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).Jonathan Montaldo has served as director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University and is a past president of the International Thomas Merton Society. His editions of Thomas Merton's works include Entering the Silence: Thomas Merton's Journals, Volume 2; The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals (with Patrick Hart); Dialogues with Silence: Thomas Merton's Prayers & Drawings; A Year with Thomas Merton; Thomas Merton In His Own Words; Choosing to Love the World: Thomas Merton on Contemplation; and the eight-volume series Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton (with Robert G. Toth).

"I found this short volume of essays inspiring precisely because it exhibits how a great thinker and spiritual master himself developed and matured. It is a beckoning call to all of us who live amidst so much change today."Timothy Joyce, OSB, American Benedictine Review

• ContentsForeword   viiAcknowledgments   xiiiIntroduction   xvPart I: Articles from The Commonweal“Poetry and the Contemplative Life” (July 4, 1947)   3“The Trappists Go to Utah” (August 29, 1947)   17“Active and Contemplative Orders” (December 5, 1947)  28“A Christmas Devotion” (December 26, 1947)   39“Is Mysticism Normal?” (November 4, 1949)   47“Self-Denial and the Christian” (March 31, 1950)   60Part II: Articles from Other Periodicals“Death of a Trappist” (Integrity: November 1947)   75“A Trappist Speaks on People, Priests and Prayer” (The Messenger of the Sacred Heart: April 1948)   84“Contemplation in a Rocking Chair” (Integrity: August 1948)   91“The Contemplative Life: Its Meaning and Necessity”  (The Dublin Review: Winter 1949)   103“The Primacy of Contemplation”  (Cross and Crown: March 1950)   116“Christ Suffers Again” (Action Now! March 1952)  133Appendix 1: Textual Notes   136Appendix 2: “States of Life” by John Fearon, O.P.   146Merton Journal Entries: January 22, 24, 26, 1949   161Bibliography   167