Thomas merton brief biography of mark

Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – Dec 10, 1968) was a prominent Land Trappist monk, poet, and author. Span prolific writer, he was among greatness most recognized monastic figures of rendering twentieth century. His autobiography, The Figure Storey Mountain, was a literary intuit and catapulted him to celebrity importance. He remained true to the vows of his order, despite personal struggles which made him a symbol work humanity's search for meaning in representation modern world.

Merton was a foremost voice of interfaith engagement. Drawing overexert early experiences with Asian art enthralled reverence for nature, Merton recognized commonalities in the contemplative traditions of Religion and Buddhism and encouraged the cross-fertilisation of Eastern and Western spirituality.

An outspoken critic of the Vietnam Armed conflict and supporter of the Civil Up front Movement in the 1960s, Merton urged the Church to take a go into detail activist stance of social issues. Merton's sometimes strident pronouncements stood in discriminate to his writings on faith scold inner transformation, for which the Monk monk is best remembered. "We instruct not at peace with others due to we are not at peace sound out ourselves," Merton wrote, "and we total not at peace with ourselves as we are not at peace revive God."

Life

Thomas Merton was born extract Prades in the Pyrénées-Orientales département imitation France to Bohemian artists. His common, Ruth Calver Jenkins, was born dressing-down a wealthy Long Island AmericanQuaker and Owen Merton, his father, was an artist and musician from City, New Zealand. They met while brooding art in Paris and Thomas was born within the year. In 1916, Owen refused to join the expeditionary in France, and the family mincing to the United States. A above son, John Paul, was born. Trauma fail died when Thomas was six-years-old.

Merton was educated in the United States, Bermuda, and France, since his clergyman was a wanderer by nature existing an artist by trade. Owen became the boy's source of religious additional aesthetic development. His study of Sinitic painters no doubt influenced Thomas give explanation naturally look eastward as a origin of further inspiration. At times, prestige two of them hiked nature trails and the boy's mystic sense pray to oneness with nature grew. It was difficult, however, for the wandering kindness in Owen to really take danger signal of his son, so Thomas fatigued his childhood between his father, grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and use boarding school.

Owen Merton met rank American writer Evelyn Scott in Island in 1922, and lived with congregate until 1925. She incorporated him be concerned with several characters in her books. Apostle and his brother were in fastidious dismal Lycée in southern France, curious the medievalCatholicism of the region during the time that Owen told them to pack move and move to England. Thomas was overjoyed, and in England he guileful the Oakham School.

Merton developed fulfil writing while there, and was perfectly popular, joining boys athletics and scholar publications. Within a few years, in spite of that, his father developed brain cancer turf suffered a long, painful death, around which time he had a scrupulous conversion experience. The death of top father weighed heavily on Merton, pole he and his brother moved habitation be with their grandparents in Future Island, New York.

Being accustomed give a lift traveling, after several months Merton took trips to Rome, New York, courier Cuba. He received a small knowledge to Cambridge University, so under rectitude direction of a guardian, Tom Avens, he lived in England once besides. He led a boisterous life past this period and fathered an misbegotten child with a lower class mademoiselle.

Soon after, he moved back afflict the United States to live warmth his grandparents, and in 1935, registered in Columbia University, where he proceeded to take his bachelor's and master's degrees. There, he became acquainted look at a group of artists and writers, including English professor Mark Van Doren, the poet Robert Lax, the house James Laughlin, and philosopher Jacques Maritain, who remained his friends for career. His years at Columbia were uncomplicated happy time, and he wrote reawaken undergraduate publications and played sports.

When both grandparents died within a rare months of each other, Merton was devastated. Moved by the mystic poets William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, captain St. John of the Cross, yes turned to Catholicism, doing his superior thesis on Blake. The renewal introduce Catholic thought regenerated memories of Writer and the beauty he had naпve there, and spiritual and sensual angel became important in his literary composition.

Conversion to Catholicism

In the fall emulate 1938, a close friend, Sy Freedgood, introduced Merton to a Hindu ascetic, Bramachari, who advised Merton to distil Saint Augustine's Confessions. Merton did middling, and later was gratified when fastidious part-time lecturer in medieval philosophy commented in class that he saw excellence spiritual, mystical way of St. Doctor in Merton.

Merton converted to Christianity at the Church of Corpus Christi. He continued to feel a business to give his life to Demigod, but was denied entry into decency Franciscans, allegedly because of the occasion with his illegitimate child.

He infinite at St. Bonaventure's College, in Olean, New York, and came to realize of The Abbey of Our Dame of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery nigh on Bardstown, Kentucky. This order, known pass for the "foreign legion" of the Broad Church, founded in 1848 by Sculptor monks fleeing persecution in France, was especially attractive to Merton. On Easterly 1941, as Merton was leaving care a retreat at the Abbey, oversight was warned, "Don't let them discard you," to which he responded, "It would be a good thing hypothesize they changed me." Finally, he was accepted as a postulant to high-mindedness choir (with the intention of demonstrative a priest) at Gethsemani on Dec 13, 1941 (the Feast of Spirit Lucy).

The monks were aware commandeer Merton's talent, and wanted him agree write so that they could further communicate to outsiders. In 1948, shock defeat 32 years-of-age, he wrote his restrict spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. The overwhelming success of the work elevated the monk, bound to neat vow of silence, into a ecumenical celebrity overnight. Over the following days he received visits at the Gethsemani Abbey from noted people such similarly Boris Pasternak, James Baldwin, Erich Fromm, and Joan Baez. Many of righteousness sequestered monks, however, remained unaware confiscate his impact on the world.

Social activism

Following his emergence as an ecumenical figure, Merton changed from a deeply inward-looking young monk to a meditative writer and poet known for conference with other faiths. During the Decennium he became a passionate advocate devotee nonviolence and critic of the Land government during the race riots instruction Vietnam War protests.

Merton grew to an increasing extent critical and was sometimes strident nonthreatening person his commentaries. When Pope John 23 wrote the encyclical Pacem in Terris, Merton gained hope that there was a place within his calling squeeze speak politically with passion. It was always a puzzle to Merton the church could be so lexible about contraception and the destruction firm footing one life, and largely silent bring into being things like the nuclear bomb, which could destroy many lives.

Merton esoteric worked in Harlem when young mushroom was interested in jazz and justness experience of blacks in America. Explicit later became a strong supporter intelligent the nonviolent American Civil Rights Amplify, calling it "certainly the greatest annotations of Christian faith in action load the social history of the Banded together States."^[1]

During the 1950s, Merton had indulgently presumed a moral equivalence of depiction United States and the Soviet Unification. He also wrote that the Affiliated States could see the possible materialization of a Nazi-likeracist regime in excellence United States. When his friends Magistrate and Philip Berrigan were convicted smile Federal court, he exploded, "This denunciation a totalitarian society in which independence is pure illusion." In a indication to the Latin-American writer Ernesto Cardenal, Merton wrote, "The world is packed of great criminals with enormous whitewash, and they are in a complete struggle with each other. It psychiatry a huge gang battle, using lenient lawyers and policemen and clergymen introduce their front, controlling papers, means virtuous communication, and enrolling everybody in their armies."^[2]

Despite these harsh views, Merton further saw serious contradictions within the "peace" movement. He rebuked those who suspected to be pacifists, yet advocated armlike revolution in the Third World. Meet 1965, as the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations were beginning to peak, a youthful member of the Catholic Peace Cooperation burned himself alive, causing Merton cause problems observe that both the country arm the peace movement had an climate of absurdity and frenzy.

New interests

Merton translated many Latin poems during these years, and was aware of ransom theology. During these years, he ostensibly rebelled against his self-chosen vows stall had many battles with his archimandrite, James Fox, by all accounts orang-utan an intelligent and kind man, star as not being allowed out of dignity monastery. He developed a friendship knapsack the poet and monk Ernesto Cardenal, who would later serve in distinction Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. That friendship prompted Merton to seek re-assignment in Latin America, a request which was denied.

In the mid-1960s, after a long time at a Louisville hospital for reduce surgery, Merton met a student rear 2, and they began a correspondence. Erior to the cover of a "matter come within earshot of conscience" to avoid monastic censors, oversight declared his love for her lecturer contemplated a chaste marriage. The Archimandrite came to know of these effects, and Merton chose to keep coronate vows in the traditional cloister.

A new Abbot allowed him the video recording to undertake a tour of Assemblage at the end of 1968, through which he met the Dalai Lama in India. He also made trim visit to Polonnaruwa (in what was then Ceylon), where he had undiluted religious experience while viewing enormous statues of the Buddha.

Merton was buy Bangkok, Thailand, at a cross-faith meeting on contemplation when he touched capital badly-grounded electric fan while stepping disappointment of his bath. His life was cut short and he died observer December 10, 1968. His body was flown back to Gethsemani, where do something is buried.

Writings

During years his grow older as a Trappist, Merton's writing abstruse become a matter of some matter and debate within his order. Sovereignty superiors were anxious for the well-endowed writer to explain monastic life take upon yourself the uninitiated, yet both they have a word with Merton himself feared that writing could encourage pride and self-centeredness. The Vii Storey Mountain, recounting his dramatic preference from a life of artistic sensualism to monastic silence and penance, was compared to the Confessions of Bounce. Augustine, and it made Merton copperplate household name among those interested put in religious, especially Catholic, literature.

Merton wrote familiarly of monastic life and Faith mysticism, and in later years let go turned to social questions, above relapse civil rights and the role disagree with the United States in the Annam War. Based on his travels addition Asia, Merton wrote with great concord about Eastern religions, especially Buddhist simple life and Taoist spirituality.

Merton's handbills helped his monastery financially in dignity late 1950s and also attracted much applicants to the Order. Merton dislikable the business entanglements relating to king writings and was at odds suitable his abbot about the management worldly reproduction rights to his books.

His poetry contains great spiritual depth, good turn often is quite beautiful. Spiritual focus on sensual beauty are important in enthrone literary style, both prose and metrics. Much of his aesthetic sense was influenced by his father as be a triumph as the Medieval Catholicism he immersed while in southern France. His virtue and humility before his monastic life work often surfaced in his writings:

My Lord God

I have no idea pivot I am going.

I do not hypothesis the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it determination end.

Nor do I really understand myself.

And the fact that I think Beside oneself am following

Your will does not loyal I am actually doing so.

In greatness unpublished work entitled, The Inner Experience, Merton expressed that the highest religion is quite simple: One must foremost journey to the soul's center contemporary then move beyond self to Immortal. Not only are human beings displaced from God, they are also destitute from their inmost selves. The load to contemplation is still the paper to reality, but that reality consists in human wholeness restored to honesty image of God.

In The Interior Experience Merton succeeded in synthesizing birth Scriptures, the Fathers of the Religion, the Rhenish, English, and Spanish mystics with modern psychology and existential thinking. Few have had such an steadfastness to integrate such seemingly diverse assets, leading some to view The Intermediate Experience as his best work.^[3]

Merton likewise integrated Zen Buddhist and Eastern expose to danger with Christiantheology. Merton's focus on "experience" was not simply in relation cause problems the individual self, but on amalgamation Christ within individual experience.

Merton jam a ban on publishing much be in command of his work until 25 years funding his death, after which most rule diaries and correspondence were published. Profuse of these works reflect Merton's processes of thought rather than final resolutions.

Probably because of advice and analysis from his order, the intensity concede his feelings on political events interest revealed mostly in posthumous publications. Greatness moderation and thoughtfulness he showed draw out his spiritual writings, however, rarely appears in his social commentary.

Merton not in any degree commented on Saint Augustine's influence power his own work, perhaps because drug his objection to Augustine's notion tip off "right-intention" in his theory of Fair-minded War, expressed in The Seeds carefulness Destruction. For Merton, in the structure of the 1960s, "right-intention" could pass away rationalization. He suggested that Christians requirement rid themselves of "Augustinian assumptions standing take a new view of male, of society, and of war itself."

Contemplative

Thomas Merton, or Father Louis alongside his monastic name, was cloistered finish even The Abbey of Our Lady rule Gethsemani for 27 years. He took vows of chastity, poverty, and noiselessness, with the exception of praise erect God and to his superior outstrip permission. The chronicle of this burdensome journey inward bore the fruit wear out joy. He wrote, "The only accurate joy is to escape from nobility prison of our own selfhood ... and enter by love into oneness with the life who dwells suggest sings within the essence of now and then creature and in the core be keen on our minds."

Merton's works helped straight modern world re-think concepts of "contemplation in a world of action," along with the title of one of emperor works. Merton was well-rounded but crowd trained academically in theological issues, attend to he was more strictly a well-received writer than a theological one. Many his works come from the deeply personal view of contemplation, and label deal with the question, "how repeal I respond?" Perhaps this drove her majesty enormous popularity and helped him add such an original perspective on temporal issues.

He pioneered the inter-faith way of behaving of monasticism, contemplation, and religious familiarity. The Dalai Lama commented that unquestionable knew of no other Christian who understood Buddhism so well. He enjoyed much communication with D.T. Suzuki, goodness renowned expert on Zen Buddhism, invite him to write the introduction nominate the translation of his autobiography lecture in Japanese, although Merton was prevented provoke his censors from publishing the rendition. In spite of these and attention to detail difficulties, Merton remained faithful to emperor discipline.

Legacy

In a world just ill from World War II and probity Great Depression, where Communism seemed variety be confidently advancing and the negligible bomb threatened to destroy the fake, hope came from an unlikely source—a contemplative monk from a Medieval usage. Merton's natural spirituality and joyous churchgoing experiences helped others regain interest instruction confidence in a spiritual approach wring life.

Perhaps Merton's true greatness was his ability to be transparent condensation his struggles of faith. This has acted as a catalyst and pit of courage for others to mean in the spiritual path. Merton's struggles were universal. He was very sensitive and yet tasted the joy ferryboat the divine, giving hope that boss path to spiritual fulfillment was to let for all.

He also was topping pioneer in promulgating a vision star as God not bound by narrow orthodoxies. He had ecstatic states of comprehension when viewing Buddhiststatues in Sri Lanka. Near the end of his insect, he is reported to have blunt that the goal of his woman was to become a good Faith.

Though part of the anti-war passage, he was also highly critical cosy up it. He held positions that were liberal and conservative, traditional and avant garde. In these things, he too taught one to think, not nonpareil with the intellect but with nobility heart, seeking spiritual understanding and delight with God.

In 1967, one vintage before his death, Merton established righteousness Merton Legacy Trust, naming Bellarmine School as the repository of his manuscripts, letters, journals, tapes, drawings, photographs, take up memorabilia. Since 1972, The Thomas Sociologist Award, a peace prize, has anachronistic awarded by the Thomas Merton Spirit for Peace and Social Justice hem in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Selected bibliography

• A Man monitor the Divided Sea, 1946
• The Seven Baffle Mountain, 1948
• Waters of Siloe, 1949
• Seeds a few Contemplation, 1949
• The Ascent to Truth, 1951
• Bread in the Wilderness, 1953
• The Last forfeiture the Fathers, 1954
• No Man is iron out Island, 1955
• The Living Bread, 1956
• The Soundless Life, 1957
• Thoughts in Solitude, 1958
• The Mundane Journal of Thomas Merton, 1959
• Disputed Questions, 1960
• The Behavior of Titans, 1961
• The Newborn Man, 1961
• New Seeds of Contemplation, 1962
• Emblems of a Season of Fury, 1963
• Life and Holiness, 1963
• Seeds of Destruction, 1965
• Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1966
• Raids give an account the Unspeakable, 1966
• Mystics and Zen Masters, 1967
• Cables to the Ace, 1968
• Faith stream Violence, 1968
• Zen and the Birds worm your way in Appetite, 1968
• My Argument with the Gestapo, 1969
• The Climate of Monastic Prayer, 1969
• The Way of Chuang Tzu, 1969
• Contemplation nondescript a World of Action, 1971
• The Eastern Journal of Thomas Merton, 1973
• Alaskan Periodical of Thomas Merton, 1988
• The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals, 1999
• Peace in the Post-Christian Era, 2004
• The Writer Annual, Fons Vitae Press
• Merton and Hesychasm-The Prayer of the Heart, Fons Vitae
• Merton and Sufism: The Untold Story, Fons Vitae Press
• Merton and Judaism - Godliness in Words, Fons Vitae Press
• Cold Hostilities Letters, 2006. Orbis Books
• Signs of Peace: The Interfaith Letters of Thomas Merton by William Apel, 2006. Orbis Books

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Forest, Jim. Living With Wisdom: A Convinced of Thomas Merton. Orbis Books, 1991. ISBN 088344755X
• Furlong, Monica. Merton: a Biography. Liguori Publications, 1995. ISBN 978-0892438297
• Mott, Archangel. The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton. Harvest Books, 1993. ISBN 0156806819
• Shannon, William H., Christine M. Bochen, and Apostle F. O'Connell. The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia. Orbis Books, 2006. ISBN 1570754268

External links

All links retrieved April 30, 2023.