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Thomas Merton

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<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">
Image:48913555 281700.gif
<tr valign="top"><th style="text-align:right;">Died</th> <td>December 10, 1968
Bangkok, Thailand</td></tr><tr valign="top"><th style="text-align:right;">Occupation</th> <td>Trappist monk and author</td></tr>
Thomas Merton
Born January 31, 1915
Prades, France

Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Merton was an acclaimed Catholic theologian, poet, author and social activist. Merton wrote over 50 books, scores of essays and reviews, and is the ongoing subject of countless biographies. Merton was also a proponent of ecumenism, engaging in spiritual dialogues with such icons as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and D.T. Suzuki.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Thomas Merton was born on January 31, 1915 in Prades, France to Owen Merton and Ruth Jenkins. Owen, a struggling painter, who later gained recognition in his homeland of New Zealand, was often absent throughout Merton's upbringing. Ruth Jenkins, a fellow artist and Quaker, would die of stomach cancer in 1921 when Merton was six years old. Merton was baptized by The Church of England in his infancy upon the wishes of his father.

In August of 1915 the Mertons fled Prades amid financial distress and World War I, staying with Ruth's parents on Long Island in Douglaston. In 1917 the family moved into an old house in the community of Flushing, NY, where Merton's brother John Paul was born on November 2, 1918. By 1920 the family was considering on whether to return to France, when Ruth became ill and was diagnosed with stomach cancer. On October 21, 1921, Ruth died at Bellevue Hospital in New York, starting Tom on a dark path of feeling alone and full of despair throughout his childhood.

In the year following Ruth's death Owen and Tom traveled to Bermuda, having left John Paul with the Jenkins family in Long Island. While the trip was short, Owen managed to fall in love with the American novelist Evelyn Scott, who was still married to Cyril Kay-Scott. Still grieving his mother, Tom and Evelyn just never quite hit it off. Her own son, Creighton, would later come to express that his mother was verbally abusive to Merton during their stay.

Happy to get away from the company of Evelyn, in 1923 Tom returned to Douglaston to live with the Jenkins and John Paul. Owen, Evelyn and her husband Cyril set sail for Europe, traveling throughout France, Italy, England, and Algeria. An odd trio, to say the least, which Merton half-jokingly referred to as "the Bermuda Triangle". During the winter of 1924, while in Algeria, Owen became ill and was thought to be near death. In retrospect, the illness could have been an early symptom of the brain tumor that eventually took Owen's life. Back in New York, Merton was mailed the news about his father's prospect of facing impending death. This news weighed heavily on Merton and, faced with the prospect of losing his sole surviving parent, he became overtaken with lament and anxiety.

Whatever Owen had come down with, by March of 1925 he was well enough to do a showing at the Leicester Galleries in London. That summer Owen returned to New York and took Tom with him to live in Saint-Antonin, France. Tom was somewhat hesitant when faced with returning to France. He had been with his grandparents for the last two years and grown somewhat attached to them. Additionally, during their travels Owen and Evelyn had discussed marriage occasionally, but Owen realized after his trip to New York that it could never work. Tom and Evelyn had differences which were far too irreconcilable. So, being unwilling to sacrifice his son for the romance, he broke the relationship off that same year.

[edit] France 1926

In 1926, at age eleven, Merton and Owen parted ways again. Tom enrolled in a boys boarding school in Montauban, the Lycée Ingres. The stay brought up feelings of loneliness and depression for him, with Merton feeling especially deserted by his father. During his initial months of schooling, Merton begged Owen to remove him. Yet, as time ensued, Merton gradually became more comfortable with his surroundings there. He had made friends with a circle of young and aspiring writers at Lycée and came to write two novels.

Sundays at Lycée Ingres offered nearby Catholic mass, but Tom never went. He typically managed to visit home on such days. A Protestant preacher would come to teach on Sundays at Lycée, for those who didn't attend mass, but Tom didn't show any interest. During the Christmas breaks of 1926 and 1927, Merton spent his time with friends of his father in Murat (a small town in Auvergne). He admired the devout Catholic couple whom he saw as good and decent people, though Catholicism never came up as a topic between them. Owen was off painting and attending exhibits and galleries showing his work. Most of the time he spent in London. In the summer of 1928 Owen came and took Tom out of Lycée, informing him that they were headed to England.

[edit] England 1928

Merton and his father moved to the home of Owen's aunt and uncle in England, just at the edge of London in Ealing. Merton soon enrolled in another boarding school in Surrey at Ripley Court School. Merton enjoyed his studies here, where there was more sense of community than at Lycée. On Sundays all students would attend services at the local Protestant church. Merton routinely began praying, but discontinued the practice when he left the school.

During holidays, Merton would go to his great aunt and great uncle's home to stay. Sometimes Owen would be there and sometimes he would not. On Easter vacation, in 1929, Merton and Owen went to Canterbury. Merton enjoyed the country scenery in Canterbury, taking long walks throughout the countryside. When the vacation ended, Owen went back to France and Merton to returned to Ripley. Toward the end of that year, Merton was contacted with news that his father was ill and living back at Ealing. Merton went to see him, and together they left France to a friend's house in Scotland offering a place for Owen to recover. Shortly after, Owen was taken to London to be hospitalized at North Middlesex Hospital. Merton soon learned his father had a brain tumor. He took the news harshly, but later, when he visited Owen in the hospital, he seemed to be doing okay. This helped ease some of his anxiety.

In 1930, Merton enrolled at Oakham Public School, yet another boarding school located in Rutland, England. Merton was a very good student at Oakham. At the end of the first year, his grandparents and John Paul came to visit him. His grandfather discussed finances with young Merton, letting him know he would be provided for in the event of Owen's death. Merton and the family spent most of that summer visiting his father at the hospital, who was so ill he could no longer speak. This pained Merton greatly. On January 16, 1931, just as studies at Oakham had resumed, Owen died. Tom Bennett, Owen Merton's physician and former schoolmate in New Zealand, became Merton's legal guardian. He would let him use his vacant house in London whenever Oakham was not in session. Merton appreciated this gesture from Bennett.

The same year his father died, Merton visited Rome and Florence in Italy for a week. He also went to visit his grandparents in New York when summer came around. Upon his return to Oakham, Merton became coeditor of the school journal the Oakhamian. In 1932, he took the college admissions exam at Clare College in Cambridge and passed, then graduating from Oakham. On his 18th birdthday, tasting new freedom, Merton did some traveling of his own. He stopped in Paris, Marseilles, then walked to Hyeres, where he ran out of cash and wired Bennett for more. He was granted the request, accompanied by a bit of scolding from Bennett, likely his way of showing Merton he cared. Merton walked to Saint Tropez, where finally he boarded a train to Genoa and returned briefly to Florence. From Florence he left for Rome again, a trip that in some ways changed the future course of his life.

[edit] Rome 1933

Upon arriving in Rome in February of 1933 Merton had a severe toothache that was bothering him. So he found a dentist who extracted the tooth the next day. He spent the remainder of the day recuperating in his hotel room. By morning he felt much better, and moved to a small pensione with views of the Palazzo Barberini and San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, two magnificent pieces of architecture rich with history. In The Seven Storey Mountain, his autobiography (much praised by Evelyn Waugh), Merton remarks:

   
Thomas Merton
 I had been in Rome before, on an Easter vacation from school, for about a week. I had seen the Forum and the Colosseum and the Vatican museum and St. Peter's. But I had not really seen Rome. This time, I started out again, with the misconception common to Anglo-Saxons, that the real Rome is the Rome of the ugly ruins, the hills and the slums of the city.<ref>Seven Storey Mountain. 107</ref>
   
Thomas Merton

In Rome he set off to once again see the ruins, stopping also in various museums and libraries. Quite suddenly, Merton began going to the churches, not quite knowing why he felt so drawn to them. He didn't attend any masses, he was just observing and appreciating them. It began at The Forum, at the foot of Palatine Hill, where Merton happened upon one of the churches nearby. In the apse of the church, he set his eyes upon a mosaic of Jesus Christ that transfixed him. Merton had a hard time leaving the place, though he was unsure why. Merton officially had found the Rome he said he didn't see on his first visit: Byzantine Christian Rome.

From this point on in his trip he set about visiting the various churches and basilica sites in Rome, such as Lateran Baptistery, Santa Costanza, Basilica di San Clemente, Santa Prassede and Santa Pudenziana (to name a few). He purchased a Vulgate (Latin Bible), reading the entire New Testament and Book of Revelations. One night in his pensione, Merton has the sense that Owen is in the room with him for a few moments. This mystical experience led him to see the emptiness he felt in his life, and he said for the first time in his life he really prayed, asking God to deliver him from his darkness. Another interesting experience Merton had in Rome was during a visit he made to Tre Fontane, a Trappist monastery. In the Seven Storey Mountain he remarks that while visiting the church there he was at ease, yet when entering the monastery he was overtaken with anxiety. That afternoon, while alone, he remarked to himself:

   
Thomas Merton
 I should like to become a Trappist monk.<ref>Seven Storey Mountain. 114</ref>
   
Thomas Merton

[edit] America 1933

Merton took a boat ride from Italy to America to visit his grandparents in Douglaston for the summer, before entering Clare College in Cambridge. Initially he retained some of the spirit he had in Rome, continuing to read his Latin Bible. He wanted to find a church to go to, but still had not quite quelled his antipathy towards Catholicism. So he went to Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston. He didn't come to appreciate his experience there, so he went to Flushing, NY and attended a Quaker Meeting. Merton appreciated the silence of the atmosphere but couldn't feel at home with the group. By mid-summer, Merton had lost nearly all interest in organized religion that he brought back with him from Rome. Quickly he melded in with life in New York city and became swept up in her ways. Before he could regain that interest, he would nearly lose it altogether. He was off for England again...

...to Clare College.

[edit] College

[edit] Clare College

In October of 1933 Merton entered Clare College in Cambridge as a freshman, a place where he came very close to losing himself. Merton, now 18, entered the school full of optimism with a streak of independence in his step. Feeling somewhat groundless and free since his father's death, he seems to have viewed Clare College as the end all answer to his life without meaning. His brief year there was anything but. In The Seven Storey Mountain, the brief chapter on Cambridge paints a fairly dark, negative picture of his life there. In the autobiography it is as if he is taking great pain to express the darkness he encountered there without divulging any of the details. This could also be due to censorship at the hands of his superiors at Gethsemani.

Some schoolmates of Merton at Oakham, then attending Cambridge with him, state that Tom drifted away and became isolated at Cambridge. He started drinking excessively, hanging out at the local bars more than he would study. He was also very free with his sexuality at this time, it would appear, some friends going so far as to call him a womanizer. There is persuasive evidence that Merton may have fathered a child with a woman during this time, though her name is unknown. It is known that a paternity suit was brought against Merton that he did not contest. In fact his legal guardian, Tom Bennett, would later hire a lawyer and work out a settlement for both parties.

When Bennett first began hearing of the womanizing and drinking, he summoned Merton to London for a few heated lectures on the direction of his life. He told Tom that if he didn't change his ways, he would tell his grandparents in Long Island about the ordeals and advise them to withdraw him from Cambridge. In a meeting with Bennett in April Tom is basically given this ultimatum again, and in May Merton leaves Cambridge after completing his exams.

[edit] Columbia University

In January of 1935 Merton enrolled as a sophomore at Columbia University in Manhattan, NY while living with the Jenkins in Douglaston, taking a train to the Columbia campus each day. Merton's years at Columbia matured him, and it is here he discovers Catholicism in a real sense. These years were also a time in his life where he realized others were more accepting of him as an individual. To sum up, at 21 years old, he was a man and an equal among his peers.

Tom began an 18th Century English literature course during the spring semester taught by one Mark Van Doren, a professor with whom he maintained a friendship with until death. Van Doren didn't teach his students, at least not in any traditional sense; he engaged them, sharing his love of literature with all. Merton was also interested in Communism at Columbia, where he briefly joined the Young Communist League; however, the first meeting he attended failed to interest him further and he never went back.

During summer break John Paul returned home from Gettysburg Academy in Pennsylvania. The two brothers spent time bonding with one another for their summer breaks, claiming later to have seen every movie produced between 1934 and 1937. When the fall semester arrived, John Paul left to enroll at Cornell University while Tom returned to Columbia. He begins working for two school papers, a humor magazine called the Jester and also the Columbia Review. He also became a member of Alpha Delta Phi that semester.

In October of 1935, in protest of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, Merton joined a picket of the Casa Italiana. The Casa Italiana was conceived of by Columbia and the Italian government as a "university within a university", established in 1926. Merton also joined the local peace movement and, having took "the Oxford Pledge", pledged not to support any government in any war they might undertake.

In 1936 Merton's grandfather, Samuel Jenkins, died. Merton and his grandfather had grown rather close through the years, and Merton immediately left school for home upon receiving the news. He states that, without thinking, he went to the room where his grandfather's body was and knelt down to pray over him. In February of 1937, Merton happened to read a book that opened his mind to Catholicism. It was titled The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Etienne Gilson, and inside he encountered an explanation of God that he found both logical and pragmatic. Tom purchased this book because he was taking a class on medieval French literature, not seeing the nihil obstat in the book denoting its Catholic origin. This work was pivotal, paving the way for more encounters with Catholicism to come. Another author Merton began reading at this time was Aldous Huxley, whose book Ends and Means introduced Merton to mysticism. In August of the same year, Tom's grandmother, Bonnemaman, died. As with his grandfather, Merton prayed for her.

In January of 1938 Merton graduated from Columbia, receiving his B.A. in English. He continued on at Columbia doing his graduate work in English for the year. In June, Merton was introduced to Mahanambrata Brahmachari, a Hindu monk in New York visiting from the University of Chicago. One of Merton's friends, Seymour Freedgood, arranged for the meeting. Merton was very impressed by the man, seeing that he was profoundly centered in God. Merton, curious, expected Brahmachari to espouse his beliefs and religion to them in some manner. Instead, Brahmachari recommended that they reconnect with their own spiritual roots and traditions. He suggested Merton read The Confessions of Augustine and The Imitation of Christ. Merton was surprised to hear the monk recommending Catholic books to him, yet he did read them both. Not only did Merton read the books, he also started to pray again regularly.

For the next few months Merton began to consider Catholicism as something to explore again. Finally, in August of 1938, he decided he wanted to attend Mass and went to Corpus Christi Church near Harlem. Mass was foreign to him, he knew nothing of the rituals that make the service, so all he could do that first visit is try his best and listen attentively. Following this experience Merton's reading list became more and more geared toward Catholicism. While doing his graduate work, he was writing his thesis on William Blake, whose spiritual symbolism he was coming to appreciate in new ways.

One evening in September, Merton was reading a book about Gerard Manley Hopkins' conversion to Catholicism and how he became a priest. Suddenly he could not shake this sense that he, too, should follow such a path. He grabbed his coat and headed quickly over to the Corpus Christi Church rectory, where he met with a Fr. Ford, expressing his desire to become Catholic. The next few weeks Merton started catechism, learning the basics of his new faith. On November 16, 1938, Thomas Merton was baptized at Corpus Christi Church and received Holy Communion. On February 22, 1939 Merton received his M.A. in English from Columbia University. Merton decided he would pursue his Ph.D. at Columbia and moved from Douglaston to Greenwich Village.

In January of 1939 Merton had heard good things from friends of his about a part-time teacher on campus named Daniel Walsh, so he decided to take a course on Thomas Aquinas with Walsh. Through Walsh, Merton was introduced to Jacques Maritain at a lecture on Catholic Action, which took place at a Catholic Book Club meeting the following March. Merton and Walsh developed a lifelong friendship, and it was Walsh who let Merton know that Thomism was not for him. On May 25, 1939, Merton received Confirmation at Corpus Christi, and took the confirmation name James.

[edit] Monastic life

Image:Merton Trappist.gif

Merton converted to Catholicism at The Church of Corpus Christi in his early twenties during the period he was writing his master's thesis on William Blake. His desire to enter the Franciscans was thwarted, so he taught at St. Bonaventure's College, in Olean, New York. Following a retreat at the Trappist (Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, O.C.S.O.) Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky during Easter 1941, he came to a crisis with call up looming and was finally accepted as a postulant to the choir (with the intention of becoming a priest) at Gethsemani on December 13, 1941 (the Feast of Saint Lucy).

During his long years at Gethsemani (where he was encouraged to write) Merton changed from the passionately inward-looking young monk of his most famous book, namely The Seven Storey Mountain, to a contemplative writer and poet who became well known for his dialogue with other faiths and his stand on non-violence during the race riots and Vietnam War of the 1960s, and finally achieved the solitude he had long desired in a hermitage in 1965. During these years he had many battles with his abbot about not being allowed out of the monastery, balanced by his international reputation and voluminous correspondence with many well-known figures of the day.

A new abbot allowed him the freedom to undertake a tour of Asia at the end of 1968, during which he met the Dalai Lama in India. He also made a visit to Polonnaruwa (in what was then Ceylon), where he had a religious experience while viewing enormous statues of the Buddha. There is speculation that Merton wished to remain in Asia as a hermit. However, he died in Bangkok on 10 December 1968, having touched a poorly-grounded electric fan while stepping out of his bath. His body was flown back to Gethsemani where he is buried.

Since his death, Merton's influence has continued to grow and he is considered by many to be an important 20th century Catholic mystic and thinker. Merton's letters and diaries (and, to a lesser extent, the books published during his lifetime) reveal the intensity with which their author focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms. Incidentally, Merton blocked publication of his letters and diaries until 25 years after his death.

In recognition of his close association with Bellarmine University, the official repository for Merton's archives is the Thomas Merton Center on the Bellarmine campus in Louisville, Kentucky. The Thomas Merton Award, a peace prize, has been awarded since 1972 by the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice in Pittsburgh.

[edit] Selected bibliography

[edit] By Merton

[edit] About Merton

  • Paul Wilkes, ed., Merton, by Those Who Knew Him Best, 1987, Harper & Row, ISBN 0062509527 (All Libraries)
  • The Merton Annual: Studies in Thomas Merton, Religion, Culture, Literature & Social Concerns., 1988–, Fons Vitae Press, ISSN 0894-4857 (All Libraries)
  • Rob Baker, Merton and Sufism: The Untold Story, 1999, Fons Vitae Press, ISBN 1887752072 (All Libraries)
  • Lawrence Cunningham, Thomas Merton and the Monastic Vision, 1999, W.B. Eerdmans, ISBN 0802802222 (All Libraries)
  • Jonathan Montaldo, Merton and Hesychasm-The Prayer of the Heart, 2003, Fons Vitae Press, ISBN 1887752455 (All Libraries)
  • Beatrice Bruteau, Merton and Judaism - Holiness in Words, 2003, Fons Vitae Press, ISBN 1887752552 (All Libraries)
  • Victor Kramer, Thomas Merton, 1984, Boston: Twayne Publishers, ISBN 0805774025
  • Michael Mott, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, 1984, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0395313244
  • Roger Lipsey, Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton, 2006, Boston New Seeds, ISBN 159030313X
  • William Henry Shannon, Christine M. Bochen, Patrick F. O'Connell, et al., The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, 2002, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, ISBN 1570754268
  • Gerald S. Twomey, Thomas Merton Prophet in the Belly of Paradox, 1978, New York : Paulist Press, ISBN 0809102684
  • Ross Labrie, The Art of Thomas Merton, 1979, Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, ISBN 0912646489
  • William Shannon, Silent Lamp: The Thomas Merton Story, 1992, New York: Crossroad, ISBN 0824511662
  • Samuel Willard Crompton, Thomas Merton, Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004 ISBN 0791078620
  • Patrick Hart, Thomas Merton, Monk: A Monastic Tribute, New York] Sheed and Ward [1974] ISBN 0385112440
  • James Thomas Baker, Thomas Merton, Social Critic: A Study, University Press of Kentucky [1971] ISBN 0813112389
  • M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Merton, Brother Monk: The Quest for True Freedom, San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1987 ISBN 0060664975
  • James H. Forest, Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991 ISBN 088344755X
  • George Woodcock, Thomas Merton, Monk and Poet: A Critical Study, New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1978 ISBN 0374276358
  • Ross Labrie, Thomas Merton and the Inclusive Imagination, Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 2001 ISBN 0826213820
  • Thérèse Lentfoehr, Words and Silence: On the Poetry of Thomas Merton, New York : New Directions Pub. Corp., 1979 ISBN 0811207129
  • Anthony T. Padovano, The Human Journey: Thomas Merton, Symbol of a Century, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1982 ISBN 0385178794

[edit] Notes

<references/>

[edit] References

  • Forest, Jim, "Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton" (1991), Orbis Books, ISBN 0-88344-755-X, 226 p. illustrated biography.
  • Mott, Michael, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (1984), Harvest Books 1993: ISBN 0156806819, 710 p. authorized biography.
  • Shannon, William H., Christine M. Bochen, Patrick F. O'Connell The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia (2002), Orbis Books, ISBN 1-57075-426-8, 556 p.
  • Shannon, William H., "Silent Lamp: The Thomas Merton Story" (1992), The Crossroad Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8245-1281-2 biography
  • Merton, Thomas, The Seven Storey Mountain (1978), A Harvest/HBJ Book, ISBN 0-15-680679-7. (see notes for pages)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Merton, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Priest and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales, France
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1968
PLACE OF DEATH Bangkok, Thailand
de:Thomas Merton

es:Thomas Merton gl:Thomas Merton hr:Thomas Merton id:Thomas Merton it:Thomas Merton pl:Thomas Merton pt:Thomas Merton sv:Thomas Merton

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