Thomas Merton

Life and Holiness is Thomas Merton's classic text on incorporating spirituality into everyday life. Merton here makes clear that he was a monk who knew the world. Of course, Merton lived a secular life until he became a Trappist monk in his late twenties, but even in the monastery he was deeply engaged in the questions of his day. In this succinct and readily accessible work, he offers compelling thoughts on what it means to be holy in the face of the anxieties of the modern age.

New Seeds of Contemplation is one of Thomas Merton's most widely read and best-loved books. Christians and non-Christians alike have joined in praising it as a notable successor in the meditative tradition of St. John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the medieval mystics, while others have compared Merton's reflections with those of Thoreau. New Seeds of Contemplation seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man, to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our lives. For Merton, "Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."

One of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace.

The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time. Translated into more than twenty languages, it has touched millions of lives.

Merton, whose own tortuous path to spiritual maturity is well known, here offers the knowledge gained during that experience. He discusses the meaning and purpose of spiritual direction, and how to profit from that direction.