Dorothy Day was the last person I introduced to any followers of this blog, and while I was using a search engine to glean additional information about her, I came upon a posting which said, in effect: "In his address before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Pope Francis highlighted four great Americans, among whom were Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. Who are these people? I never heard of them." Reading that, I thought to myself: "WHAT???" I've known of them "forever," and I assumed that everyone else did as well. There is a whole lot I did not know about them, which is why I am studying about them now, but that remark expressing ignorance of either one of them prompts me to feature Thomas Merton in this posting.

I was in seventh grade when I first became aware of Thomas Merton. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain was first published in 1948 and became a best seller. My parents gifted me with a copy when I was in seventh grade, and I read it then. A lot of his experiences were much different then mine, and his knowledge of the world and his journey of faith were much beyond that of a seventh grader in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia. Needless to say, I missed a lot. I read the book again years later, and re-read it recently.

After my junior year in high school, one of the graduating seniors with whom I was friendly announced that he was entering the Trappists at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky — the same Abbey in which Thomas Merton lived. I was one of four of his high school friends who drove him there — I had heard that his father did not approve of his choice of vocation, so no family members accompanied him. We drove across Ohio during the night (the Ohio Turnpike opened later that year) and arrived at the Abbey in the morning. Vince, our friend, went into the cloister, and we were put up in the guest house. That evening, after dinner, Vince came to say goodbye to us before he entered the cloister for good.

The next morning we attended Mass in what was essentially a a choir loft, overlooking the monks. I was surprised to see a wooden screen across the Abbey Church between those members of the community who were brothers and those who were priests — the screen came down after the Vatican Council. As the monks entered the Church, one of the other visitors pointed out the bald head of Thomas Merton, so let the record show: I saw Thomas Merton in person.

Thomas Merton begins The Seven Storey Mountain:

"On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world."

He was born in the village of Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales, France. His parents were Owen Merton, an artist from New Zealand, and Ruth Jenkins, an artist from the United States; his parents had met in Paris and were married in London. Tom, as he was known in the family, was baptized in the Church of England — his mother was a Quaker and his father, Church of England, but they rarely attended worship.

In response to news of the war — the battle lines were only a couple hundred miles from their home — when Tom was only one year old, the family moved to Douglaston, Queens, New York, first living with his maternal grandparents, Harold ("Pop") and Elsie ("Bonnemaman") Jenkins, and then living in their own small house in Flushing, New York. It was in Flushing that Tom's only sibling, his brother John Paul, was born in November, 1918. And it was in Flushing that his mother, Ruth, was diagnosed with cancer and died in October 1921, when Tom was six years old.

The following year, Owen Merton went to Bermuda to paint, taking Tom with him — John Paul was deemed too young and he remained with his grandparents. In Bermuda, Owen entered into a liaison with Evelyn Scott, a writer; Tom disapproved of the relationship. The next year, 1923, Tom returned to the Douglaston under the supervision of his grandparents, while his father traveled to the south of France and Algeria to paint. Owen then had a successful exhibit in London, and in 1925 brought Tom with him to settle in the south of France; John Paul remained in New York.

They settled in the village of St. Antonin, and Tom was enrolled in a local school, where, at ten years old, he was placed with the smallest children while he tried to pick-up French. Soon he was fairly good in French and made a number of friends in the school. However, the following year, when Tom was eleven years old, he entered the Lycée Ingres in the nearby town of Montauban-Villenouvelle; there he found the students, although better off financially than the children of peasants he he befriended at St. Antonin, much rougher — and, until he got established, he was bullied there. He became part of a group that wrote novels. Also, while he was there, his father arranged for him to receive religious instruction, with a handful of others, from a Protestant Minister who visited the Lycée. During this time, his father traveled often, giving Tom the sense that he was on his own.

In the spring of 1928, Owen Merton went to London for an exhibition. When he returned, he told Tom to get his things packed: they were going to England. They settled in Ealing with Aunt Maud and Uncle Ben. Tom was enrolled at the Ripley Court School; he was older than his classmates, but he knew no Latin, which was necessary to pass the examination opening up the possibility of further education. He attended Ripley Court for one year, and part of the schedule was attendance at the local church every Sunday — he came to consider that time as his "religious phase."

In 1929, at age 14, Tom enrolled at Oakham School. However, before he began his classes at Oakham, Tom's father became sick. He wound up in a London hospital, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He lingered in the hospital throughout 1930 as Tom was in school at Oakham, visiting his father periodically. During that year Tom's grandparents visited from New York, and "Pop" told him that he had put the money he had planned to leave Tom and his father in his will into a safe investment which would provide Tom with a certain amount of income each year. He also saw this as a sign that he was now "of age," and experienced a sense of liberation.

On January 18, 1931, at Oakham, Tom was summoned to the headmaster's study and informed via telegram that his father had died — Tom was 15 years old. Tom arranged for the funeral, and his father was cremated. Tom returned to his studies. Oakham was a small school, and he was supported by students and faculty. The headmaster took him under his wing and prepared him for success at the university. His godfather, Tom Bennett, who had been his father's physician, became Tom's guardian.

Tom spent four years at Oakham, graduating in 1933. His guardian, Tom Bennett, advised him to consider a future career in the British diplomatic corps, and toward that end seek admission to Cambridge University. At the end of June, he took the examination in French, German and Latin for the higher certificate, and he passed — the higher certificate opened up the possibility of continuing to a university. In December, he sat for the scholarship examination at Cambridge, and he won a scholarship.

However, instead of matriculating at Cambridge immediately, he decided to travel, spending time in France and Italy. He spent freely, funded by his guardian. He stayed in Rome an extended period. There, he first visited the ruins of ancient Rome, but soon tired of them; he next visited museums, reading novels in the evening. But then, he began visiting and exploring various churches and religious institutions; he became particularly fascinated with Byzantine mosaics, and for the first time in his life began to find out something about Christ.

In the fall of that year, he enrolled in Clare College at Cambridge, where he seemingly lost interest in religion and his other studies, living a somewhat reckless lifestyle. He became a hard-drinking womanizer. Most biographers believe that he fathered a child, and that there was a threat of a paternity suit against him. He did not make the grade necessary for the university to continue his scholarship. At the end of the year, his guardian told him to give up the idea of a diplomatic career, and return to the United States.

Tom arrived in New York in December, 1934 and moved in with his grandparents, "Pop" and "Bonnemaman" and his brother, John Paul, in their Douglaston home. Shortly thereafter, he began the process of seeking admission to Columbia University, and he began his studies there early in 1935, just after his twentieth birthday.

In his first course at Columbia, he met Professor Mark Van Doren, a man he greatly admired who became an anchor for him amid other influences he experienced at the university. One of those influences was a brief fascination with the activities of Communists at the university; he soon began to see these activities as superficial.

He began the next semester in the fall which much enthusiasm; he registered for a full roster of courses and joined a fraternity, although he continued to commute from his grandparent's home. He began contributing to most of Columbia's student-run literary publications. He managed to maintain his grades, although he continued to have an active night life.

At the beginning of the following school year, in September, 1936, Tom's grandfather died; his grandmother was to die ten months later. During the academic year that intervened, Tom experienced a sickness that was never fully diagnosed but which led to his becoming somewhat of a hypochondriac, and left him fearful and not confident in himself.

Also, in that academic year, then in graduate school, he decided to do the thesis for his Master's Degree on Nature and Art in William Blake. He found that in reading Blake, he was drawn to a spirituality that he had not experienced. As part of his research, he read The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Etienne Gilson; the title evoked what he thought to be a simpler era at a time when he was looking for something to help him be more grounded. However, it was Gilson's philosophical explanation of God's being existence itself that challenged all his concepts of God, and began attracting him to Catholic dogma, which he had previously debunked.

More and more, circumstances were drawing him to the Catholic Church, but at this point, he found himself discussing the idea of becoming Catholic more as a philosophical concept, while not changing his lifestyle or taking any steps to move toward Catholicism. But, one Sunday he felt the urge to "go to Church," and, with some trepidation, he went to Corpus Christi Church for Mass. He was there for the Liturgy of the Word — the Mass was then in Latin with the priest facing the wall, his back to the people, praying sotto voce. Although it was a low Mass (without music) the solemnity and reverence of the liturgy impressed him, and the homily moved him. He left the Mass early, but was elated and felt transformed by the experience.

He began reading more and more Catholic literature, but again spent some time without taking any more steps toward embracing Catholicism. Then, while reading one of these books, he felt "What are you waiting for?" He found Father Ford, SJ at Corpus Christi Church and told him: "Father, I want to become a Catholic." He was given several books to read, and scheduled for a series of lessons, after which Thomas Merton was received into the Catholic Church in November, 1938.

Father Ford baptized Tom, and after Tom had made his first Confession, Father Ford celebrated a special Mass for Tom and his friends at which Tom made his First Holy Communion. Then, in the rectory, Father Ford put out a breakfast for Tom and his friends.

Then, after the euphoria of the whole conversion experience, he found himself drifting into the life of the "ordinary" Catholic — Sunday Mass, occasional Confession, etc. Later, in retrospect, he wished he had continued studying more about the Church, attended daily Mass more often, and sought out spiritual direction. He observed that when he was not growing in the spiritual life, he found himself regressing.

I have noticed this tendency in my own pastoral experience. Since the Vatican Council, reception into the Church ordinarily takes place through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (R.C.I.A.) which is an almost year-long program of weekly meetings involving prayer and study, along with several special liturgies at various points in the year, leading into reception into the Church at the Easter Vigil. Those seeking Baptism or Full Communion with the Church join this program as a group, working with the "R.C.I.A. Team." They actually become a tight-knit Christian Community, and after the euphoria of joining the Church at the Easter Vigil, often experience a let-down when they enter the ranks of "ordinary" Catholics and lose that small group community. Early in my time as a Pastor, I found that some of them ended up leaving the Church after a couple of yours. In recent years, many of those who went through the R.C.I.A. program returned the following year(s) both to support the next group of candidates, and to continue to grow in the faith themselves — that experience has been most fruitful.

In Tom's case, he continued to be proud of and comfortable in his Catholic faith, attending Sunday Mass and receiving the sacrament of Penance periodically. He received his Masters Degree from Columbia University in February 1939. The following summer, he and several of his friends spent some time in a cabin owned by another of their friends near Olean, New York. While there he visited St. Bonaventure's College, staffed by the Franciscan Friars, which was nearby, and borrowed some books from their library. He returned to New York City in August 1939, and resumed work on his Ph.D.

In September, after a night of socializing with friends, he went out for brunch and a walk, and somewhere in the midst of those activities, the idea that he should be a priest came to him. He mentioned it to his friends, who did not give him any argument — in fact, they really did not comment on it. He decided to visit a Church, and entered during a Holy Hour with exposition of the Most Holy Sacrament. Before the Monstrance, he said: "Yes! I want to be a priest."

Tom had decided that Dan Walsh could give him the best advice about where and how to become a priest. He met with Dan, who said: "You know, the first time I met you I thought you had a vocation to the priesthood." Tom's attraction was to a religious order, rather then to the diocesan priesthood. They talked about the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and Benedictines. Dan had recently made a retreat with the Trappists of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky and spoke about them enthusiastically. However, Tom felt they were too strict, and was more attracted to the Franciscans, which he felt would give him more freedom. Dan then gave him a note of introduction to Father Edmund at the Monastery of St. Francis of Assisi on 31^st Street.

After Tom's initial conversation with Father Edmund, he was encouraged to apply for admission to the novitiate the following August. Tom sought a earlier admission, but was told that they accept their candidates in groups. Tom became a daily communicant and went to confession frequently, and began looking forward to his life as a Franciscan Friar. Meanwhile, he continued his studies and taught several English composition classes at Columbia's Business School.

As August neared, Tom was anxiously awaiting his entrance into the Franciscans. But then, he began to have doubts, became more conscious of the sins of his past, and realized that Father Edmund knew very little about him. With a great amount of trepidation, he scheduled an appointment with Father Edmond and shared with him about his life before his entrance into the Catholic Church. Father Edmund reflected on this information overnight, and then advised him to write to the Provincial and tell him that he had reconsidered his application.

Tom followed Father Edmond's suggestion, but it devastated him. Still, the decision was that he could not live in a monastery, but he could try to live in the world as if he were a monk in a monastery. He could at least get a job teaching in a Catholic College where he could live under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament, and join a lay Third Order Franciscan group. As a first step, he bought a set of breviaries, and began to learn to use them to pray the the Liturgy of the Hours, as monks do each day.

Next, Tom traveled to Olean, NY in search of a teaching position at St. Bonaventure's College. He met with the president of the college, and was able to secure a position teaching literature to sophomores, while living on campus. He enjoyed teaching, going to Mass and receiving Communion daily, and praying the Liturgy of the Hours. It was the life to which he had become resigned after having been denied admission to the Franciscans . . . yet, he still felt that he was being called to more.

It was early in 1941, and Europe was at war. Tom received a questionaire from the Draft Board. In completing it, he felt that he could not be a conscientious objector, but decided to request service as a non-combatant. Before receiving any reply from the Draft Board, he was called for a medical examination. The doctors determined that he had lost too many teeth, and classified him as IV-F, not qualified for military service.

In February, he decided to make a retreat during Holy Week, and the first place that came to mind was the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky that Dan Walsh had told him about. He scheduled the retreat, and as Holy Week approached became excited about spending some time in the monastery. The experience overwhelmed him with the desire not to leave the monastery — the silence, the simple solemnity of the Masses and the chanting of the Liturgy of the Hours and the overpowering atmosphere of prayer took him to another level. Yet, he had been told that he did not have a vocation. At the end of the retreat, one part of him was prompted to appeal the decision to exclude him from the religious life; but another part of him was afraid to make that appeal, lest it be rejected, and that became the final answer. He decided to live a bit longer with a nebulous maybe he could still be a monk.

After he returned to teaching at St. Bonaventure's, he attended one of the weekly lectures, this one by Baroness Catherine de Hueck, who had been a Baroness in pre-Communist Russia, married when she was 15, fled the Bolshevik Revolution, and immigrated to Canada in 1920. Her husband led a dissolute life, and she became a single mother in 1930. In 1934, the Baroness moved into the slums of Toronto to serve the poor; she founded what she called Friendship House. Four years later, she moved to Harlem in New York City and opened another Friendship House there. Tom was so taken with her and her message, that at the end of the lecture, he asked her if it would be okay for him to visit her at Friendship House and work with her. She said, "Come on."

He followed-up the following August and spent three weeks working at Friendship House, becoming acquainted with the Baroness and those whom she served. When Labor Day arrived, the Baroness left for a visit to Canada, and Tom left to make the second Trappist retreat that he had promised himself ever since he returned from Gethsemani. To save time and money, he made this retreat at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley, outside Providence, Rhode Island. [In March 1950, Our Lady of the Valley Monastery was ravaged by fire, and the devastation was virtually complete. Because of increasing development encroaching on the abbey, in 1949 the community had purchased property in Spencer, Massachusetts. The monks built Saint Joseph's Abbey there, and the community continues to exist there.]

The retreat provided Tom with the opportunity to reflect on his future, but did not have the same impact on him as his retreat at Gethsemani — he left with the same respect for the Cistercian life, but with no special desire to enter that monastery. As far as his future was concerned, he decided that until he got some more definite light, he would continue to teach at Saint Bonaventure's.

Back in Saint Bonaventure's and into the first semester, one of the Friars informed Tom that the Baroness was coming for a visit, that he and another Friar were going to pick her up at the Buffalo train station, and that Tom was welcome to join them. Tom had been corresponding with the Baroness since his time at Friendship House, and gladly accepted the invitation. After they picked her up, while making conversation in the car during the return journey, the Baroness asked: "Well, Tom, when are you coming to Harlem for good." He hedged in reply, but then came to believe that this may be the answer for which he was looking. Before the Baroness left, Tom had talked to the President of the college, and it was decided that Tom would leave his position at the college and move to Friendship House in Harlem at the beginning of the second semester.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays, Tom made a visit New York City which included a dinner with Mark Van Doren, his Columbia professor. Their conversation included some talk about the Trappists, and Mark asked whatever happened about his idea of becoming a priest. Tom gave an indefinite shrug, to which Mark commented: "I talked about that to someone who knows what it is all about, and he said that the fact that you let it all drop when you were told that you had no vocation, might really be a sign that you had none" — Mark, himself, was not Catholic. In effect, he was saying that if Tom had not asked for a second opinion, he, himself, was deciding that he did not have a vocation.

A few days later, back at St. Boniface's, he found himself filled with the conviction: "The time has come for me to go and be a Trappist." He felt that Father Philotheus was a Friar who could help him discern. After their conversation, the only question Father Philotheus had was: "Are you sure you want to be a Trappist?" — and he was satisfied with Tom's answer. Without delay, Tom wrote to the Abbot of Gethsemani asking permission to come and make a retreat at Christmas time, hinting that he was coming as a postulant.

Almost the next day, he received a notice from the Draft Board informing him that he was to report immediately for a fresh medical examination. He was sure that the Draft Board was now relaxing their medical requirements and he would be deemed eligible for military service. He went to the chapel to lament his cruel fate: just as the possibility of being a Franciscan Friar had been snatched from him at the last minute, it seemed that his desire to be a Trappist Monk might go unfulfilled. He immediately wrote to the Draft Board, told them that he was entering a monastery, and asked for time to find out when and under what conditions he could be admitted.

Before he had received a reply from the Draft Board, the bombing of Pearl Harbor took place and the United States was at war. The next day, he received the Draft Board's answer: they said that the medical examination would be put off for one month.

Knowing that he had only one month to learn whether or not he would be accepted at Gethsemani, he asked for, and received, permission from the President of the College to leave for Kentucky at once. Other English teachers at St. Bonaventure committed to cover his classes for the rest of the semester. He packed up most of his clothes and sent them to Friendship House to be distributed to the poor; and he sent most of his books to friends in New York City. Then, he left for Gethsemani.

The train took him from Olean to Buffalo, NY, then across Ohio, bringing him to Cincinnati around dawn. He was able to attend Mass in Cincinnati before catching the train to Louisville, KY. From there he caught a bus to Bardstown, where he met a gas station attendant who drove him to Gethsemani. Throughout the journey he reflected that the decision was now in God's hands, and totally out of his own control. If he was not accepted at Gethsemani, he would report to the Draft Board for his physical exam, and the Army would either accept him and he would be in the Army, or they would reject him again in which case he would go to Harlem. Somehow, he felt comfort that it was now totally in God's hands.

Tom rang the bell at the gatehouse, and Brother Matthew opened the door, the same Brother who had greeted him when he arrived for his Holy Week retreat. He recognized Tom, and said: "This time have you come to stay?" Tom replied: "Yes, Brother, if you'll pray for me." "That's what I've been doing," he said, "praying for you."

Father Joachim, the Guest Master, arrived, took Tom to his room, and gave him a copy of the Spiritual Directory which described what the Cistercian vocation was all about. The Trappists trace their roots to Saint Benedict of Nursia, his building the Monastery of Monte Cassino in 523, and writing The Rule of Saint Benedict, which directed the lives of the community, and became the foundation of Western monasticism. The Rule stipulated that each monastery be independent under the leadership of its Abbot, and over the centuries many monasteries, to meet the needs of the Church in their time, expanded their activities beyond contemplation to include active ministries such as schools, universities, etc. In 1098, twenty-one monks from the wealthy Burgundian monastery of Molesme created a new monastery where they would live in the poverty and contemplation which they saw as in the spirit of Benedict's Rule; their monastery was in Cîteaux (Cistercium in Latin), and those following this discipline became known as Cistercians. In 1664, Abbot Armand Jean le Bouthilier de Rancé of La Trappe Abbey introduced a further reform of the Cistercians, the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, popularly known as Trappists.

The first day, Tom prayed with the monks and ate in the guest house. The next day Father Joachim assigned him and another postulant to washing dishes and waxing floors in silence. Back in his room, he was visited by the Master of Novices, who sat down and asked: "Does the silence scare you?" That led to a very pleasant informal discussion, which, among other things, affirmed Tom's knowing Latin and French.

Then, with some trepidation, Tom shared with Father Master the same information about his life before he became a Catholic that he had shared with Father Edmond when he was contemplating entering the Franciscans, the information that led to his being told that in all probability he did not have a vocation to the priesthood. In response, Father Master simply asked how long since he had been baptized. He did not seem to be disturbed, and said that he liked that Tom had told him all there was to be told. He said that he would ask Father Abbot about it.

In my research, I never found a formal response from Father Abbot, but Tom remained in the community. I suspect that the Abbot also turned the decision over to God, figuring that if God wanted Tom to be a Trappist, he would give him the grace to persevere in the community.

After several more days in the Guest House, during which he continued to spend time waxing floors in silence, the Novice Master appeared and told him to get his things. He was presented to Dom Frederick, the Abbot, who welcomed him and gave him advice. Then he entered the cloister, stopped at the tailor shop where he was measured for his robe, and then entered the noviatiate. Within a couple of days, he received and put on his robe, and was given the name, Brother M. Louis. He was a monk!

In April, John Paul, Tom's brother, visited the monastery and Tom was permitted to spend time with him each day during his visit. They had not been able to spend a lot of time together as children. Although Tom had tried to mentor him during his college years at Cornell, John Paul did not take his studies seriously, although during his college years he did take up flying lessons. After college, he thought he had found a program which could give him a military officer's commission in short order, but then learned that was not the case. Fearing that he would be drafted into the infantry, he enlisted in the Canadian Air Force, and planned his visit to Gethsemani just before his deployment to Europe . . . and the war.

John Paul told his brother that wished to be baptized a Catholic, but had made no preparations. With the permission of the Abbot, Tom gave him a crash course in the faith, and the Abbot arranged for his baptism in a nearby parish. Subsequently, John Paul was sent to England, met Margaret May Evans, and married her in February 1943. On April 16, 1943, his plane went down in the North Sea; he made is aboard a dinghy with several other survivors, but died and was buried at sea before the other survivors were rescued. Tom learned of his brother's death from his Abbot via a telegram received several weeks later.

Tom then concentrated into entering the rhythm of monastic life. Saint Benedict saw monastic life as Ora et Labora ("pray and work") so a large part of the day is spent in prayer: the prayer in common is the singing of the Liturgy of the Hours (then, in Latin), and the individual prayer includes devotions such as the rosary as well as contemplative prayer. The work (labora) is intended to meet the needs of the community, since, once established, each monastery is intended to be self-sufficient. Tom shared his early experiences with the "work" in the monastery in The Seven Storey Mountain:

"Some are busy with food, some with clothing, some with fixing pipes, some with fixing the roof. Some paint the house, some sweep the rooms, some mop the floor of the refectory. One goes to the bees with a mask on and takes away their honey. Three or four others sit in a room with typewriters, and all day long they answer the letters of people who write here asking for prayers because they are unhappy. Still others are fixing tractors and trucks, others are driving them. The brothers are fighting with the mules to get them into harness. Or they go out to the pasture after the cows. Or they worry about the rabbits. One of them says he can fix watches. Another is making plans for the new monastery in Utah.

"The ones who have no special responsibility for chickens or pigs or writing pamphlets or packing them up to send out by mail or keeping the complicated accounts in our Mass book — the ones that have nothing special to do can always go out and weed the potatoes and hoe the rows of corn."

Tom had a visit from Robert Lax, one of his old friends, and as Lax was leaving, Tom gave him a manuscript with thirty poems, half written from his days in St. Bonaventure's, and the other half during his time at Gethsemani. Tom was trying to separate himself with writing as he entered more into the Cistercian spirit. Lax took Tom's collection of poems to Mark Van Doren, who sent them to a publisher, and they were published as Thirty Poems — his first published work.

Lax wanted him to continue to write, but Tom did not think it was God's will, nor did his confessor. However, in January 1945 while he was seeing the Abbot for direction, the Abbot suddenly said: "I want you to go on writing poems." Trappists take the vow of poverty, which means that any income a Trappist receives becomes the property of the community. Therefore, in effect Tom was being told that at least part of his "work" as a Cistercian would be writing, thereby helping support the community through any royalties that might be received.

It was Abbot Frederick Dunne who had told Tom to continue to write poems. He was the one who had received Tom as a postulant, and he was the one who suggested that Tom write his life story. Although Tom was reluctant at first, he began writing in obedience, and then wrote extensively, not knowing what audience he might have been thinking of. After he completed it, he found himself "trying to tone down" his original draft for the Trappist censors, and then incorporating some suggestions from the publisher's editing team. Finally, the book was published as The Seven Storey Mountain.

Robert Giroux was a close friend of Thomas Merton from their days together at Columbia University, and while he was working at Harcourt Brace & Company, he received the partly approved text of The Seven Storey Mountain. He read the book in a day, became excited about it, and decided that it was publishable. He felt that the book would have an audience, but it never occurred to him that the book might be a best seller. When the advanced proof arrived, he sent copies to Evelyn Waugh, Clare Boothe Luce, Graham Greene and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen — they all responsed in laudatory terms, and provided quotations for the book jacket and for advertisements. He decided to increase the first printing from 5,000 to 12,500. Today, including paperback editions and translations, the total sale of the book has reached multiple millions, and it continues to sell.

Mark Van Doren, a Columbia professor whom Merton greatly admired, in response to being asked what makes a book a classic, replied: "A classic is a book that remains in print."

While at Gethsemani, Thomas Merton had published several books before The Seven Storey Mountain, and, encouraged by his Abbot, he continued to write: more than 50 books, 2,000 poems, and countless essays, reviews and lectures.

Merton was not the only Trappist at Gethsemani who was published. Contemporary with Merton's publications, Father M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. began writing 20+ historical novels and devotional books as well as an equal number of pamphlets, all of which were popular at the time and most of which went into multiple editions, with some translated into foreign languages. His works lost their appeal to a wide audience during the cultural shift of the late 1960s and later, but several of his writings have been reissued in recent years.

In 1948, shortly after the publication of The Seven Storey Mountain Abbot Frederic Dunne died, the Abbot who had accepted Merton into Gethsemani, and the one who encourage both Merton and Father M. Raymond to write. The community elected as his successor, Abbot James Fox. He and Merton were to have a complex relationship, although Abbot Fox had enough faith in Merton to appoint him as the novice master, and his own personal confessor.

Abbot Fox attended the Harvard Business School before joining the U.S. Navy during World War I. He was a shrewd, practical manager, a problem solver, orderly, well-organized, and effective at fundraising. Early on as Abbot, he determined that the ordinary income of the Abbey would not be sufficient to sustain their needs going forward. He enlarged the production capacity and made significant profits from selling cheese and fruitcakes in the marketplace. In the process, the medieval quiet of the monastery was transformed by the noise of tractors and other machines — which Merton could barely tolerate. In fact, Merton considered leaving the Cistercians for the Carthusians in which the silence, prayer and solitude made the monks more like hermits. Despite the tension, Abbot Fox was able to persuade him that his needs could be met at Gethsemani.

Another issue which was a source of tension between Merton and Abbot Fox was that of travel. Following the publication of The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton was a celebrity, and received a number of invitations to speak or meet. Abbot Fox denied permission to leave the monastery in virtually every case, since it was not at all a feature of Cistercian life. Merton himself was in a sense conflicted: part of him had a desire for even more solitude, but another part of him thrived in the social interaction he could have with the people who were requesting his presence. Still, Merton was permitted to have many more visitors than the average monk; for example, over the years he received visits from Boris Pasternak, James Baldwin, Erich Fromm, and Joan Baez. He was also a prolific correspondent.

On Thursday, May 26, 1949, Thomas Merton was ordained to the priesthood, and celebrated Mass; he shared the event with the monastic community and a number of friends who visited for the occasion. Several days before, in his journal he expressed doubts about his worthiness, but when the day arrived he experienced a euphoria which continued for several weeks. He noted in his journal: "The Mass is the most wonderful thing that has ever entered my life. When I am at the altar, I feel that I am at last the person that God has truly intended." For the rest of his life he was devoted to saying Mass daily.

Upon his ordination, Merton would seem to have fully realized his aspirations to be a priest and a monk, and he seemed to passionately embrace silence and solitude. However, at the same time, the publication of The Seven Storey Mountain had made him a celebrity, and the Abbot's encouraging him to write led to an ongoing succession of books, e.g.:

• 1949 - Seeds of Contemplation; The Tears of the Blind Lions ; and The Waters of Siloe;
• 1951 - The Ascent to Truth;
• 1953 - The Sign of Jonas; and Bread in the Wilderness;
• 1954 - The Last of the Fathers;
• 1955 - No Man Is an Island;

and this led to communication and fellowship with many outside of the monastery. It was a paradox.

In 1951 the Abbot named Merton Master of Scholastics, overseeing the formation of students for priesthood, a position which he held until 1955. Some followers of Merton's writings believe that he books during that period were expansions of the reflections he was developing for the Scholastics. He emphasized that monastic teaching should be more person-oriented and wisdom-oriented than knowledge-oriented. The vision of the ideal monk should be based on a realization of one's true or authentic self, the interior self beyond ego and pretense, animated by the love of God. His students found in him a teacher who was animated and humorous, yet intensely interested in each student individually, and an excellent spiritual director.

In 1955 Merton became the Master of Novices, overseeing the formation of those aspiring to take vows as members of the monastic community. Of the notes that he prepared for his conferences to the novices, almost one-third of them are devoted to the mother of Jesus; he emphasized the importance of the Virgin Mary in a monk's life.

He continued as Master of Novices for ten years while still writing. Meanwhile, his prayer and contemplation were deepening his desire for solitude, and, at the same time, calling him to speak out about the social ills about which he was becoming more and more aware. That tension between the call to solitude and the call to activism prompted his questioning about whether or not he belonged at Gethsemani.

In 1957, a young native of Nicaragua and recent graduate of Columbia University named Ernesto Cardenal entered Gethsemani as a postulant — he had been attracted to Gethsemani after reading The Seven Storey Mountain. He and Merton bonded over their shared love of poetry, and the Columbia University connection, and their lives were to be intertwined for a while.

On March 18, 1958, as Merton was running errands in downtown Louisville, he had an experience which deepened his awareness of his connection with the broader world. He described it in his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness . . . This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."

Merton had already been becoming more and more interested in life beyond the monastery, hoping to unite in himself various contrasting movements. He held that, not only does absolute Truth really exist, but that humans can access it to shape our vision for society. He believed that all embody some portion of truth. Thus, he studied Marxism as well as the Greek and Latin Fathers. He sought to reconcile Roman and Orthodox traditions in the Church, and find all that is good both in Russia and America. And his conversations with Ernesto Cardenal exposed him to the synthesis of Old World Iberian Catholicism with Latin America's indigenous peoples.

He distinguished between the person, the true self — where awareness is grounded in freedom and ultimate Being, i.e., in God — and the individual, the false self — where awareness is artificially constructed by the ego's creating illusions to present to society. Socially, he contrasted communities, comprised of mutually grounded persons, with collectives, comprised of adrift, fragmented, ego-driven individuals. In was with this view of individuals and society that he exercised non-violent activism.

Ernesto Cardenal left Gethsemani after two years with the goal of returning to Nicaragua, being ordained a priest, and beginning a monastery there. Before his departure, Merton and he discussed Merton's joining him there. Toward that end, Merton requested permission of the Abbot General to transfer to a Latin American Trappist monastery — Benedictines, Cistercians, and Trappists all take a vow of Stability which is a life-long commitment to a particular community; that vow would have to be dispensed by the Abbot General. It took a while before he received a response; he opened the letter in the monastery chapel, and the reply was negative. He accepted the response as God's will, but still continued to correspond with Cardenal.

Cardenal was ordained a priest in Nicaragua, and founded a semi-monastic spiritual community and arts center among the peasants and indigenous peoples in Nicaragua's Solentiname Islands, where he lived from 1965-1977. He remained an activist in Nicaragua, but gradually moved away from the non-violence espoused by Merton. He came to support the military wing of the Sandinista revolution, and in 1979 when the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, Cardenal became the Minister of Culture under the Sandinista government. Pope John Paul II rebuked him for accepting a government position as a priest, and in 1984, he was laicized. Pope Francis reinstated Cardenal's priesthood thirty years later in 2014.

Meanwhile, at Gethsemani, Merton continued to be involved in activism, but in a different way: he wrote more and more on questions of abstract principle, while corresponding with key figures in the activist movement such as Daniel Berrigan in support of their activities. In his journal during the summer of 1960, he set as priorities:

"To discover all the social implications of the Gospel not by studying them but by living them, and to unite myself explicitly with those who foresee and work for a social order — a transformation of the world — according to these principles: primacy of the person — (hence justice, liberty, against slavery, peace, control of technology, etc.); primacy of wisdom and love — (hence against materialism, hedonism, pragmatism, etc.)"

At the same time, his desire for more solitude was developing into a deep thirst.

The issue he focused on most at this point was the problem of war, and the Christian response to it. His strong sense of the dignity of human life prompted his total aversion to the possibility that humanity would doom itself to annihilation through nuclear war, and that American Catholics — including bishops — supported American use of it nuclear arsenal in a preemptive strike against Russia. However, more and more the Trappist censors prohibited publication of his anti-war writings.

In April 1962 Merton received a letter from the Abbot General in Rome instructing him to "stop all publication on anything on war," because it is not appropriate for a monk, and it "falsifies the message of monasticism." The manuscript for Peace in a Post-Christian Era was ready for publication, so Merton asked the Abbot General if it could be submitted to the Trappist censors for review. The response ordered him "to abstain from writing in any way whatever about the subject of nuclear war." Merton responded: "I accept your decision joyfully." However, he then provided memeographed copies of the book to some of his friends, including Daniel Berrigan, SJ, and Dorothy Day. But he warned that nothing more was possible until a new decision from Rome. He continued to comment on other issues; for example in 1963, he published two essays on race.

In 1964, Merton received an invitation from Dr. D. T. Suzuki, a prominent Zen Buddhist with whom Merton had been corresponding since the late 1950s, to meet in New York City. He expressed his desire to accept the invitation to Abbot James Fox, and it was granted. Although the Abbot permitted Merton to receive a number of visitors at Gethsemani, he had almost never permitted Merton to accept invitations to speak or meet outside of the monastary. Thus, in December, 1964, Merton traveled to Columbia University in New York to meet this kindred soul from Japan.

For a few years, Merton had asked Abbot Fox for permission to move to a hermitage so that he could embrace greater solitude, but each of his requests had been denied on the basis that hermits were not part of the Cistercian charism. However, on August 17, 1965, Abbot Fox's council of advisers approved a new novice master, and voted for Merton's transfer to a hermitage that had been built almost a mile from the monastery buildings amid wooded, hilly grounds. He became the first American Trappist to live in a hermitage.

From his hermitage, in 1966, he published Raids on the Unspeakable, a collection of mostly revised articles, ranging from parables to prose poems as well as calligraphic drawings. They were creative pieces in which the writing was largely given over to metaphor, symbolism and other acts of the imagination. Merton considered this his favorite work; it was distinct among his writings both in subject matter and point of view.

Also, in 1966, following back surgery in a Louisville hospital, Merton fell in love with Margie Smith, a 19-year-old student nurse — he was 51. They had an affair while he was in the hospital, and continued contact even after he had returned to the monastery. Abbot Fox came to learn about it, and Merton was confronted with the choice: leave the monastery or leave Margie. He chose to leave Margie, but it took him a while to let go of the emotional bonds.

His work, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander was also published in 1966. In a series of notes, opinions, experiences, and reflections, he examines some of the most urgent questions of his time — and our time, as well — issues such as the "death of God," politics, modern life and values, and racial strife. During this period, Merton was becoming more and more interested in the experience of monasticism, from the Egyptian desert fathers to modern Buddhist monks, The monk and the hermit leave society to build a unity with Christ through the Holy Spirit, to overcome individualism, self-centerness, etc. and from that perspective embrace the whole world, all of creation, and each person, in love — thus seeing and helping the society he or she "left."

In 1967 Dom James Fox resigned as the Abbot of Gethsemani Abbey, and — believe it or not — he retired to a hermitage built on the Abbey grounds. The community elected as his successor, Dom Flavian Burns, who had been in the novitiate while Merton was the Novice Director.

Mystics and Zen Masters was published in 1967. In this book Merton discusses diverse religious concepts — early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."

In 1968, Merton, while responding graciously, and in some ways gratefully, to a number of visitors in his hermitage, felt that he needed greater solitude. He asked for, and received, from the new Abbot permission to "scout" for a possible spot for a more isolated hermitage. Toward that end, from May 16^th to May 20^th he visited the href="https://christdesert.org/">Monastery of Christ in the Desert at Abiquiu, New Mexico.

Later that year, Merton received an invitation from his friend, Jean Leclercq, from Aide à l'Implantation Monastique, an international, intermonastic network, to give a major address at a conference of Asian monastic leaders at the Red Cross Conference Centre in Samut Prakhan, about 19 miles from Bangkok in December. Merton had become deeply interested in and knowledgeable of Asian monasticism and had corresponded with the Dalai Lama, Dr. D.J. Suzuki, and Thich Nhât Hanh, a prominent Vietnamese Buddhist, all of whom were to be at the meeting, so Merton asked the permission to attend of Abbot Flavian Burns, and permission was granted.

Once it became known that he would be attending the conference, he received many other invitations, and the trip presented itself to him both as an opportunity for interfaith encounters as well as visits to communities of his own Cistercian tradition, and more personally, for a pilgrimage, an opportunity "to deepen his own religious and monastic commitment."

On September 10, 1968, Thomas Merton left the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani for his journey to Asia; however, as a prelude to the Asian experience, he set aside time to visit the American West and Alaska to accept invitations to speak, and to search for a possible more remote hermitage site. He spent the first night at what was then St. Bonaventure's Friary at Bellarmine College in Louisville. On September 11^th he flew via O'Hare Airport in Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he was picked-up and transported to Christ in the Desert Monastery for a return visit. On September 14^th and 15^th he attended the Jicarilla Apache Festival at their reservation.

On September 16^th> Merton flew from Albuquerque to Chicago where he stayed at the new Poor Clare convent and gave an evening talk. On September 17^th he was en route to Alaska. Merton was in Alaska from September 18^th to October 2^nd at the invitation of the bishop, giving consideration to the proposal of establishing hermitages for himself and possibly other Gethsemani monks — he visited Anchorage, Eagle River, Cordova, Valdez, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Yakutat. While he was there, he presented a number of conferences which have been published, together with his Alaskan journal. In long letters to his abbot, Flavian Burns, he is enthusiastic about his experiences, but still undecisive about any potential hermitage sites.

From Alaska, he flew via San Francisco to Santa Barbara, where he was met by his friend since 1961, Wilbur H. ("Ping") Ferry, and made "a brief informal presentation before a meeting of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions." Ferry then drove Merton back to San Francisco along the coast, looking without success for hermitage sites. On October 9^th he arrived at the Cistercian women's monastery of Our Lady of the Redwoods for a three-day conference on contemplative life which began on October 11^th. By October 13^th he was back in San Francisco, and he left from there for Asia on October 15^th. Later, he noted that most of his talks throughout this time were on prayer.

As the plane took off on his trip to Asia, Merton wrote in his journal that he had a "great sense of destiny, of being at last on my true way after years of waiting and wondering and fooling around. May I not come back without having settled the great affair. And found also the great compassion." Merton missed most of October 15^th when his plane crossed the international date-line. and arrived in Bangkok on October 17^th. After a couple of hours sleep, he went to the Wat Bovoranives a major Buddhist temple, to meet with the English Buddhist Monk Bhikkhu Khantipalo and the Abbot, the Venerable Chao Khun Sasana Sobhanna.

On October 19^th he traveled to Calcutta, which, he said, "is always a shock: the poverty and misery are overwhelming there." There, from October 22^nd to 26^th he participated in, and presented at, the first Spiritual Summit Conference of the Temple of Understanding, an interfaith education and advocacy organization established in 1960 and still active today. The theme of the conference was "The Relevance of Religion in the Modern World."

On October 28^th, Merton traveled from Calcutta to New Delhi, and on November 1^st journeyed to Dharamsala, where he experienced his first real taste of the Himalayas — the mountain silence and solitude. Dharamsala has been the home of the Government of Tibet in Exile since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 — Tibet itself is undeer the administration of the Peoples Republic of China. On November 4^th Merton met with the Dalai Lama.

While in the Himalayas, Merton reflected on his quest for solitude: "I am beginning to appreciate the hermitage at Gethsemani more than I did last summer when things seemed so noisy and crowded. Even here in the mountains there are few places where one does not run into someone . . . For solitude, Alaska really seems the very best place. But everyone I have talked to says I must also consider others and keep open to them to some extent. All advise against absolute solitude and stress "compassion". They seem to agree that being in solitude much of the year and coming "out" for a while would be a good solution . . ."

On November 7^th Merton had his final meeting with the Dalai Lama, leaving that meeting with the sense that they had become good friends. He then left Dharamsala and made his way back to Calcutta via New Delhi. From New Delhi he went to Darjeeling. There, on November 16^th, he met Chadral Rinpoche, (Rinpoche is an honorific for abbots of Buddhist monasteries), to whom he related in a special way since they were both hermits with a long history of spiritual practice — the Dalai Lama, by contrast, was much younger than Merton. He then took time at the Mim Tea Estate for a mini-retreat in a quiet bungalow. He ended his retreat and left Darjeeling on November 24^th.

With the Himalayan portion of his trip over, Merton made a visit to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). There, in the ancient ruins of Polonnaruwa he visited the great statues of the Buddha carved out of the living rock — it was a high point of his journey, and he was "knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures." The four images of the Buddha carved out of the rock — a large seated figure, a smaller seated figure inside an artificial cave, a standing figure, and a reclining figure — somehow prompted Merton to say: "I don't know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination."

Merton arrived in Bangkok on December 5^th, traveling from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) via Singapore. On December 8^th, the day of the last entry in his journal, he celebrated Mass at St. Louis Church, had lunch at the Apostolic Delegation, and then went to the Red Cross Conference Center, where he was housed on the ground floor of Cottage Two. There was a gathering that evening at which Merton was seen principally with Asian monks.

The Conference began the following morning, and Merton attended the morning session, and the scheduled celebration of the Eucharist. He led one of the afternoon sessions, a discussion on "The Possibilities of Asian Monasticism," which seemed to be looking at ways in which local customs and institutions could be integrated into the life of historic Western monastic communities now established in the East — for example, in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, etc.

The next day, December 10^th, Merton's presentation was during the second morning session, his topic: "Marxism and Monastic Perspectives." He said, among other things: "Essential in monastic life is the transformation of the Chritian person and the Christian community, by a complete consecration to listening to the Word and to incorporating this Word into our life and experience . . . Hence the importance of transformation, which is more than formation. Often monastic formation teaches us to conform, rather than bringing about an interior transformation. All that it does is to show us how to play a role."

At the end of the talk, Merton suggested putting off a question and answer period until the evening session. He concluded with the words, "So, I will disappear," adding a suggestion that everyone have a Coke. At 4:00 o'clock Merton was discovered dead in his cottage, a standing fan had fallen on top of him. He apparently slipped while getting out of the shower, and while reaching for something with which to steady himself, grabbed the fan which had faulty electrical wiring, and was electrocuted.