On Christian Contemplation

Resumen del libro

A compendium of spiritual guidance in a beautiful special edition.

-Every moment and every event in every man life on Earth plants something in his soul,- wrote Thomas Merton. A Trappist monk, Merton was both a poet and a theologian who pondered monastic life. He was praised for his meditations and conversations with God, as well as interfatith dialogue, tolerance, and non-violent activism during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War. On Christian Contemplation, edited by Merton scholar Paul Pearson, is a collection of the great monk work, compiled into a gift-size edition. With poems, reflections, and social commentary, this is the perfect book to nurture the spirit of faith and duty guided by one of the twentieth century leading voices of theology and social justice.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, following his conversion to Catholicism and was ordained Father M. Louis in 1949. During the 1960s, he was increasingly drawn into a dialogue between Eastern and Western religions and domestic issues of war and racism. In 1968, the Dalai Lama praised Merton for having a more profound knowledge of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. Thomas Merton is the author of the beloved classic The Seven Storey Mountain. Scholar Dr. Paul Pearson is the director and archivist at Bellarmine University Thomas Merton Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

-Like Walt Whitman, Merton contained multitudes.- - Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk

-Merton wisdom literature has taken me into the ultimate cause of things.- - Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret life of Bees

-Thomas Merton really is someone we can look up to.- - His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Biografía del autor

Thomas Merton nació en Prades (Francia) en 1915, de madre estadounidense y padre neozelandés. Antes de ingresar en la abadía trapense de Getsemaní (Kentucky) en 1941 y de ser ordenado sacerdote en 1949, estudió en las universidades de Cambridge y de Columbia (Nueva York). A lo largo de sus veintisiete años de vida monástica alcanzó fama como escritor contemplativo y poeta; promovió el diálogo interreligioso y luchó en favor de la justicia social, el pacifismo y los movimientos antirracistas. Murió en 1968, en Bangkok (Tailandia), cuando asistía a un encuentro entre cristianos y budistas. De sus obras cabe destacar: La montaña de los siete círculos (1948), Lágrimas de los leones ciegos (1949), Acción y contemplación (1949), La vida silenciosa (1957), Místicos y maestros zen (1967) y Curso de mística cristiana (2017).