Father Thomas Keating’s final message was recorded while he spent his final days at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. The context in which Father Thomas Keating delivered this profound message is well captured in a passage from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book, A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm:
Two weeks before his death he sat bolt upright in bed and delivered a powerful seven-minute oracle, speaking to the entire world from a place well beyond this world in a stern injunction to lay down arms and take up the path of universal trust and compassion. I have listened to that message, hastily recorded on a monk’s cell phone, and it rivets the soul. He spoke from a place of total cosmic nakedness –“no place to go, no proof of anything, no fundamental face”, as he described it. He was done with constructual zones, even those most deeply cherished.
Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm, Shambala Publ. Inc. (2020).
Father Thomas’ final message was translated from English and read in the following languages at the Contemplative Outreach 40th Anniversary Conference held in September 2024. A video of this presentation may be viewed on YouTube here.
In the list below, the numbers in parentheses indicate the time in the video for the start of the language read.
Click on the language name below to be taken to a written translation in the language indicated.
Afrikaans (35:11)
English (4:12)
French (22:41)
German (18:47)
Hungarian (41:10)
Italian (27:48)
Korean (31:15)
Polish (translated but not presented)
Portuguese (14:36)
Russian (45:36)
Slovakian (38:02)
Spanish (8:24)
