Thomas Merton’s Journals

#OnThisDay quotes from the journals of Thomas Merton (1915-1968). Currently tweeting entries from 1958-1959. Tweets drop 8:05 ET. Curated by @gregorykhillis

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

30 Aug 1959 - "Good long hour in the chapel with the Tabernacle open for exposition. In the end, with my mind empty, thought of seeing what would come spontaneously into it & surprisingly up welled not some subconscious image but Psalm 84, which I said slowly & thoughtfully."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

25 Aug 1958 - "The grip the present has on me. That is the one thing that has grown most noticeably in the spiritual life - nothing much else has. The rest dims as it should. I am getting older. The reality of now - the unreality of all the rest."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

22 Aug 1959 - "Had a fairly sane & sensible talk with Rev. Fr. yesterday about the business of my problems here & my desire for a more primitive, isolated, and simple life alone & away from the vanitas monastica of the community life."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

20 Aug 1958 - "I am really a monk when I can let go completely of 'being a monk' (self-consciously) and I think I have let go of that long ago. Now I face the terror of being, by the same 'letting go' a Christian? And a writer and myself."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

18 Aug 1959 - "What do I need? Leisure. Time to think. Time to look at the hills, at the horses in the distant pasture & at their beautiful brown color. I need something beyond my capacity to know. If I call it solitude, I mistake it. Silence, a primitive life."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

17 Aug 1959 - "Another letter from Fr. [Jean] Danielou. It is definite and clear, and an intelligent, winning letter."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

17 Aug 1958 - "Sounds of rain in the night - I lay in bed appalled by the weight of water falling upon the earth, it seemed, in a solid mass. Wonder what happened to the crops. Our tobacco is early because of all the rain & we shall start cutting tomorrow."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

15 Aug 1959 - "Was in Louisville Thursday. Hated the town. It was hot & stupid. Hated all the advertisements, the interminable attempts to sell you something. Everywhere the world oppresses me with a sense of clutter & confusion."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

22 June 1959 - "Yesterday — worked out a simple plan for a hermitage behind the sheep barn in the woods, but it is too silly. Only if no other way is possible will I take that one."

A hermitage ended up getting built in 1961

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

22 June 1968 - "Wonderfully cool. Never saw such a June. Bright blue sky. Birds singing everywhere. Not a cloud. Sunlight falls on this page through the branches of the cedars outside the wall & is not oppressive, but pleasant, like the sun of May or October."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

21 June 1959 - [continues to think about going to another monastery] "Summer solstice. And this vocation business is making me miserable. Lay awake last night thinking about it. Perhaps what is upsetting me is the fear of uncertainty."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

16 June 1959 - [thinking about going to another monastery] "It is impossible to say what I ought to do. The situation is so vague & everything is uncertain...The more thought, the more silence, the more patience go into this - the better."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

10 June 1958 - "Quiet morning - I am hebdomadary & sit in the cool garden, smelling honeysuckle & wet grass & earth, listening to crows, larks, bobwhite, doves, titmice, wrens, & sparrows. Seeds from the sycamore fall on this page. Dew shines on the sheepbarn roof."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

9 June 1959 - "By rights, I really owe it to Dom James [the abbot] to propose a request to become a hermit in the woods."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

7 June 1959 - "Saw Shakertown - the big old dormitories stood among the weeds in desolation. I cannot help seeing Shakertown in a very special light. There is a lot of Shakertown in Gethsemani. The two contemporary communities were born of the same Spirit."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

2 June 1958 - "Bro. Clement came in with a cheese ad, again, and I worked on it, God forgive me."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

29 May 1958 - "Finished Pasternak's Safe Conduct. A magnificent book, one of the great ones. I have thought several times of writing to Pasternak. How absurd - as if I could contemplate the writing of such a letter"

Merton ended up writing to him & the two began a correspondence

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

27 May 1959 - [looking at a bull] "Thank God here is a living being and not a machine, something big & warm & alive & unpredictable, with fears & angers & appetites. And I was glad of all this & reassured by it because of the value that is in life itself."

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

"If I had tried to say all the names of all the people I wanted to remember at the Mememto I would have stood there until dinner time...Now I know that I had the whole Church in America praying for me & I am scared and consoled by so much mercy." fin/

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

Today is the 73rd anniversary of Merton's ordination. Here is what he wrote in his journal about the experience on May 29:

"I could not begin to write about the ordination, about saying Mass, about the Agape that lasted three days with all those who came down. 1/

[Thomas Merton’s Journals @MertonsJournals]

"I felt as if I had been saying Mass all my life. It was at St. Anne's altar & the Church was full of sun & there was no one else saying Mass nearby so I could really speak it... 4/