Jon M. Sweeney - Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life, Teachings, and Practices

1915

(January 31) Born in Prades, France.

1921

Mother dies, October 3.

1928

Moves in May with father to England, to a suburb of London.

1931

Father dies, January 18, just before Toms sixteenth birthday.

1933

In spring, reads the Bible like a pilgrim in Rome; in October, enters Clare College, Cambridge.

193435

Forced to leave Cambridge in June. Enters Columbia University, New York City, the following January. Remains there five years, earning both BA and MA degrees.

1938

In July, leaves grandparents home on Long Island for an apartment on West 114th Street, Manhattan. Received into Roman Catholic Church on November 16. Spends the next couple of years with uncertainty, searching for answers and purpose.

1941

In April, Holy Week retreat at Trappist monastery in Kentucky, Our Lady of Gethsemani; on December 10, at twenty-six, enters Gethsemani as a novice.

1944

Sees his first book published: Thirty Poems.

1948

His abbot, Dom Frederic Dunne, dies in early August. October 4, The Seven Storey Mountain is published. The book is endorsed by Graham Greene, Clare Boothe Luce, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, and Evelyn Waugh. By Christmas, Time magazine and The New York Times declare it a bestseller.

1948

Begins contemplating leaving Gethsemani for a religious order or foundation more genial to silence and solitude.

1949

Ordained a priest May 26. Family and literary friends attend the service, among them his editor, Robert Giroux, who mentions that sales of The Seven Storey Mountain have reached two hundred thousand copies. On October 6, he writes Merton to say the number has increased to three hundred thousand.

1953

In February, receives his first taste of hermitage, spending days in a converted toolshed in the woods that he called St. Annes.

1955

In October, Abbot Dom James asks him to be novice master.

1956

Writes first letter to D. T. Suzuki, Japanese expert on Zen Buddhism, introducing himself as a monk, a Christian, and so-called contemplative of a rather strict Order. who has a great love of and interest in Zen.

1958

Has his famous epiphany of the oneness of all people on March 18 in downtown Louisville at the corner of 4th and Walnut (now Muhammad Ali Boulevard).

1959

Petitions the Vatican to leave Gethsemani but remain a monk. Request denied.

1961

In July, begins writing Cold War Letters and articles on war and peace, sometimes subverting the orders of his religious superiors.

1965

Begins living permanently in his final hermitage starting in August. Then writes a letter, which is never sent, to Pope Paul VI, again requesting a release from his vows, this time to join the contemplative community founded by Fr. Ernesto Cardenal in Nicaragua.

1966

Has brief affair with a young nurse (known as M), while in Louisville for medical treatment. This becomes the most serious break of his vows, and a crisis of faith. Also publishes two books showing a deep and urgent engagement with the worlds problems.

1968

New abbot is elected at Gethsemani in January. Merton leaves the monastery on September 11, visiting New Mexico, Alaska, and San Francisco, before flying to Asia October 15. Dies December 10 in his room in Bangkok, Thailand, by accidental electrocution after giving a talk at a monastic conference. Several days later, the body is flown to California aboard a military bomber originating in Vietnam. Buried December 17 at the Abbey of Gethsemani.