Religion: Merton's Mountainous Legacy

A new wave of interest in the century's most celebrated monk

So Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me, and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom." Thus in his bestselling autobiography did Thomas Merton describe the moment he arrived to become a postulant at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in rural Kentucky. It was the Advent season of 1941, three days after Pearl Harbor. By eerie coincidence, Dec. 10 was also the date of Merton's mysterious 1968 death. As the anniversary of his death and religious birth came round again...

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