B
Bob_Crowley
Guest
REVIEW OF “THE SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN” BY THOMAS MERTON
Part 1.
I have almost finished reading this monumental work, being up to page 414 out of 423, so I think I’m in a position to offer some sort of review.
I heard of this book some time ago, but had no idea of its context. I already had one of his books on my shelves which I found in an Opportunity Shop somewhere - “Contemplation in a World of Action” - so I was expecting another book on Contemplation.
But I found instead it was an autobiography of his life leading to his becoming a Trappist Monk in the House of Gethsemani sometime between 1939 and 1941. The book itself was originally published in 1948 in New York.
All the way through, the reader gets hints of Merton being called into God’s presence, regardless of his circumstances at the time.
Beautifully and powerfully written, it records his life beginning with his earliest years in the “shadow of some French mountains on the border of Spain”, to a New Zealand father and an American mother. From them he inherited his father’s capacity for work and art (he was a painter), and possibly some of his mother’s perfectionism. He was baptised Anglican, according to his father’s faith, but neither of his parents seem to have had a consistent Christian outlook nor did they regularly attend church.
Soon they moved to New York, probably paid for by his maternal Grandfather, whom they called Pop. He was worried that since France was at war, his daughter and her family were in possible danger. They lived in Flushing, Long Island, then a country town, in a very small house.
But his religious instruction was almost non-existent. “It seems strange that Father and Mother, who were concerned to the point of scrupulosity about keeping the minds of their sons uncontaminated” (he had a younger brother John Paul) “by error and mediocrity and ugliness and sham, had not bothered to give us any formal religious training…”
Yet even then, as a very young boy, Merton was being called. “In fact, I remember having an intense desire to go to church one day, but we did not go. It was Sunday. Perhaps it was an Easter Sunday, probably in 1920”. (He’d have been 5 then) “From across the fields, and beyond the red farmhouse of our neighbour, I could see the spire of St. George’s church, above the trees. I was playing in front of the house, and stopped to listen.
Suddenly, all the birds began to sing in the trees above my head, and the sound of birds singing and churchbells ringing lifted up my heart with joy. I cried out to my father: “Father, all the birds are in their church!”
But it was to be a long and mixed road between that episode as a youngster and his acceptance as a Trappist.
At about this same time his mother died of cancer. There was grief, but it also meant his father was no longer tied to his in-law’s purse strings, and was free to do what he wanted, which was to paint. He set sail for France, leaving his very young sons with their maternal Grandparents.
He and his brother lived with their maternal grandparents while his father went elsewhere; then they went to France together, to Penne. And here in the centre of town was an ancient church St. Antonin’s - “Oh, what a thing it is, to live in a place that is so constructed that you are forced, in spite of yourself, to be at least a virtual contemplative! Where all day long your eyes must turn, again and again, to the House that hides the sacramental Christ!”
God was knocking again, in 1925 when Merton was about 10 years old.
He also met a Catholic couple called the Privat’s and he was to appreciate their charity to him and their warmth. We never know just whom we might influence.
Part 1.
I have almost finished reading this monumental work, being up to page 414 out of 423, so I think I’m in a position to offer some sort of review.
I heard of this book some time ago, but had no idea of its context. I already had one of his books on my shelves which I found in an Opportunity Shop somewhere - “Contemplation in a World of Action” - so I was expecting another book on Contemplation.
But I found instead it was an autobiography of his life leading to his becoming a Trappist Monk in the House of Gethsemani sometime between 1939 and 1941. The book itself was originally published in 1948 in New York.
All the way through, the reader gets hints of Merton being called into God’s presence, regardless of his circumstances at the time.
Beautifully and powerfully written, it records his life beginning with his earliest years in the “shadow of some French mountains on the border of Spain”, to a New Zealand father and an American mother. From them he inherited his father’s capacity for work and art (he was a painter), and possibly some of his mother’s perfectionism. He was baptised Anglican, according to his father’s faith, but neither of his parents seem to have had a consistent Christian outlook nor did they regularly attend church.
Soon they moved to New York, probably paid for by his maternal Grandfather, whom they called Pop. He was worried that since France was at war, his daughter and her family were in possible danger. They lived in Flushing, Long Island, then a country town, in a very small house.
But his religious instruction was almost non-existent. “It seems strange that Father and Mother, who were concerned to the point of scrupulosity about keeping the minds of their sons uncontaminated” (he had a younger brother John Paul) “by error and mediocrity and ugliness and sham, had not bothered to give us any formal religious training…”
Yet even then, as a very young boy, Merton was being called. “In fact, I remember having an intense desire to go to church one day, but we did not go. It was Sunday. Perhaps it was an Easter Sunday, probably in 1920”. (He’d have been 5 then) “From across the fields, and beyond the red farmhouse of our neighbour, I could see the spire of St. George’s church, above the trees. I was playing in front of the house, and stopped to listen.
Suddenly, all the birds began to sing in the trees above my head, and the sound of birds singing and churchbells ringing lifted up my heart with joy. I cried out to my father: “Father, all the birds are in their church!”
But it was to be a long and mixed road between that episode as a youngster and his acceptance as a Trappist.
At about this same time his mother died of cancer. There was grief, but it also meant his father was no longer tied to his in-law’s purse strings, and was free to do what he wanted, which was to paint. He set sail for France, leaving his very young sons with their maternal Grandparents.
He and his brother lived with their maternal grandparents while his father went elsewhere; then they went to France together, to Penne. And here in the centre of town was an ancient church St. Antonin’s - “Oh, what a thing it is, to live in a place that is so constructed that you are forced, in spite of yourself, to be at least a virtual contemplative! Where all day long your eyes must turn, again and again, to the House that hides the sacramental Christ!”
God was knocking again, in 1925 when Merton was about 10 years old.
He also met a Catholic couple called the Privat’s and he was to appreciate their charity to him and their warmth. We never know just whom we might influence.