New Seeds of Contemplation
Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, Kentucky · 1961
T
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
1915 CE–1968 CE · Modern · Prades
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) was an American Trappist monk, prolific author, and one of the most influential Catholic spiritual writers of the twentieth century. Entering the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky in December 1941, he remained there as a professed monk for the rest of his life, eventually living as a hermit on the monastery grounds. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) became an unexpected bestseller and drew thousands to reconsider Christian monastic life. Through works such as New Seeds of Contemplation and The Sign of Jonas he brought the apophatic and contemplative traditions of the Christian West to a mass modern readership. In his final years he pioneered serious Catholic engagement with Buddhism, Zen, and other Eastern traditions, and died accidentally in Bangkok while attending an intermonastic dialogue conference in December 1968.
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Stop 1 of 61915Born
PradesFrance
What they did here
Merton was born on January 31, 1915, in Prades, a small town in the French Pyrenees, to American artist Owen Merton and his wife Ruth Jenkins.
About Prades
Prades, a town in the Pyrénées-Orientales of southern France. It was the birthplace of the Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton (1915).
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Thomas Merton’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Thomas Merton’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Buddhist world
Jewish world
Islamic world
Works(2)
The Seven Storey Mountain
Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, Kentucky · 1948