Synopsis
Thomas Merton was born on January 31, 1915, in Prades, France. He worked as an English teacher before entering a Trappist abbey in Kentucky and later becoming a priest. He published a variety of works as a poet, essayist and novelist, and is known for his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain.
Merton had an embracing spiritual vision that went beyond traditional doctrine. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk who was a revered pacifist and author, with works like Seven Storey Mountain and Thoughts in Solitude.
Early Life
As Europe was embroiled in the Great War, Thomas
Merton came into a world that was in sharp contrast to the spiritualism and
quiet pacifisms he wrote about through most of his adult life. His parents had
met while attending art school in France in the early 1900s. His father, Owen
Merton was an immigrant from New Zealand, and his mother, Ruth Jenkins, an
American Quaker.
A few months after Thomas was born, his parents
left France and moved to the United States. The family eventually settled in
Douglaston, a neighborhood of New York City. Ruth died of stomach cancer in
1921 when Thomas was only six. Through much of his youth, Thomas traveled with
his father, with periodic visits to America to live with his grandparents.
During his teenage years, his father enrolled Thomas in private schools in
France and England where he attended Clare College, Cambridge. 1934, left
Cambridge and returned to the US to live with his grandparents in New York and
attend Columbia University.
Conversion to Catholicism
In 1938, while at Columbia, Thomas Merton
converted to Roman Catholicism and after graduation, taught English at St.
Bonaventure College. It was during this time that a number of influences,
including charity work, books on Catholic conversion, and his study of the spiritualism
of William Blake, began to turn Merton closer to religion and a possible life
in the priesthood.
In December, 1941, Thomas Merton resigned from
his teaching post and entered the Abby of Gethsemane, near Louisville,
Kentucky, joining a population of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians
of the Strict Observance, also known as Trappists. There, Merton took on a life
of a scholar and author. He also became an American citizen.
Life as a Monk and Spiritual Intellect
Thomas Merton’s years spent at Gethsemane had a
profound effect on his self-understanding and spiritual consciousness. He read
extensively and kept several journals. His superior, Father Abbot Dom Frederic,
took note of Merton’s intellect and talent for writing and encouraged him to follow
his passion, saying it was within the will of God. Merton started translating
religious texts and writing biographies of saints for the monastery.
A prolific writer, from 1947 until his untimely
death in 1968, Thomas Merton wrote and published more than 70 books, 2000
poems, and numerous essays, lectures and reviews. In 1948, Merton published The
Seven Storey Mountain, his autobiography of his early quest for faith in God
that led to his conversion to Catholicism. The book’s title refers to the mountain
of Purgatory in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The tome went on to receive critical
and popular acclaim. During his long years at the Gethsemane monastery, Merton
also published several other works which reveal his growth from a passionate
introvert to a more expansive intellectual. His ongoing development led him
into the political arena where he wrote about other faiths and took a
non-violence stance during the 1960s race riots and Vietnam War. His positions
on social activism and his broad views on religion led to severe criticism from
some Catholics and non-Catholics, who questioned his true devotion and
integrity.
Later Life and Death
His on-going conversion led him to the study of
Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, in the latter years of his life. He
received praise from the Dalai Lama for his efforts in promoting a greater
understanding of East-West monastic life and teachings. In December, 1968,
Thomas Merton was attending an interfaith conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
While stepping out of his bath, he was electrocuted by an electric fan that had
either short-circuited or had a break in the cord.
A Papal Tribute
Thomas Merton was the
subject of a speech given by Pope Francis during a joint session of Congress in
2015. The Pontiff referred to Merton as “a source of spiritual inspiration and
a guide for many people…. Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who
challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for
the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples
and religions.”
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