Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Catholic convert, Cistercian monk and hermit, poet, contemplative, social critic, and pioneer of interreligious dialogue, was a seminal figure of twentieth-century American Christianity.Patrick F. O’Connell is professor of English and theology at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. A founding member and former president of the International Thomas Merton Society, he edits The Merton Seasonal and is coauthor of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia. He has edited eight previous volumes of Thomas Merton’s monastic conferences for the Monastic Wisdom Series, most recently The Cistercian Fathers and Their Monastic Theology (2016), and he is also editor of Merton’s Selected Essays (2013) and Early Essays: 1947–1952 (2015).

"I bowed my head surveying Merton's erudition, captured here in his careful reading of Saint Bernard, aligned with skills that deployed his scholarship as a spur to his students' contemplation. The energy he expended on preparing classes, while maintaining daily life as monk and writer, is extraordinary. No less impressive is the wildly capacious skill-set exhibited by Patrick O'Connell as he introduces and annotates Merton's `notes.' His expert summoning of the entire Merton corpus to bear on whatever Merton text he annotates astounds me. O'Connell wins first honors as the most agile transmitter of Merton's legacy. My admiring his accomplishment here and elsewhere defies adequate expression."Jonathan Montaldo Co-editor of We Are Already One: Thomas Merton's Message of Hope

• Table of ContentsPreface   viiIntroduction   xiThe Cistercian Fathers and Their Monastic Theology   1Appendices I-VII   307Appendix A: Textual notes   397Appendix B: Table of Correspondences   448Index   459