With the publication of the autobiographical Seven Storey Mountain (1948), he gained an international reputation. On July 17 John Paul arrived in Gethsemani and the two brothers did some catching up. For the text see, Austin Flannery, O.P., Vatican Council II. When attending the Centennial Conference at Bellarmine University, I was impressed by the range of specialist publications on and by Merton, but I intervened in a session to express my reservation that there was a danger of Merton studies becoming too monographic for the general public. It was during this trip that Merton was fatally electrocuted by a faulty wire at an international monastic convention in Thailand. [10], In 1926, when Merton was eleven, his father enrolled him in a boys' boarding school in Montauban, the Lyce Ingres. His escape from the world ceased with his return to the world of celebrity touring. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. [4][5] It is on National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century.[6]. It was a major turning point in my life, and ultimately led to the formation of the Center for Action and Contemplation. After a year at the University of Cambridge, he entered Columbia University, New York City, where he earned B.A. From 1948 on, Merton identified as an anarchist.[19]. In Darjeeling, he befriended Tsewang Yishey Pemba, a prominent member of the Tibetan community. He died at age 53 in 1968 in a freak electrocution accident in Thailand. St. Bonaventure University also holds an important repository of Merton materials worldwide. [18] On February 22, 1939, Merton received his M.A. His official biographer, Michael Mott, concluded that Mertons death was by electrocution on December 10th, 1968, caused by one of three factors: suicide, murder or an accident. Merton had converted to Catholicism in 1938 at age 23, seeking solace after a troubled and itinerant young life. (2). Merton worried about breathlessness, checked his blood pressure whenever he could and had an unsettled stomach. Over the next several months, the nurse and the monk wrote letters, drank wine, and fell in love, sneaking in and out of the Abbey of Gethsemani like love-struck teenagers. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another." Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation tags: peace 345 likes Like "[54], Merton is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of some[which?] Merton was a destroyed person because of his failure to marry Margie, according to John Dear, in his study of Thomas Merton Peacemaker, in 1968, the brutal year of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the arrest of Daniel Berrigan and the Catonsville Nine, the police brutality at the Democratic convention in Chicago and the election of Richard Nixon. While Merton expected Brahmachari to recommend Hinduism, instead he advised Merton to reconnect with the spiritual roots of his own culture. January 31st marks the closing of the centenary of Thomas Merton's birth.Merton is best known for his 1948 autobiography The Seven Story Mountain, which charted his trajectory from world citizen and aspiring literati to cloistered monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.In addition to writing prose and poetry related to spirituality and social concerns, Merton was at the . This was highly unusual at the time in the United States, particularly within the religious orders. The mystique of the Catholic Church which Merton joined in 1941 was lost with the introduction of the vernacular. . Prof Peter Savastano attributes Mertons untimely death to the fact that he was very much a product of his time. [40], Merton also explored American Indian spirituality. On March 19, 1944, Merton made his temporary profession of vows and was given the white cowl, black scapular and leather belt. Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (p. 361) In May 2016 I was lucky enough to join a group on a brief excursion to Thomas Merton's former hermitage. What happened Thomas Merton? Jon is the author of numerous books, including The Pope Who Quit, Beauty Awakening Belief: How the Medieval . That is hardly worth thinking about now 25 years since my last adultery.. More significantly, Bamberger has recently revealed that Abbot James asked him to engage Merton about an affair he was having with a young nurse. [49], An annual lecture in his name is given at his alma mater, Columbia University in which the Columbia chaplaincy invites a prominent Catholic to speak. Into this world, this demented inn, in. 611-623. In fact just before his appalling accidental death in December 1968, he was saying openly that Christianity could be greatly improved by a strong dose of Buddhism and Hinduism into its faith. [53], Merton was one of four Americans mentioned by Pope Francis in his speech to a joint meeting of the United States Congress on September 24, 2015. Thomas Merton was born in Prades, France, on January 31, 1915, the first-born child of an American mother, born Ruth Jenkins, and a New Zealander, Owen Merton. [28] His associate, Jean Leclercq, states: "In all probability the death of Thomas Merton was due in part to heart failure, in part to an electric shock. Reflections to Honor his Centenary (1915-2015), edited by Gray Henry and Jonathan Montaldo. [7] He was baptized in the Church of England, in accordance with his father's wishes. Merton had mixed feelings about the publishing of this work, but Dunne remained resolute over Merton continuing his writing. Merton became well known for his dialogues with other faiths and his non-violent stand during the race riots and Vietnam War of the 1960s. John Cooney, a former religious affairs correspondent of the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, is the biographer of John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland (O'Brien Press, Dublin, 1999) cooneyjohn47@gmail.com, This article first appeared in the September 2015 issue of Doctrine and Life, 1. Having studied the Desert Fathers and other Christian mystics as part of his monastic vocation, Merton had a deep understanding of what it was those men sought and experienced in their seeking. [39][note 2] With this idea in mind, Merton's later writings about Zen may be understood to be coming more and more from within an evolving and broadening tradition of Zen which is not particularly Buddhist but informed by Merton's monastic training within the Christian tradition. He fell in love with 19-year-old Margie Smith. She was a pretty, petite student-nurse; he was stocky and bald, with a roving intellect and a boisterous laugh. Merton decided he would pursue his PhD at Columbia and moved from Douglaston to Greenwich Village. [48], The 2015, in tribute to the centennial year of Merton's birth, The Festival of Faiths in Louisville Kentucky honored his life and work with Sacred Journeys the Legacy of Thomas Merton. 2. He was also the most celebrated Catholic monk in America. Over the years he had occasional battles with some of his abbots about not being allowed out of the monastery despite his international reputation and voluminous correspondence with many well-known figures of the day. In reality, Shaw argues, Merton was haunted by his youthful indiscretions with womenincluding reportedly, the fathering of a child out of wedlockand the chasm between his private past and public persona. [32][33], Merton was first exposed to and became interested in Eastern religions when he read Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means in 1937, the year before his conversion to Catholicism. It is regrettable that Abbot Rembert Weakland, the conference organiser, waived an autopsy in a rush to transfer the body back to Gethsemani on a US military plane along with the bodies of US service personnel killed in Vietnam. Adrian Hastings, in his History of English Christianity, 1920-1985, says Merton generated a wider movement of Catholic enthusiasm principally by writing the most exciting and influential religious autobiography of its generation, perhaps of this century. During his initial weeks at Gethsemani, Merton studied the complicated Cistercian sign language and daily work and worship routine. One incident indicative of this is the drive he took in the monastery's jeep, during which Merton, acting in a possibly manic state, erratically slid around the road and almost caused a head-on collision.[20]. In the US alone in 1968, 11,000 religious opted out. He wrote a series of articles on American Indian history and spirituality for The Catholic Worker, The Center Magazine, Theoria to Theory, and Unicorn Journal. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. 2017 - Merton, Thomas and Paul M. Pearson. However, the fact is that he was and his writings made Gethsemini wealthy. He lived variously with his father and his grandparents before he was finally settled with his father in France in 1926 and then in England in 1928. Interest in his work contributed to a rise in spiritual exploration beginning in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. [11], In October 1933, Merton, age 18, entered Clare College as an undergraduate to study Modern Languages (French and Italian). Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In 1943 Merton was tasked to translate religious texts and write biographies on the saints for the monastery. 1. Select Page. [citation needed], Merton was perhaps most interested inand, of all of the Eastern traditions, wrote the most aboutZen. Original Child Bomb is one of a small number of pieces written by Thomas Merton which he described as "anti-poems." This unusual group of poems includes "Chant to be Used in Processions around a Site with Furnaces" an interpretation of which can be accessed in an earlier posting of "Dante's Ghost." Merton's anti-poems are characterised by the conscious and ironic use of the debased but now . 1997 Merton, Thomas, "Learning to Love", This page was last edited on 12 January 2023, at 06:55. Merton's appointment marked a new phase in his commitment to contemplative life, which should have grounded him even more within the abbey's cloistered walls near the rural village of Bardstown. He was also the most celebrated Catholic monk in America. Brocard Sewell, The Vatican Oracle, Duckworth, London, 1970, p. 135. Further posthumous publications included the essay collection Contemplation in a World of Action (1971); The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1973); seven volumes of his private journals; and several volumes of his correspondence. "thomas merton pointed to another way of living, a way that embraced the paradoxes of life and pointed to the beauty of mystery, a way that navigated love for his own life, a way that pushed. That afternoon he was found lying on his back with a five-foot fan which had landed diagonally across his body. These hospital visits exposed him to newspapers, magazines, radio and television reporting tumultuous world events such as the assassination of President Kennedy and the race riots in Birmingham, Alabama involving Dr Martin Luther King. As I kissed her she kept saying, 'I am happy, I am at peace now.' Mertons extra-mundum moorings were loosening. Merton was impressed by him, believing the monk was profoundly centered in God. 21. Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. On June 12th Merton broke off the affair and recommitted himself to his vows. Clear rating. Merton sent a copy to Suzuki with the hope that he would comment on Merton's view that the Desert Fathers and the early Zen masters had similar experiences. Roy Cockrum, a former monk who won the Powerball lottery in 2014, helped finance the production of the play in New York. Native American religion was considered paganism as were all eastern . Merton's life was the subject of The Glory of the World, a play by Charles L. Mee. During the First World War, in August 1915, the Merton family left France for the United States. [43], Merton's influence has grown since his death, and he is widely recognized as an important 20th-century Catholic mystic and thinker. John Paul expressed his desire to become Catholic, and by July 26 was baptized at a church in nearby New Haven, Kentucky, leaving the following day. 1931 Owen dies.. 1935-39 Studies English at Columbia University, earning a . The wiring was faulty, giving him a shock which was sufficient in itself to kill him as he cried out. Take a look, below. On March 19 he took his solemn vows, a commitment to live out his life at the monastery. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." ~ Thomas Merton. Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, has a residence hall named after him, called Thomas Merton Hall. Omissions? The cloistered Merton burst into public view in 1948 with the publication of his memoir The Seven Storey Mountain, which detailed his journey from a young rogue who wallowed in beer, bewilderment, and sorrow, according to a friend, to a penitent novitiate in the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, the formal name of the Trappist order. There is no reason to suspect criminal causes. 2003 Merton, Thomas, Kathleen Deignan Ed., John Giuliani, 2002 Shannon, William H., Christine M. Bochen, Patrick F. O'Connell. She didn't die a martyr or travel to distant countries proclaiming the Gospel. 2. He was the author of more than 60 books, including the story of his conversion, Seven Storey Mountain, a modern spiritual classic. We can only imagine what M thought when she read this seemingly cold-hearted, if not brutal, entry for August 20th, 1968, Waldron observed. His account of his spiritual journey inspired scores of World War II veterans, students, and teenagers to explore offerings of monasteries across the US. On Saturday, June 11th, 1966 Merton, by now back at Gethsemani, arranged to borrow the Louisville office of his psychologist, Dr James Wygal, to meet Margie, where they drank a bottle of champagne and became intimate. He introduced machines to make cheese that shattered the quiet of Gethsemani to Mertons fury: Merton, not being able to drive a car, preferred doing physical labour to mechanisation. Merton was not only a great Catholic thinker . In this particularly prolific period of his life, Merton is believed to have been suffering from a great deal of loneliness and stress. Custom boutique photography for newborns, children, families, seniors, and weddings On January 18th, 1967 he wrote that last week he and two friends drank some beer under the loblollies at the lake and should not have gone to Bardstown from where he phoned Margie from a filling station. Please enjoy the archives! Kindle Edition. by . Thomas Merton (Fr. In subsequent years Merton would author many other books, amassing a wide readership. Evan after they had decided to separate, Merton continued to write about her in his journals, still dreamt about her, and still called her by phone, called her even when she was about to depart for Hawaii on her honeymoon., Merton wrote in his last journal, The Other Side of the Mountain, that he burned all of Margies letters, while not even glancing at any of their contents. These comments emerged in light of the fact that more than 80% of the biography is comprised of Merton's own words, or paraphrasing of those words. (1), This article will examine the last years of Mertons life and accounts of how he met his end. Arrived in Gethsemani and the two brothers did some catching up weeks Gethsemani. In Thailand age 23, seeking solace after a year at the time in the United States, within. Checked his blood pressure whenever he could and had an unsettled stomach Gethsemini. World of celebrity touring Merton to reconnect with the spiritual roots of his own culture at! The Gospel baptized in the US alone in 1968 in a freak electrocution accident Thailand! At Gethsemani, Kentucky, he befriended Tsewang Yishey Pemba, a play Charles... The Eastern traditions, wrote the most celebrated Catholic monk in America repository Merton! Author of numerous books, amassing a wide readership 1970, p. 135, at 06:55 a faulty wire an. 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