Draft:Simeon Leiva-Merikakis



Fr. Simeon Leiva-Merikakis, OCSO (born Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, 28 December 1946) is a Catholic author, translator, Trappist monk, and former professor of literature and theology at the University of San Francisco.

Biography
Erasmo Spyros Leiva-Merikakis was born in Havana, Cuba, on December 28, 1946. His father, a Cuban doctor, traveled to the US for his internship, where he met his mother, a daughter of Greek immigrants and laboratory technician at the same hospital. After his parents married, they returned to Cuba, where Erasmo and his siblings were born. When the Batista regime in Cuba was overthrown by Communists in 1959, his family moved to the United States. In his youth, Leiva-Merikakis entered the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a Trappist monastery near Conyers, Georgia; he departed this first novitiate in the aftermath of Vatican II.

Leiva-Merikakis obtained his Ph.D. in comparative literature and theology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. While on fellowship in Salzburg, he expressed an interest in translating the works of theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar into English; the latter introduced Leiva-Merikakis to Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press, who would employ him as a translator as well as publish Leiva-Merikakis's original works. He became a professor of literature and theology at the University of San Francisco and the related St. Ignatius Institute. Through his relationship with Fessio and Ignatius Press, he would come into further contact with many Catholic ressourcement theologians, such as von Balthasar and Louis Bouyer. During the translation of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, from French into English, Leiva-Merikakis served as a theological consultant.

Leiva-Merikakis married and had three children, though this marriage would later be annulled. In 2003, Leiva-Merikakis entered St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts, where he took the monastic name, Simeon. Fr. Simeon was ordained to the priesthood in 2013 and served as Secretary to the Abbot-General in the OCSO Generalate in Rome from 2015 to 2021.

Work
Aside from English, Leiva-Merikakis is fluent in Greek, Spanish, French, and German. He is perhaps best-known for having translated several of Hans Urs von Balthasar's works from German into English, particularly the first volume of Glory of the Lord (German: Herrlichkeit), which introduced a widespread revival of theological aesthetics in modern Catholic thought. Other translations of von Balthasar include Heart of the World, The Threefold Garland, and An Ecclesial Existence, the latter a monograph on the French Catholic author, George Bernanos. He also translated Joseph Ratzinger's memoir, Milestones, 1927-1977 and a volume of Adrienne von Speyr's work.

A theologian in his own right, Fr. Simeon is widely known for his four-volume spiritual commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, a study balancing scholarly exegesis with the monastic tradition of lectio divina. He has also written Love's Sacred Order, an analysis and reappraisal of C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, as well as The Way of the Disciple. He has contributed to the international Catholic review, Communio, as well as being an editor for Cistercian Publications.

Publications

 * Blossoming Thorn: Georg Trakl's Poetry of Atonement (1987)
 * Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Volume I: Meditations on the Gospel According to Matthew (preface by Louis Bouyer) (1996)
 * Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Volume II (2003)
 * The Way of the Disciple (2003)
 * Love's Sacred Order: The Four Loves Revisited (2010)
 * Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Volume III (2013)
 * Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Volume IV (2021)

Selected translations

 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 1: Seeing the Form
 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like a Child
 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, Heart of the World
 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, Bernanos: An Ecclesial Existence
 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Threefold Garland: The World's Salvation in Mary's Prayer
 * Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms
 * Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977
 * Adrienne von Speyr, They Followed His Call