The following is a list of works about Thomas Merton, publications about Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk from Abbey of Gethsemani. The bibliography is organized into categories. A separate list of works by Thomas Merton is also available.
The following is a list of works about Thomas Merton, publications about Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk from Abbey of Gethsemani. The bibliography is organized into categories. A separate list of works by Thomas Merton is also available.
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Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist., venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through the nascent Cistercian Order.
Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.
The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Catholic religious order of cloistered monastics that branched off from the Cistercians. They follow the Rule of Saint Benedict and have communities of both monks and nuns that are known as Trappists and Trappistines, respectively. They are named after La Trappe Abbey, the monastery from which the movement and religious order originated. The movement first began with the reforms that Abbot Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé introduced in 1664, later leading to the creation of Trappist congregations, and eventually the formal constitution as a separate religious order in 1892.
The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is a Catholic monastery in the United States near Bardstown, Kentucky, in Nelson County. The abbey is part of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, better known as the Trappists. Founded on December 21, 1848, and raised to an abbey in 1851, Gethsemani is considered to be the motherhouse of all Trappist and Trappistine monasteries in the United States. Gethsemani is the oldest Trappist monastery in the country that is still operating.
The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes, and the most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
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 from Dante's Purgatorio.
Centering prayer is a form of Christian contemplative prayer, to center awareness on the presence of God. This modern movement in Christianity was initiated by three Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s, Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating, in response to the growing popularity of Asian meditation methods.
The Thomas Merton Center is the home of the largest collection of the works of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani. It is located on the second floor of the W.L. Lyons Brown Library at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
William of Saint-Thierry, O. Cist was a twelfth-century Benedictine, theologian and mystic from Liège who became abbot of Saint-Thierry in France, and later joined the Cistercian Order.
Below is a bibliography of published works written by Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk of The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Several of the works listed here have been published posthumously. The works are listed under each category by date of publication.
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is the name given to various textual collections consisting of stories and sayings attributed to the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers from approximately the 5th century AD.
Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., was a French Benedictine monk, the author of classic studies on Lectio Divina and the history of inter-monastic dialogue, as well as the life and theology of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. LeClercq is perhaps best known in the English speaking world for his seminal work The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture.
The Southern Star Abbey, is a Cistercian monastery located in a remote, rural area of the North Island, New Zealand in the Diocese of Palmerston North. The monastery supports itself by operating a dairy farm. It is located at Kopua, between Takapau and Norsewood.
The Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity was a Trappist Cistercian monastery in Huntsville, Utah, United States. They were Catholic contemplative monks of an enclosed religious order known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO).
Igny Abbey or Val d'Igny Abbey is a Cistercian abbey located in Arcis-le-Ponsart, Marne, France. It was founded in 1128 for Cistercian monks, dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution, re-established in 1876 for Trappist monks, destroyed in 1918, reopened in 1929 for Trappist nuns and modernised in 2008–12 to accommodate three or four pre-existing communities.
Guerric of Igny was a Cistercian abbot. Little is known about his early life. He may have been educated at Tournai's cathedral school, perhaps under Benedictine monk, Odo of Cambrai. Guerric appears to have lived a life of prayer and study near the Tournai Cathedral. His monastic formation was directly influenced by Bernard of Clairvaux, who praises him in several letters. In 1138, he became abbot of Igny Abbey, in the diocese of Rheims, a house dependent on Clairvaux. Here Guerric ruled as abbot until his death on 19 August 1157. It was here that he composed the 54 liturgical sermons that constitute his surviving works.
Conrad of Eberbach was a Cistercian monk, and later abbot, of Eberbach Abbey, Germany, and historian of the early Cistercian Order.
Benedicta Ward was a Church of England nun, theologian and historian. She was a member of the Anglican religious order, the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God and reader in early Christian spirituality at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. She was particularly known for her research on the Desert Fathers, popularising the collection of their writings known as the Apophthegmata Patrum. She wrote extensively on Anselm of Canterbury and Bede.
Chrysogonus Waddell was an American Roman Catholic convert and theologian. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was an accomplished organist, liturgist, historian, and a scholar of chant and Cistercian liturgy.
Raymond Joseph David Stanislaus Flanagan was a Catholic priest and Trappist monk.