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St. Joseph Parish Book Club 2020 The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton The CD “Chant” by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, is the best-selling album of Gregorian chant ever released. Two million copies were sold in the United States, and worldwide, the album sold around six million copies. What is the perennial fascination with this music connected with Christian Benedictine monasticism and the contemplative life? Thomas Merton’s story provides a personal narrative exploring this somewhat hidden transformative way of living. The Seven Storey Mountain is the 1948 autobiography of Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk and priest who was a noted author in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years after entering Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Kentucky. The title refers to the mountain of Purgatory in Dante's The Divine Comedy. The New York Times initially refused to put it on the weekly Best Sellers list, on the grounds that it was "a religious book". In response, the publisher Harcourt Brace placed a large advertisement in The New York Times calling attention to the newspaper's decision. The following week, The Seven Storey Mountain appeared on the bestsellers list, where it remained for almost a year.The first printing was planned for 7,500 copies, but pre-publication sales exceeded 20,000. By May 1949, 100,000 copies were in print and, according to Time magazine, it was among the best-selling non-fiction books in the country for the year 1949. The original hardcover edition eventually sold over 600,000 copies, and paperback sales exceed three million by 1984. A British edition, edited by Evelyn Waugh, was titled Elected Silence. The book has remained continuously in print. and has been translated into more than 15 languages. Apart from being on the National Review's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century, it was also mentioned in 100 Christian Books That Changed the Century (2000) by William J. Petersen. Bishop Fulton Sheen called it a modern-day version of the “Confessions” of St. Augustine. Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles says it played an important role in his spiritual life and decision to apply for the priesthood.Merton also penned an introduction to a 1966 Japanese edition of The Seven Storey Mountain, saying "Perhaps if I were to attempt this book today, it would be written differently. Who knows? But it was written when I was still quite young, and that is the way it remains. The story no longer belongs to me....The Seven Storey Mountain propelled Merton into a life of paradoxes: a man who left an urban intellectual career for a labor-oriented rural existence, only to be led back into the realm of international opinion and debate; a man who spurned the literary world for the anonymity of cenobitic life in a Trappist monastery, only to become a world-famous author.( Portions of the introduction from Wikipedia, the Merton Center in KY, and from the book).Part One1. Prisoner’s Base Like we’re now experiencing the recent world-wide CORVID-19 virus, we see how Merton places us in the conditions of the world at the time of his birth. What was going on then ? Have the struggles of humanity changed over that course of time ? His father encountered difficulties in trying to support the family, the separation of the family members, death of Thomas’s mother Ruth. Have these “negatives” had a lasting positive effect on Merton?Do you think the note Merton received at six years old, from his mother later influenced his later second calling to live in solitude within the monastery ? Did Merton’s childhood living on Long Island with his grandparents, and then later moving away from them with his father to France begin to prepare him for his spiritual conversion and later for the Trappists ? How ? 2. Our Lady of The Museums Despite all the deficiencies and negatives of humanity / human nature over millennia, what were the positive creative contributions to art, music, philosophy by Saints and other notable Christians that captured Merton during his time in France ? Has art and music played a part in your own Faith life ? Even though he was not brought up regularly practicing any faith, what were some examples of his experiences in his youth in France which inspired in him a sense of transcendence?3. The Harrowing of Hell The sickness and slow passing of his father Owen, the somewhat premature emancipation by “Pop” hastened by events of the Great Depression of 1929, the travels punctuated by illness. How did this condensed period of maturing contribute to beginning to discover a new awareness, a sense of meaning and purpose?4. The Children in the Market Place Lk 7: 32 “They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’ Why do you think Merton meant to express by using this New Testament quote ? How did his experiences while at Columbia University, and the passing of “Pop” help bring about a deeper sense of life and purpose ?What were some factors in his evolving political views ? Like many young people today communism can be attractive in theory, but like Merton, in practice find it’s insufficiency. What caused his ideas to change ? Who is Mark Van Doren ?How did Van Doren contribute to Merton’s development ? Part Two1. With a Great Price What has Merton said, what has he realized about Grace in these first two pages that is new for me ?God had gotten Merton’s “attention” in an unexpected way through Gilson’s book on philosophy. What was his first impulse when he opened it? How did the book transform him?At Columbia University, Merton befriended people like Mark Van Doren, Dan Walsh and Bob Lax. What did that mean, personally, for Merton at this time?What books did Brahmachari suggest that Merton read? Why was that a surprise for Merton?Note : ( A St. Joseph connection here to Brahmachari. Parishioner Evan Lawn also knew Brahmachari personally, and, being born in December of 1917 was a year and two months younger that Merton). Dr. Lawn and Merton had common acquaintances. Lawn entered Cornell University at 15 years old, graduating in the late 1930s Merton’s younger brother also attended Cornell around the same time). Another parishioner, Marie Vassilopoulos corresponded personally with Thomas Merton going back to the 1950s.) Evan Lawn with Fr. Joseph, 2007, and at his 100th birthday party. Marie Vassilopoulos.At the end of the chapter Merton described the day of his entrance into the Church. What thoughts came to mind as you read through?2. The Waters of Contradiction Part Three1. Magnetic North After his baptism he returned to his everyday life transformed, but not fully. Continuing to submit his writing to publishers with limited success, he was having a conversation with his friend Bob Lax one day, who, amidst all this asked Merton, “what do you want to be, anyway ?” What was Merton’s reply ? How did Lax respond ? Has anyone said that to you?2. True North What was it that Dan Walsh said to Merton as he got out of the elevator ? Do you have friends that know you that well ?What did Merton learn from his experience with the Franciscans ? In the long term, how did it help him ?3. The Sleeping Volcano How did Merton’s time as a teacher at St. Bonaventure’s shape him personally for his future ? Who was Catherine De Hueck ? What was it about her demeanor and message that struck him / affected him ?What is the “Friendship House” ? (The Civil Rights Bill” was still another 30 years or so away at this time). What was Merton’s experience there ?Merton made a retreat at the Trappist monastery in Rhode Island at this time before WWII in the late 1930s, at Our Lady of the Valley. Just ten years later, in the late ‘40s, the monastery was destroyed by fire, and they relocated to Spencer, MA, renamed St. Joseph’s Abbey, where many of our parishioners go on retreat. He travelled from NY making his way through New Haven and Old Lyme on to Cumberland, Rhode Island. Although his retreat was fruitful, he realized that if he was to enter, he hadn’t sensed it would be there, but perhaps at another Trappist monastery. Why should that make any difference ? Why should we prefer one parish over another ?4. The Sweet Savor of Liberty As he arrives at Gethsemani Abbey, he refers to it as “the four walls of my new freedom”. What does he mean by that ?Going from secular life to living a monastic one, experiencing formation for a year or two to internalize what this new life entails was a challenge for someone with his background. (Coincidently, he entered during Advent, and a few months later in January, he would up in the infirmary with a case of the flu). Either you’re all in, or you’re not as we see with others joining at the same time he entered. He writes, “People even lose their vocations because they find out that a man can spend forty or fifty or sixty years in a monastery and still have a bad temper” How does one manage to persevere ?“All my bad habits, disinfected, it is true, of formal sin, had sneaked into the monastery with me and had received the religious vesture along with me: spiritual gluttony, spiritual sensuality, spiritual pride … “. Living the spiritual life in a serious way has been said to be like peeling the layers off of an onion, going layer after layer of formerly hidden surprises. How did this observation strike you ?Have I become as serious about the spiritual life as Merton was at this point ? (Personal reflection or sharing optional).The story about Merton’s brother’s visit and their time together was moving. Having a keen sense of one’s own mortality, living at that time between the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII, and even with our current world-wide circumstances now, how does this story inform the way I am living my life today ?Epilogue Mediatio Pauperis in Solitudine After the story about his friend Lax, and the new enterprise of how the monks had begun publishing pamphlets of spiritual advise for everyone, as the world enters the beginning of WWII, Merton says “America is discovering the contemplative life”. What do you think those living the contemplative life in our day can tell us about living a life of meaning and purpose with the problems we face ? “That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men”, - the last line in the book. How did Merton mean that ? Do you think that also prophetically told the way of his own death ? ................
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