith and Reason, about the conflict between St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard.
In 2014, Publishers Weekly featured Jon in an interview entitled, “A Life in Books and On the Move.” Copies of some of Jon’s books will be available for purchase.