Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Thomas Merton" - New World

From New World Encyclopedia
m ({{Contracted}})
Line 3: Line 3:
 
[[Category:Biography]]
 
[[Category:Biography]]
 
[[Category:Religion]]
 
[[Category:Religion]]
−
 
+
{{Contracted}}
 
{{epname}}
 
{{epname}}
  

Revision as of 21:19, 6 September 2006


Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist priest/monk, poet and author incorporating mystic vision with social action. He was recognized as the greatest monastic figure of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, was a literary sensation and catapulted him to celebrity status. Merton wrote more than 50 books, 2000 poems, and scores of essays, reviews, book introductions, cartoons, translations and lectures. His personal struggles made him a symbol for our search for meaning in the modern world, his resolutions in joyful relationship with God gave renewed faith in the Divine.

Life

He was born in Prades in the Pyrénées-Orientales département of France to perpatetic Bohemian artists. Ruth, his mother, was born to a wealthy Long Island American Quaker family and Owen Merton, his father, was a New Zealandartist from Christchurch. They met while studying art in Paris and had Thomas within the year. Within the next year, young Thomas has his first cross Atlantic journey. In 1916, Owen refused to join the military in France, and the family moved to the United States. Thomas was educated in the United States, Bermuda and [[France]. His mother died when he was six years old.

Thomas' father was a wanderer by nature and an artist by temperment, and became the boy's source of religious development. At times the two of them hiked many trails in nature and the boy's mystic sense of oneness with nature grew. It was difficult, however, for the wanderer in Owen to really take care of his son so Thomas spent his childhood between his father, grandparents, an aunt and uncle and being at boarding school. Thomas and his brother were in a dismal lycee in France absorbing the Medieval Catholicism of the region when Owen told them to pack up and move to England. Thomas was overjoyed. Thomas attended the Oakham School in England.

As it turned out, Thomas developed his writing while here and was quite popular and joined in with the boys athlectics. Within a few years, his father developed brain cancer and suffered a long, painful death. During this time Owen had a conversion experience that led to some later speculations on the part of his son about the relationship to suffering and spiritual development. The death of his father weighed heavily on Thomas, and he and his brother moved to be with their grandparents in Long Island, New York.

Beign accustomed to traveling, after several months Thomas traveled to Rome, to St. Bonaventure in New York, and to Cuba. The young Thomas Merton got a small scholarship to the Cambridge University, so under the direction of a guardian, Tom Bennet, he traveled and lived in England once again. He led a boisterous life that was no better or worse than most undergraduates, but he fathered an illegitimate child with a lower class girl at this time. He moved back to the United States to live with his grandparents and in 1935 enrolled in Columbia University, where he proceeded to take his bachelor's and master's degrees. Here he also became acquainted with a group of artists and writers who remained friends for life. They included Mark Van Doren, the poet Robert Lax, the publisher James Laughlin, and Robert Giroux. At Columbia he wrote for undergraduate publications and played sports. It was a much happier time.

When both grandparents died within a few months of each other, it was devastating for Merton. He turned to Catholocism. He was enthralled by the mystic poets Blake, Hopkins, and St. John of the Cross and did his Senior thesis on William Blake. The renewal of Catholic thought regenerated memories of France and the aesthetic beauty he had experienced there. Spiritual and sensual beauty became important in his literary style.

In the fall of 1938, a close friend, Sy Freedgood, had introduced Merton to a Hindu monk, Bramachari. The monk gave Merton one piece of advice: "There are many beautiful mystical books written by the Christians. You should read St. Augustine's Confessions." He did, and later Merton was profoundly complimented when Dan Walsh, a part-time lecturer in medieval philosophy at Columbia, commented in class that he saw him the spiritual, mystical way of St. Augustine in Merton.

Merton converted to Catholicism at The Church of Corpus Christi. He continued to feel a calling to give his life to God, but was denied by the Franciscans. He taught at St. Bonaventure's College, in Olean, New York and then came to know of the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky of the Trappist (Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, O.C.S.O.). This order is sometimes known as the foreign legion of the Catholic church, and being founded in 1848 by French monks fleeing persucution in France, it was especially attractive to Merton. Easter, 1941, Merton was going to a retreat at the Abbey and someone warned him as he was leaving: "Don't let them change you." He responded, "It would be a good thing if they changed me." It was only days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Meton was also facing a crisis regarding the morality of military duty and was finally accepted as a postulant to the choir (with the intention of becoming a priest) at Gethsemani on December 13th, 1941 (the Feast of Saint Lucy).

Although Merton had been on so many journeys, the gates of the Abbey were barely closed when he realized how painful, long, and difficult this journey inward would be. He was cloistered at Gethsemani for 27 years. He later wrote, "The only true joy is to escape from the prison of our own selfhood... and enter by love into union with the life who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our minds."

The monks were aware of some of Merton's talent, and wanted him to write so that wthey woudl be better understood by outsiders. in 1938, at 32 years of age, he wrote the religious autobiography of the century in The Seven Storey Mountain. The overwhelming success changed the monk bound to a vow of silence into a world-wide celebrity overnight. Interestingly enough, many monks remained unaware of his impact on the world. Merton was a man of immense and diverse talent, but was also preeminently humble and dedicated to the service of his Lord as well as to all humankind as his brothers, and so felt this was as it should be. Merton himself often wondered if it was the business of a monk to be concerned with things like the Atom Bomb.

During these long years at Gethsemani, Merton changed from the passionately inward-looking young monk of his most famous book, the autobiography,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. He argued that how could he effectively pray for those outside if he knew nothing about their situation and struggles. His vows of cloister needed to be balanced with his international reputation and voluminous correspondence with many well-known figures of the day. It is important, however, to put these conflicts in the Abbey in perspective. Merton was first and foremost a faithful disciple, and he knew these battles also represented his own battles between flesh and faith, individuality and community. Hid deep and sincere desire to work out the joyful response to these issues is precisely what gained him such fame, as the era itself suffered such questions and desperately needed to find some answers.

A new abbot allowed him the freedom to undertake a tour of Asia at the end of 1968, during which he memorably 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 10th December 1968, having touched a badly-grounded electric fan while stepping out of his bath. His body was flown back to Gethsemani where he is buried. Since his death, his influence has continued to grow and he is considered by many to be an important twentieth 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 Merton focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms.

Merton put a ban on publishing much of his work until 25 years after his death. After that time his diaries were published.

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, Pennsylvania, USA.

Selected bibliography

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Forest, Jim, "Living With Wisdom" (ISBN 088344755X) A profusely illustrated biography of Thomas Merton.
  • Mott, Michael, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (ISBN 015680681) A comprehensive biography.
  • Shannon, William H., Christine M. Bochen, Patrick F. O'Connell The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia (ISBN 1570754268) published by Orbis Books


External links


Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

Retrieved from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Thomas_Merton&oldid=102389

Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Copyright Logo
Powered by MediaWiki