But in the economy of Godâ€™s love, it through the prayers of other men that these graces are given. In several places, he says (paraphrasing), â€œGod brought us togetherâ€ or â€œJesus caused me to read a particular book.â€ In one strange passage, he accounts for his recovery from rather sever illness to the prayers of unknown people: Merton frequently ascribed divine intervention as the cause of perfectly unexceptional events. That sounds more like a hard-shell Southern Baptist than a modern Catholic. If we follow nothing but our natures, our own philosophies, our own level of ethics, we will end up in hell.â€ Â€œâ€¦manâ€™s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing to settle his most important problems. In addition, it includes some truly perverse views of manâ€™s condition in the universe. His devotion to the Virgin manifested itself in a rather extreme view that sanctity comes to man only through her: â€œGod has willed that there be no other way.â€ !!! Therese of Lisieux, whom he considers â€œthe outstanding saint of the 19th centuryâ€). It is full of devotion to the saints: in Mertonâ€™s case, special devotion to The Virgin and to the Little Flower (St. The version of Catholicism that forms the back story of the book is rather datedâ€”it happens to be the version I was taught in the 1950s.

Presumably, Merton viewed his early life as his own purgatory. The title of The Seven Story Mountain refers to Danteâ€™s description of Purgatory, up through which Virgil must struggle and climb to reach Paradise. In later life, while remaining devoutly Catholic, he explored, analyzed, and praised eastern religions, particularly Buddhism.

He forewent a fairly successful secular literary career to become the best known and best selling â€œCatholicâ€ author of his generation.

Merton was an accomplished prose writer and a respectably competent poet. The Trappists are among the most severe of all Catholic orders, living very abstemiously, with complete submission to the will of their superiors, and, pursuant to their vows of silence, scarcely speaking at all. The book recounts the spiritual and intellectual journey that led Merton not only to espouse the Roman Catholic faith, but to become a Trappist monk.

The Seven Story Mountain, published in 1948, is the autobiography of Thomas Merton, which he completed when he was only 31 years old.

Merton the seven storey mountain