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Introduction by Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland.
Two monks in conversation about the meaning of life and the nature of solitude.
Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk who wrote The Seven Story Mountain, spent his entire literary career (1948-68) in a cloistered monastery in Kentucky. His great counterpart, the French Benedictine monk Jean Leclercq, spent those years traveling relentlessly to and from monasteries worldwide, trying to bring about a long-needed reform and renewal of Catholic religious life.
Their correspondence over twenty years is a fascinating record of the common yearnings of two ambitious, holy men. "What is a monk?" is the question at the center of their correspondence, and in these 120 letters they answer it with great aplomb, touching on the role of ancient texts and modern conveniences; the advantages of hermit life and community life; the fierce Catholicism of the monastic past and the new openness to the approaches of other traditions; the monastery's impulse toward survival and the monk's calling to prophecy. Full of learning, human insight, and self-deprecating wit, these letters capture the excitement of the Catholic Church during the run-up to the Second Vatican Council, full of wisdom, full of promise.
Two monks in conversation about the meaning of life and the nature of solitude.
Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk who wrote The Seven Story Mountain, spent his entire literary career (1948-68) in a cloistered monastery in Kentucky. His great counterpart, the French Benedictine monk Jean Leclercq, spent those years traveling relentlessly to and from monasteries worldwide, trying to bring about a long-needed reform and renewal of Catholic religious life.
Their correspondence over twenty years is a fascinating record of the common yearnings of two ambitious, holy men. "What is a monk?" is the question at the center of their correspondence, and in these 120 letters they answer it with great aplomb, touching on the role of ancient texts and modern conveniences; the advantages of hermit life and community life; the fierce Catholicism of the monastic past and the new openness to the approaches of other traditions; the monastery's impulse toward survival and the monk's calling to prophecy. Full of learning, human insight, and self-deprecating wit, these letters capture the excitement of the Catholic Church during the run-up to the Second Vatican Council, full of wisdom, full of promise.
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Reviews
"The prophetic stance was one of the enduring and most attractive aspects of the monastic renewal in the last half of the twentieth century; and both Merton and Leclercq, cognizant that the Christian monastic tradition has first emerged as a form of prophetic witness against the ever more worldly Church, brought it to bear on the Church of their own day. They knew that the early monks had felt a n
From the Forward by Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland
"The right book for Merton devotees seeking greater insight into Merton's thoughts about monastic life."
The National Catholic
"Early on in his monastic life Thomas Merton began to research early monasticism. A number of experts from Europe pointed him in the right direction. Among those who helped was the highly regarded monastic historian Jean Leclercq who supported Merton in his struggle to get permission to live as a hermit. He was also, like Merton, committed to monastic renewal especially in the light of the Second
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