Pennington, M. Basil, 1931-2005

Born in Queens, New York, on July 28, 1931, as Robert Pennington, M. Basil Pennington moved with his family to Freeport, Long Island, as a young child, and attended parochial school there for a year and a half. When his father died, his mother returned the family to Brooklyn, where he attended another parochial school and then entered the Minor Seminary of the Diocese of Brooklyn (Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception), which he attended from 1945 to 1951. Pennington was active during his teenage years in the Legion of Mary, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), and Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), working among the disadvantaged in Brooklyn parishes.

After graduating from Cathedral College in Brooklyn, New York, Pennington entered the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO, also known as Trappists) at the Abbey of Our Lady of Saint Joseph in Spencer, Massachusetts in 1951, and took the name Basil upon profession as a monk in 1953. After ordination in 1957, he spent several years in Rome earning an S.T.L., cum laude from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas and J.C.L. summa cum laude from the Gregorianum.

Pennington started Cistercian Publications in 1968, primarily to increase the availability of modern translations and commentaries on central Cistercian and other Christian theological texts. Cistercian Publications soon moved to the newly founded Institute of Cistercian Studies at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, in 1973. Pennington was a prolific author in his own right, and published nearly 60 books and numerous articles throughout his career, including books about Thomas Merton, Bernard of Clairvaux, and other Cistercian fathers; books about ecumenical monastic tradition; and books about Centering Prayer.

Pennington became publicly known through the Centering Prayer movement, a revitalization of a historic Christian contemplative prayer form taught by John Cassian and others. According to Pennington, the name “Centering Prayer” came from Thomas Merton, who would say that the easiest way to come into the experience of God and communion with God is to go to your own center and pass through that center into the center of God. Pennington also was heavily involved in fostering ecumenical cooperation in monasticism, especially between Eastern and Western traditions and between Christian and Buddist and Hindu traditions.

M. Basil Pennington died on June 3, 2005 following injuries sustained in a car accident the previous March.