Thomas Berry died on Monday, at the age of 94.  Connie and I are grateful that we were able to see our mentor last November in Greensboro, NC, which I wrote about here: Honoring Thomas Berry.  We knew it would be our last visit.  When we received his sister Margaret's email (see below), we just held each other and gently wept, reflecting on the fact that perhaps the greatest human being that either of us will ever know in our lifetimes just passed on. 

Connie and I would never have met and neither of us would be evangelizing evolution if it weren't for Thomas. 

(See the end of this blog post for some classic quotes of his and hear Thomas read some of our favorite passages from his book, The Great Work.)

Here is Margaret's letter:

June 1, 2009

Dear Family and Friends of Thomas Berry:

Baptized William Nathan Berry, Jr., and known to many of us as Brother, Passionist priest and widely acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Berry died in Well-Spring Retirement Community, Greensboro NC, at 6:25 am, Monday, June 1, 2009. You are invited to attend one or more commemorations of Thomas's life and work.

Funeral services will be held in four places:

1) Greensboro NC's St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, with Salesian Oblate Father Bill J. Ruhl or his delegate presiding, primarily but not exclusively for Thomas's family and the local community.  Wednesday, June 3, 2009.

2)  A Passionist Order monastery or church, as directed by Father Provincial Very Reverend Joseph Jones, probably in Jamaica, Long Island, New York, primarily but not exclusively for members of the Order.

3)  Green Mountain Monastery, Greensboro, Vermont, open to all, details to be provided by Sisters Gail Worcelo and Bernadette Bostwick, co-founders with Thomas of the new religious Order.

4)  A more general and public memorial service at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, where Thomas was honorary canon, details to be arranged by the Thomas Berry Foundation and directed by officers Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, currently of Yale University.

Greensboro NC funeral events will begin with open-casket visitation 11 am - 1:20 pm in the Narthex [entrance] of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church (not in the funeral home) Wednesday, June 3, 2009, followed by the memorial service at 2 pm.  Since Thomas's remains will be sent to the Passionist Province of St. Paul of the Cross for the Eucharistic liturgy and afterwards to Green Mountain Monastery for final interment, the Greensboro NC memorial will conclude with a reception, 4 pm - 5:30 pm, hosted by the Passionists in Well-Spring Retirement Community Auditorium, 4100 Well-Spring Drive, a short distance from St. Paul the Apostle Church. [Take Horse Pen Creek Road northwest a couple of miles; at Drawbridge Parkway turn right; watch for the Well-Spring entrance on the left a mile or so down the road.]

Donations honoring Thomas's memory may be made to the Thomas Berry Foundation, c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker, 29 Spoke Drive, Woodridge, CT 06525. Inquiries and greetings may be made by email to margare946@bellsouth.net rather than by telephone.

Mourning our loss,

Margaret (Thomas's sister and aide)
Dr. Margaret Berry
4100 Well-Spring Drive #2319
Greensboro, NC 27410, USA
margare946@bellsouth.net

__________________________________________

MORGAN JOSEY GLOVER
Staff Writer

Father Thomas Berry, a Greensboro native and world-renowned cultural historian, died Monday at age 94 at Well-Spring Retirement Community.

Berry, a Passionist Catholic priest, was considered a leading ecological thinker in America. He had eight honorary degrees and numerous awards and honors.

Berry's health had declined over the years, and his family expected his death, said his sister, Dr. Margaret Berry.

"He had a quiet death, and the family was with him when he died," Berry said. "We have people from all over the world who are e-mailing and planning to attend one of the four services."

The Berry family will hold funeral services in Greensboro, New York and Vermont. The Greensboro service will begin with an open-casket visitation from 11 a.m. to 1:20 p.m. Wednesday in the Narthex entrance of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic
Church. It will be followed by a memorial service at 2 p.m.

The Greensboro memorial will conclude with a reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m. hosted by the Passionists in the auditorium at Well-Spring Retirement Community, 4100 Well-Spring Drive.

Donations honoring Berry's memory may be made to the Thomas Berry Foundation, c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker, 29 Spoke Drive, Woodbridge, CT 06525

GEMS FROM THOMAS BERRY

For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role within the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. Only through this story of how the Universe came to be in the beginning and how it came to be as it is does a person come to appreciate the meaning of life or to derive the psychic energy needed to deal effectively with those crisis moments that occur in the life of the individual and in the life of the society. Such a story . . . communicates the most sacred of mysteries. . . . Our story not only interprets the past, it also guides and inspires our shaping of the future.

* * * 

The Universe story is the quintessence of reality. We perceive the story. We put it in our language, the birds put it in theirs, and the trees put it in theirs. We can read the story of the Universe in the trees. Everything tells the story of the Universe. The winds tell the story, literally, not just imaginatively. The story has its imprint everywhere, and that is why it is so important to know the story. If you do not know the story, in a sense you do not know yourself; you do not know anything.

* * * 

Both education and religion need to ground themselves within the story of the universe as we now understand this story through empirical knowledge. Within this functional cosmology, we can overcome our alienation and begin the renewal of life on a sustainable basis. Th is story is a numinous revelatory story that could evoke the vision and the energy required to bring not only ourselves but the entire planet into a new order of magnificence.

* * * 

It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we are in between stories. The Old Story—the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it—sustained us for a long time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purpose, energized action, consecrated suffering, integrated knowledge, guided education. We awoke in the morning and
knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children. We could identify crime, punish transgressors. Everything was taken care of because the story was there. But now it is no longer functioning properly, and we have not yet learned the New Story.

* * * 

Our present urgency is to recover a sense of the primacy of the Universe as our fundamental context, and the primacy of the Earth as the matrix from which life has emerged and on which life depends. Recovering this sense is essential to establishing the framework for mutually enhancing human–Earth relations for the flourishing of life on the planet.

* * * 

We have a new story of the Universe. Our own presence to the Universe depends on our human identity with the entire cosmic process. In its human expression the Universe and the entire range of earthly and heavenly phenomena celebrate themselves and the ultimate mystery of their existence in a special exaltation. . . . Science has given us a new revelatory experience. It is now giving us a new intimacy with the Earth.

* * *

If the Rhine, the Yellow, the Mississippi rivers are changed to poison, so too are the rivers in the trees, in the birds, and in the humans changed to poison, almost simultaneously. There is only one river on the planet Earth and it has multiple tributaries, many of which flow through the veins of sentient creatures.

* * * 

All human activities, professions, programs, and institutions must henceforth be judged primarily by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human/Earth relationship.

* * *

The basic mood of the future might well be one of confidence in the continuing revelation that takes place in and through the Earth. If the dynamics of the Universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the Sun, and formed the Earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the Universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.

ALSO SEE: 

• Honoring Thomas Berry
• Thomas Berry reads from his book, The Great Work
• Some Thoughts on Thomas Berry's Contributions to the Western Spiritual Tradition - by Matthew Fox
• Biography of Thomas Berry - by Mary Evelyn Tucker