International Thomas Merton Society

08/24/2026

—The Feast of St. Louis, August 25, 1948. Merton records a momentous event from the day before that will mark the next 20 years, the majority, of his monastic life.

“The election lasted from 7:45 to 12:25—and this included confirmation and installation of Dom James who, of course, was elected. It is easy to see from this end of the affair that he was the Holy Ghost’s candidate—in more senses than one. When we were in there, a photographer’s bulb went off outside. A newspaper man had got into the garden and took a shot of the smoke coming out of the stove-pipe where we were burning the ballots. Dom Gabriel made some observations on this fact. They were not kind. The whole thing got to be quite impressive after a while…

When it was all over we had an abbot. And a holy one too. Now it is very consoling to go into choir and have our own abbot beginning things again. Dom James is quiet and humble.

That afternoon, when he was in Louisville at the Archbishop’s, I got a check for nine hundred dollars on The Seven Storey Mountain, so I gave it to him the next morning and he told me to go on writing.”

08/17/2026

- 60 years ago:
"God speaks to us in our history and through the medium of our own mistakes and there is certainly a lot of irony in the result. The end is not in sight by any means. There will be a great deal of tribulation in this land of ours. But I think the people are at heart good enough and honest enough so that, when they are finally hard enough pressed, they will wake up and try to be worthy of the trust that has been given them. At least I have this hope. But I think it is not going to happen by magic, and we will have to pay for it." —Carbon copy of a letter from Thomas Merton to "Mrs. Cottingham," dated Aug. 17, 1966. There is no extant letter nor poem from Cottingham.

https://merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/item/63006

Photograph of a statue by Walker Hancock from the Garden of Gethsemane set of statues at Gethsemani Abbey. The statues were donated by William Coolidge, a Harvard business classmate of Dom James Fox and lifelong friend. The statues were dedicated to the memory of Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian who died in Alabama on August 20, 1965, while shielding fellow civil rights worker Ruby Sales from a racist attack. (Photo by "Reclamation Revolution" on Flickr.)

08/13/2026

Sep. 1, 2026 is the deadline for presentation proposals for the June 2027 Merton Society meeting at Iona University, New Rochelle, NY.
Session formats include:

1. Scholarly Papers;

2. Workshops designed to involve interactive participation;

3. Creative/Dramatic Presentations using music, poetry, dance or other media to provide insight into aspects of Merton’s life or work;

4. Guided Meditation/Prayer Sessions, particularly those using Merton’s own writings as a framework for prayer and meditative reflection.

The Thomas Merton Center and The International Thomas Merton Society at Bellarmine University

08/10/2026

- There are seven newly added books to the shelf of marginalia at the Merton Center. Previously, books known to have been used by Merton with his handwriting were discovered in the monastic library at Gethsemani and given to Bellarmine with a replacement copy furnished to the monastery. This was the case with the new addition, Final Integration in the Adult Personality by Reza Arasteh. The other six books were still in Merton's hermitage. Some have marginalia by Merton or contributions to books by, and some are books Merton was known to have used based on his journals or letters.

All additions to the marginalia (or newly scanned sections with marks not previously included) since first creating the exhibit are added to the following webpage: https://merton.bellarmine.edu/s/Merton/page/margadd

07/27/2026

—70 years ago, July 27, 1956: Merton came to St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota for a conference with, among others, the famous psychotherapist and Catholic convert Gregory Zilboorg. Merton was enthusiastic about the prospects of using some of his studies into Freud and psychoanalysis in his role as Gethsemani’s novice master. Merton did not know that Zilboorg had arranged for Merton to come to the meeting, constructing a portrait of neurosis in Merton through his writings. He planned to attack Merton’s idea of publishing an article “Neurosis in the Monastic Life” while criticizing Merton’s life as a writer, vocation as a teacher, and writer of journals as sick projections of his neurotic ego. In an interview with Michael Mott, Dom James Fox recalled Zilboorg telling Merton that: “You want a hermitage in Times Square with a large sign over it saying ‘HERMIT.’” Though the traumatic interaction with Zilboorg is the most well-known aspect of the trip to Collegeville, Merton enjoyed his meetings with the novelist J.F. Powers, author of the novel Morte d’Urban and some acclaimed short stories. Merton also enjoyed spending time on Lake Sagatagan and the beautiful Stella Maris chapel.

“Yesterday, feast of St. Anne, rowed over to Stella Maris chapel which I like. Reading Suzuki and Diadochos of Photike under the birch trees and looking at the water. And today again, after the end of this week’s workshop, spent most of the afternoon in the same place.

At the end of the lake what looks like a beach is really a stretch of shallows filled with lily-pads. All around the lake are swampy places full of birches that have been broken halfway up by storms.”

[Photos by Mark Meade]

07/22/2026

07/21/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1897XZMNKa/

07/20/2026

- a little over 60 years ago, on July 12, 1966, Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki died. Merton drew much of his study of Buddhism, Zen, and Japanese culture from the writings of Suzuki. He received permission in 1964 to travel to New York for Suzuki's last visit to the United States.

Photo of Merton and Suzuki taken by Mihoko Okamura, June 1964.

07/13/2026

—65 years ago yesterday, July 12, 1961:

“Now I see one of the roots of the temptation to false optimism.

Christianity, face to face with Marxism, confronts the accusation that religion divides and alienates man, makes him miserable because ‘lost’ and divided.

Hence at all costs angst and dark night must be done away with. We are happy, happy, happy! _Epanouissement!_ [Fulfillment!]

But the misery of our alienation is not due to religion, it is due to technology and to the collapse of capitalist society . . .”

Paintings: “Despair” and “The Scream” by Edvard Munch.